Wade Phillips press conference 9/3/08

Paraphrase of Wade Phillips' press conference today.

Austin, Hurd, Kosier and Spencer didn’t practice. Stanback practiced and caught the ball well, maybe his best day, we should put a harness on him all the time. We had a brisk practice but it was really windy, we had good concentration, we were good in the passing game. Tomorrow we’ll go indoors if it’s that windy, but it made them concentrate today. Excited about game, anxious to play.

Stanback wore a harness last year, some of the year, he did the same things then, he caught the ball really well, we noticed him on the scout team.

Keith Davis is back with us, working mainly on special teams, he’s a core special team player, familiar with our calls, he works as the personal protector, feels comfortable there, comfortable on kickoff coverage, on coverage teams he’s a big plus. Lost him in the offseason, we could have played without him, but he’s a good leader and a good player on special teams. Nobody came through and replaced him, if a young player had come through we might not have needed to get him, but we needed him.

Procter seems comfortable at guard, he’s working hard. Smart guy, he's used to making calls at center that helps him at guard too, he can communicate with Flo and stay on the same page. He’ll repeat Andre’s calls and then anticipate things.

Derek Anderson was in Pro Bowl last year, he’s sort of Romo-ish, unheralded guy, he doesn’t get sacked a lot, gets rid of ball. He’s also a big guy, sees the field well, that helps him get rid of the ball. You have to get pressure but it’s hard to get sacks on him. I was telling DeMarcus you have to get him down if you get back there, he’s strong, a big QB like Terry Bradshaw was, it presents a problem. But he won’t scramble much, he get rids of the ball.

Joe Thomas played one-on-one a lot against all the good players that they played last year and gave up one sack all season. They’ll help him some certainly, like we do with our guys. But most of the time they want to get those help guys out in the routes, the QB helps him too by getting rid of the ball.

Derek Anderson does a good job of identifying blitzes, he’s sharp enough to see them and points out blitzes to his line and he changes protections. Pressure is always important. You saw it some in the preseason for us, just hitting the QB, not just sacks but getting pressure causes mistakes. If you can rush four and get pressure that’s great, if not you have to rush five or six. The Giants could get pressure with just four last year that’s why they did so well.

These offenses are similar, their TE is outstanding and hard to cover like ours, their WR had over 1200 yards like ours, they have a Pro Bowl RB like us, they are very similar. They scored a lot of points last year like us, their QB is into his second year like Romo was last year. Even in preseason they moved the football well. Kellen Winslow is one of the toughest TE’s to cover. He’s very adept at pushing off - I mean getting open. (laughter) I hope the officials note that. (more laughter) He’s a first round pick and a good one, along with the other guys, they’re tough. He’s quicker than his Dad was, his Dad was a bigger, stronger guy, a little different, but both are Pro Bowl caliber.