Q&A With Kurt Warner - Sept. 18
RamsNation News Bulletin
on why games against tampa bay are classic games:
"I don’t know. I think you get a lot of expectations when you got a team that’s considered one of the best defensive teams especially when it’s all starting, possibly the best defensive team against the best offensive team. The billing was always up there to be great games and I don’t think we’ve let anybody down with the games we’ve played in the past few years anyway. Every game’s been great, been kind of back and forth, a defensive battle, then an offensive battle and kind of in between last year. I think they’ve all lived up to the billing. I think there’s a lot of characters and a lot of class guys and a lot of top players on both teams and so I think that’s what made it even more fun and more of those classic games that you’re talking about."
how soon do you think you’ll recover from the game vs. the giants, have you recovered?
"Oh, yeah, definitely. It didn’t take long. You get away and kind of think about it and watch the film. It’s just one of those things, it was frustrating at the time but my God’s bigger than all that so I’ll get over it."
on the similar situation facing the o-2 rams compared to the 4-5 bucanners of last year:
"A little bit. Obviously it’s a good game for us. We’ve got to get this thing turned around and start playing the way we’re capable of playing. We can’t drop too many more. We’re fortunate that we’re only one game back in our division right now. We can’t lose anymore ground. We’ve got to just turn it around and start playing the way were capable of playing. That’s the bottom line, quit making the mistakes we’ve been making and get this thing turned around. It’s still early enough that we’ve got a whole season ahead of us and a lot of things that we can accomplish. Nothing’s been jeopardized yet, but we’ve got to get it turned around quickly."
on the frustration with his performance in sunday’s game vs. the giants:
"I don’t really think about it in those terms. The last play bothered me, because it was a mental mistake on my part which isn’t real characteristic of me and that’s what frustrated me most about that play. We were in a position to go down and win that football game and I took us out of it by a mistake that I made that I don’t normally make. That was the most frustrating thing about that game, more so than overall performance or things that I did throughout the game. It was more that last play that really frustrated me because it was just something that I don’t usually do and it frustrated me especially in that situation. It pretty much finished the game for us, didn’t give us an opportunity to win."
on the last offensive play of the game vs. the giants:
"I actually was thinking something else in my mind, thinking that Tory [Holt] was going to run a different route. He ran the right route and it would have been an easy pitch and catch except I was thinking something else and threw the ball according to what I was thinking and obviously missed him and it got intercepted."
on how defenses have adjusted to prevent long yardage after the catch:
"The big thing so far is that we haven’t been able to throw the ball down the field like we’ve wanted to yet. There’s been some huge plays to be made in these first two games that we haven’t made and I think that’s the difference more than anything. Teams are dropping back and trying to make us work the ball down the field and by doing that we’re not going to get as many big plays as we probably have in the past. But we’ve been very effective to a point it’s just we haven’t been able to get those shots that have been there to really add up yards after catch or at least big plays to get us some big chunks. We haven’t been able to hit those yet for whatever reason, a variety of different reasons. I think that’s the biggest thing right now is that we haven’t capitalized on some of those big plays that were there in any of those first two games. There probably hasn’t been as many. Because of what teams are doing, we haven’t taken as many shots because they’re trying to take that away. But there have been some to be made and we haven’t made them and that’s probably the biggest difference there."
on disregarding defenses and taking shots at big plays himself:
"You know there is to a degree. Coaches called some shots down the field. That’s my job is that I’m not going to just take a stupid throw just to throw it and hope it works out or to put something in somebody’s mind. If there’s an opportunity to complete the play, then I’d have no problem taking that shot. Even though it might not be way open, but if chances are we’re going to complete it or it’s going to be incomplete as opposed to a turnover, just could turn out to a bad play, that’s one thing. But when a team’s got it covered up pretty well, at that point you chuck it down and let one of your other playmakers try to make a play and get the yardage needed or whatever may be or line up and do it again. There’s a fine line there between taking a shot, putting pressure on a team, letting them know that you’re going to take some shots deep when the opportunity arises and being stupid and taking a shot that isn’t there and that’s only going to result in something bad. That’s kind of been the fine line and because of that we haven’t taken as many shots. We’ve tried but they’ve had it covered up pretty well and we figured we’d chuck it down to Marshall [Faulk] or somebody underneath and let those guys do something with it."
on the challenge of playing a successful cover two defense like tampa bay:
"The big challenge is to put together a drive where you don’t make mistakes. That’s been the challenge in the first two weeks, we’ve put together some good drives but we keep killing ourselves with mistakes. That’s what Tampa’s always done. There’s not a lot of offenses out there that can consistently make play after play after play, without any negative plays or without messing up, to put the ball in the end zone. They’re so good that when you make a mistake they capitalize on it or put you in tough positions that it’s tough to get those big plays, it’s tough to make first downs, it’s tough to make a sixteen, seventeen play drive against them. That’s what we have to do going in, is take the approach that if there’s a shot there, we take it, but other than that we have to be very efficient with the football. We have to take whatever we can get, whatever they’re going to give us, and we’ve got to line up and do it again and do it all over again. We can’t make mistakes, have penalties, miss throws, whatever it may be, because they’ll capitalize on it and they make it tough when they put your back against the wall."