On his thoughts about how to contain Falcons TE Tony Gonzalez: "Well, he's a great player. I remember I was coaching tight ends when Tony came out (of college). And you know, he's a Hispanic, too. So I know Tony, but there are different ways that people have dealt with him whether it's double covering him, you know, but just making sure that you have a couple people on him."
On whether there is any chance CB Nnamdi Asomugha will cover Gonzalez at any point during the game: "Well you know, that's interesting, we'll see on Sunday."
On whether coming in and setting an up-tempo tone was always part of his defensive philosophy: "Well, the thing is I've been around (head) coach (Andy) Reid for a long time now and coach Reid talks, really, to the media about you do what you have to do to win. And what it is is sometimes you get into games and you may have to blitz, sometimes you don't need to blitz. And so really to me is when you get into a game you have a gameplan and you have the versatility to do a few different things and you have the ammunition to do whatever you need to do. And as you get in a game you kind of get a feel and that's really what's happened with me."
On whether his philosophy is flexible based on the opponent: "I think it's a game thing. I mean, you don't wait until after the game or you may go in with a certain gameplan but you have to be able to adjust and have the ammunition in your gameplan to adjust. And we do that every week."
On his thoughts about how dangerous Falcons WR Julio Jones looks: "You know, you're talking about a guy that can run, man. I mean, they're very explosive. We've talked all week about that's the key besides their offensive line, their offensive line is tenacious, but those receivers, and then the tight end, and then the running back, I mean they're a great football team."
On his thoughts about the kind of problems the Falcons no-huddle offense creates: "Well, I think it doesn't matter whose no huddle. No huddle, I think for defenses is something that you have to prepare and do a good job during the week preparing for; we've had some work during training camp on that situation. You know, coach (Reid) always sets up periods where we work on certain things and that's one of the things that we've worked on a few times so we should be prepared for anything."
On his thoughts about guys getting banged around in the first game: "You know what it was was that, and I think they said that themselves, they made some mistakes and all of a sudden it looks worse than it really is. When you look at the tape it wasn't like that. I mean, they got behind a little bit just like they said, and now that affects them a little bit because they know that they become one-dimensional. But this is a very good; I mean really a great football team."
On how the defensive calls were made when LB Brian Rolle was in the game and LB Casey Matthews was out of the game: "Okay, those are things that you can't talk about because the people on the other side, those are things that they look at and are still being done. And they look to see how you signal, how you do things, who's got the helmet on and I better not talk about that."
On Rolle's role on the team: "Well, no, he had a couple of nickels. You know, we have a regular nickel and we have a third down nickel. Right now, (Brian) Rolle is the starter on our third down nickel."
On whether the defense will stay in the base defense a lot this week because the Falcons are a good running team: "It just depends on how we get going. You know what it is is people try to match up personnel. Now sometimes, we'll play base versus, really versus anything, down and distance, or sometimes we'll try to match it up. The thing is you want to be able to dictate, you know you don't want the offense to dictate, too. So we want to be able to play base versus anything that they have and we're capable of doing that."
On how he determines how he is going to rotate the defensive linemen: "Well, they go by plays. And then naturally, too, it depends if somebody gets nicked up or not. But they go by number of plays."
On how many plays he gives them: "What's interesting is that the other team, when the coach speaks and talks they go and they read that stuff. And I know you all want us to win and everything like that, so you know, there's some things that you can't…you know, you have to be careful with what you say just because the first thing they do is, as a matter of fact I just finished watching something. I know you're all pulling for us so I know you understand."
On whether he has to juggle the number of plays and the situational circumstances when determining the rotation: "No, I mean, that's part of it. Those are things that you know, because you guys never know what (people are watching)."
