Joe Vitt Good Quotations

Whenever you let a good football team like the Colts get on a run, it's tough to put your finger in the dike.

I don't want to assume anything yet, I think that's a hypothetical situation. But I will say this: Jamie Martin was born and raised in this system and knows the system as good as anybody.

He's a great supporter of our players, the organization - really a good guy. He's a fighter. He's fighting for his life. Our thoughts and prayers are with him right now.

He's a young kid that was a little leery. He just had surgery and had to get that thing punched a few times, and he did it. Good for him.

I thought he had good pocket presence and good zip on the ball and was fairly accurate. I think those things do take time to get back in sync, and it's something we'll continue to work on.

We came out of the blocks smoking. Then Marc got hurt, we had a couple of turnovers and we gave them some third-down conversions. When you let a good team like the Colts get on a run, it's hard to put a finger in the dike. Obviously a 17-point lead isn't enough against the Colts.

We played good run defense in the first three games, but I think that was a little skewed. We were playing a lot of eight-man fronts. We started to go against some good passing attacks, like the Giants, like Seattle.

That was the key going in. We knew we were going to bleed. That's a good (Colts) attack. That's probably as good as you're going to find in the National Football League with their skilled receivers, the running back and the quarterback. So the ability not to give up the big play was huge.

We had as much success as anybody has had against them. We had some good pressure.

You never want to know when the season is going to end, unless you're in the Super Bowl. You go through a period of depression for a while. You miss the guys. You miss the practices. You miss the meetings. We're in this game because we love it. So this is our Super Bowl, and this is our playoff game coming up. It's the last game of the year. We want to play and do as good as we can and take it from there.

This is not a dink and dunk offense when he drops back. He has a strong arm and good vision.

Absolutely. I thought Jamie really played well. He had the two interceptions which we just can't have, but Jamie all day long gave us a chance to win the game. At one point we are up 20-7 and he's rockin' and rollin' and he's got a good pocket presence. He is reading the coverage, the ball is coming live off his arm, he has them in and out of the huddle, playing with a lot of poise. He'll be our starter. I'm really proud of him but he has to cut back on the interceptions.

In the National Football League, there are a lot of teams that the safeties are the leading tacklers on their football team and that is why we call them safeties. They have got to be good tacklers and at times, we can tackle and do tackle. Other times, it is just bad. That is just like someone trying to be a journalist and you have to teach them how to write. They are supposed to know how to write. If you are a defensive football player you are supposed to know how to tackle and if you can't, you are in the wrong profession.

It was our playoff game. We played hard-nosed physical football in front of a nationally televised audience against a good team, and I think it's a glimpse of what we could be.