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October 7, 2007

Transcript: Derek Anderson press conference

You had to deal with a little more pressure in this game. Is that something you had to adjust to after not getting that pressure in the first few games?
Yeah, they had us schemed up a few times and brought a little pressure, and I thought we handled it all right and made some good adjustments to it. But we knew they were a good pass rushing team coming in.

Can you talk about your first drive and the ball that got batted?
The first drive I threw a pick to Steve [Heiden] and nothing got batted. It didn’t get batted. I just made a poor decision and threw it back across my body, and a guy came off the receiver in the front and made a pick. Other than that, our first drive went well. We moved the ball well and it felt pretty good.

How deflating is that; to move the ball down there, especially early in the game when you’re looking for something positive to happen, and have it end like that?
It happens in games. We’re not going to quit just because that happens. Little things like that happen and you make adjustments and you come back. We kept fighting and nobody ever gave up today. We kept going, got a couple of scores, and I thought the overall attitude in the huddle was good.

Can you talk a little about the interceptions?
One was a poor decision and you can’t do anything about the rest of them once they get batted in the air.

Which one was the poor decision?
The first one. I threw it back across my body. A guy comes off the receiver, in the front, and picks it. And, obviously, it’s unfortunate because we drove the ball really well and got down there around the five. But I just have to learn from that and it’s all right to kick a field goal there.

What about the fade to [Joe] Jurevicius? I think it was first down on the goal line. You just didn’t put enough air under it or what?
I don’t know. I haven’t watched it. I thought I threw it in a pretty good spot for him to go get it. The [defensive back] kind of walled him, but I don’t really know. I couldn’t tell you exactly what happened until I watch it.

You’ve gotten really good protection this season, but their pass rush -- what is it they do that they’ve gotten pressure on you?
I think overall they try to stretch your protection, get on the edge of guys and kind of fall off late. They might not always get there, but they’re just falling off and kind of hitting you at the end. And toward the end, they try to get you and force you to make decisions quickly. That’s just the big picture of it, I guess.

It seems like you’re up, you’re down, one week you win, one week you lose. I know it is part of everything you guys have to go through, but how frustrating is it to go through that process?
It is. It’s very frustrating, honestly. I understand that a lot of work goes into this and a lot of work from coaches and players. And you’ll go out there and have some mistakes and some mental errors, but I know I’m going to keep fighting and I know everybody else is too. We have a bunch of good guys in there, guys who are going to come to work on Wednesday and really go after it and go get a win this week.

You’re exceptionally good at making adjustments. In the second half you guys looked pretty good.
We are good. I mean, we are. We have a lot of good players and we made some mistakes early on that really hurt us. Against a team like that, you can’t do that. We gave them 14 or 10 points right away, and you’re going to fight that battle the rest of the day, which we did. I was happy the way the guys kept fighting. Like I said earlier, the guys came into the huddle with a positive attitude and kept grinding at it. And I thought Jason Wright came in and ran the ball really hard and made plays for us when Jamal [Lewis] went out. Guys adjusted to that and guys were coming in and out, too.

What was the process of adjustment because you didn’t have the big back to really batter them with?
Just hit them with quick plays. Jason’s a good back and he went in there and played really hard. He’s on kickoff and he’s on everything we have. And we lose Jamal right away on the first series, [Wright] gave us a great effort today.

I think you got hurt on that one sack and called time out. Was it that there was no way you were coming out of the game? Was that the reason for that?
We were trying to save time. With the sack, it didn’t happen, and we took a time out.

What happened to you physically?
Just landing on my shoulder gave me a little bit of a stinger, but nothing big.

Your right shoulder?
Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t anything big. Obviously I played the rest of the game. There’s no ice on me. I’m good.

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