Brian Dawkins Year Quotations

No year is a cakewalk. Last year, we just steamrolled through people. Every game is not going to be like that.

Last year you saw Porter do his thing a little bit, ... He was the featured guy and he made some big plays for them . . . Though you have to pay attention to Randy because of all the physical attributes he brings to the game, you still have to pay attention to Porter, because the guy can still go up top on you. He is a big guy (6-2, 220) that can run.

Last year you saw Porter do his thing a little bit. He was the featured guy and he made some big plays for them . . . Though you have to pay attention to Randy because of all the physical attributes he brings to the game, you still have to pay attention to Porter, because the guy can still go up top on you. He is a big guy (6-2, 220) that can run.

I hate to go because somebody has gone down with an injury, but being the first alternate, that happens. This is something that I work for each and every year and I never take it for granted. It's an honor.

You always say the sky's the limit. But we kind of know what we can do, and this year we're going to set out to do it.

Those were the plays that used to go our way in the past. But for whatever reason, this year everything continued to bounce away from us.

When you replace a Jeremiah a year ago and try to replace Hugh this year, we would never ask those guys to be those players. We just ask them to bring what they bring to the table, and hopefully it'll add to what we already have. But I would never say anybody could replace what we lost in Hugh. No one person could ever do that for us. Because what he brought wasn't just on the field, but in the locker room also.

We were focused on what was at hand ... this season, this game here. It's kind of hard to look ahead sometimes and try to see the light, but that was the light. The light was we lost last year in the Super Bowl, and we're trying to get back there. ... We're all pushing for that same goal.

This has been a character year for us.

I'm certainly not going to dwell on this year. It was a horrible year in every aspect of the word horrible. There were some good plays, some good situations and some guys stepped up for us, but as a whole, when you are used to being a certain way, your mentality is used to being a certain way, you do not settle. I'm not going to settle and hopefully guys won't settle either.

But I mean, I felt their pain. How close we were, for that many years, to get to that point, and then lose it? We talked our way to where we wanted to be and we played our way to where we wanted to be. From the year before, we knew where we needed to be to get that next level. Then we got there and we couldn't capitalize.

This has been our toughest year all-around. With all the things that have been said off the field, with all the injuries we've had to key guys, we've had a lot of young guys have to step in and play.

It really does. All the new guys that have played last year have a year under their belts and I think we are trying to take this thing to another level. We are trying to be one of the best, if not the best defense to play for this organization.

If I have a good year, I think I can do better. If I have a great year, I think I can do better, ... There will never be a perfect year because I know there will always be plays I know I could have made.