No roster moves today, we anticipate everybody will practice, we'll fly to Seattle on Friday.
What about Romo being careless with the ball? I spoke with him yesterday about that. I don't want to discourage his creativity, but I said you have to be aware of the fact that you can do more damage than good. When that ratio gets too high, you're ability to improvise is negated. We had a good talk, I want to encourage him to create, but the judgment has to improve, or you have what happened on Sunday.
I think the biggest thing I see is that we have to encourage him to improve his body-clock. He's so confident that he can do things, it sometimes affect his judgments. When you know you're in a vulnerable situation, err on the side of caution.
Can you improve a QB's body-clock? Sure, you can improve a body clock. I know in the past I've had to do that in several cases, they would not throw the ball until they saw the play perfectly, no sense of anticipation. Sometimes you have to anticipate.
Do you believe that the playoffs are a new season? Absolutely, I believe 100 % like that. Everybody starts fresh. I was disappointed with Sunday, but when you look around, you think you're lucky to have a chance to go forward.
It's who plays well now that counts. Teams have played well before or they wouldn't be in the position they're in. Just play well. I know the problems Seattle presents, we've played them recently. We didn't play them in the regular season. But we played in preseason and last year. We're not unfamiliar.
Is it tempting to do something drastic? Not tempting at all. Nope, you put together a good solid game plan, and we do what we think is the best thing to attack them both sides of the ball. You always do that.
Are you concerned about numerous complaints from players about their roles? No, none of that makes a difference now. Numerous might not be the right word, either.
Does the losing lead to the complaining? I have no concern with that. No one has come to me. There is no tension in the locker room.
Do you feel as good about this team as others you've taken to the playoffs? I don't see why you wouldn't, I'm not apologizing for being in there.
Do Romo's mistakes have anything to do with not trusting the defense and trying to make a play? Nope, nothing.
Is it inexperience? No. I think its over-confidence, he needs better judgment. I think it's the body-clock; we need a better job in that area. If you put yourself at risk, you can do damage. You guys laughed earlier this year when I said it was a little less than perfect. What you're witnessing now is what I was talking about. He was getting away with things.
Has he been eating the cheese? I don't know, its just he's a confident player. There's a fine line you have to walk, you don't take away his wanting to create plays which has been a positive thing in a lot of respects. But the judgments you make under pressure, if you consistently gamble, the odds will even out, and will turn bad. The quicker you can dissolve that element, when you can think now is the time of having to take a risk as opposed to looking to do it all the time. There are times in a game when you have to try something, then you might take more of a chance then at some other time in the game.
I spoke with him yesterday, and I asked him if I told him this would happen, and he said yes. Now you just try to analyze it and fix it. I'm not intimating that he's the reason why were not playing the way we want to play, he's just part of the reasons. We got to do things a bit better. I think we can.
Do you still think you know you know your team? I know I do. No doubt in my mind. If there's one thing that I could not miss, it's that. I'm under no illusions and haven't been for years about a team I've coached. I'm thinking about it 24/7 everyday, I've been around them some since spring, constantly since July. I know them individually and collectively.
Worries about the team's struggles? I'm not struggling, you guys are struggling. I got a game to play; you just want to talk about history. But you got a lot of company in a lot of cities. People saying their team has lost 2 or 3 straight, or 3 out of the last 4. You know, the Bears get beat bad at home, it goes on everywhere.
Does it exasperate you that your team is not performing? No, it doesn't exasperate me.
I don't need to explain anything. We're not playing well. If you want to talk about history go to the museum.
How many games did Seattle win last month? (no answer from the reporter) You don't even know, why are we talking about a subject you don't know. How many games did they win? (random reporter - one) That's right, thank you.
Injuries to the Seattle CB's? I don't know the injuries exactly but they had to use a safety to play CB some last game, but they will have a strategy in place. They might not have enough players to match up all the time. But some teams play better with the regular packages on defense than with the substitute packages.
How does your team's psychological state affect your game plan? Their psychological state? What do you want me to say, we run 65 QB sneaks so we don't fumble? I cannot control their mind set at this moment. I try to prepare them this week, tell them here are the things to beat Seattle, and if we do them we might beat them.
How would you say you and your staff's preparations have been over the last month? We did what we thought was right, but sometimes they didn't work. You look at the result, and think about what went wrong.
Would you continue this week with some of the changes we saw on defense last week? You get a different set of problems with Seattle and Detroit. Appreciably different. What might work well against Detroit might not against Seattle. We'll approach Seattle much differently.
Julius has had good games in Seattle, do you consider that? I would hope we can run the ball, I don't know if the stadium has much to do with it. The weather may be a factor.
Why did Julius not play in the second half? The game unfolds a certain way, were not purposely holding him out, but in some situations we use Marion, you know those situations.
Why has the running game faltered? We haven't run as much. We've been behind. Particularly the last couple of games, I still think we can run. We did score 31 points but it cost a bit to do that. It goes back to keeping the ball; we allowed them to score, they started 4-5 times inside our 50.
Why are you confident? I just think we're capable of playing good football. I've seen it. If you haven't seen it, you don't know if its there, I've seen it. All the playoff teams' coaches have seen it from time to time. You gather that up and get ready to go. I'm confident we have the capability, not 100% we'll do it, but we have the capability.
Does Romo need to be a bus driver to win Saturday? I would like to think he has to play very solid.
It's fashionable now to criticize Mike Zimmer now? Fashionable? With who is it fashionable? (reporter - my email) Your email is the criteria? What geniuses are sending you these? (reporter - season ticket holders) Do you know they are season ticket holders, I'm sure they aren't just offering that information. (reporter - do you think it's fair or just to criticize Zimmer?) No I don't.
Why are you losing time of possession and field position? When you turn the ball over your time of possession is going down, that's a little of what happened Sunday, they had more opportunities than they should have.
Are either Marion or Julius 25-carry-a-game backs? That's difficult. If I say no, then you say he's minimizing their ability, if I say yes, and then do that with one, I might minimize his career. Very few backs can handle 350-400 carries a year; those players are a rare exception, not the rule. Just look around, if they are an exception, how long can they remain one. These guys have different styles of running. I've had a couple of backs that you could do that with, just keep handing them the ball, and then I've probably ruined a guy by doing that, I might've cut his career short. If I had minimized some of his stuff he might've lasted longer.
How did some of the new defensive players do? I thought Watkins played better, the safeties did. Carpenter is coming along, I really think so. Bowen wasn't bad for his first time, Canty played better. There were some positive things, but the field position was prohibitive, we had turnovers that were conceding points. We need to settle down.
If we don't solve the problems on defense, we won't beat them. But we can't give the ball up on the 20 or the 13-yard line like last week. If we hadn't done things like that they wouldn't have scored so many points.
You're a HOF coach known as a master motivator, so are you saying motivation doesn't go in this weeks preparations? No, I don't think I ever said that. When did I say that?
You said earlier that you can't control the team's mind-set? I can't control the mind-set today, but give me time to prepare them, to tell them how we can be successful. I don't know what you want to classify that as, motivation, coaching or what.
Can you focus better on the road, you have a better record on the road? There are a lot of teams like that. I don't know what the answer is. Some of the other teams are in the same situation in the NFC. I don't know about distractions at home, doesn't make much difference.
Tony Parrish? - I don't know we'll work the safeties this week.
Did the special teams suffer because of Elam's absence? On one return, two guys were unblocked to the ball on the side that the guy ran to, and he outran both of them. Elam doesn't have much to do with that.