Here's the transcript of Jack Del Rio's post-game presser.
HEAD COACH JACK DEL RIO
Obviously a good, hard-fought victory. We have a lot of respect for the organization and the football team we competed with today. It took a complete team effort. The guys understood that we had some challenges that we were going to face this week, to come up here and play a very stout defense, and a football team that's leading their division. We understood that we were going to have to do it here with some weather challenges.
I think the guys responded well. We called on our team to come in here like men to compete, and meet those challenges, and I feel good about the effort that we just put forth. A good, solid victory.
In particular, I thought the offensive line moved some people today and allowed us to run the ball. David wasn't sacked. Obviously one of the good things to do is to run the football and keep the quarterback upright. All in all a good solid day, and we'll get back to Jacksonville, get back to work, and we want to continue to play our best football down the stretch, so we've got a lot of work to do.
I think the guys responded well. We called on our team to come in here like men to compete, and meet those challenges, and I feel good about the effort that we just put forth. A good, solid victory.
In particular, I thought the offensive line moved some people today and allowed us to run the ball. David wasn't sacked. Obviously one of the good things to do is to run the football and keep the quarterback upright. All in all a good solid day, and we'll get back to Jacksonville, get back to work, and we want to continue to play our best football down the stretch, so we've got a lot of work to do.
Talk about your ground game - Fred (Taylor) ran well, and you took out Polamalu on a couple of plays.
Obviously Fred is an outstanding football player. I thought the line, tight ends, and fullback, and the wide receivers as well, did their part in getting him some room, and then he ran hard. Authoritative. He made his cuts and got vertical. He did a nice job bleeding out the run as we like to say. Outstanding effort by a guy that's been an outstanding Jaguar. He's had a great career, and he's really excited about this football team and what we can accomplish by working together.
Talk about the last drive.
We needed it, and we got it. We saw the way that Fred was going, and wanted to make sure we fed him the football and got it down there and got that score.
The two biggest runs on that last drive, the runners weren't touched until they were brought down. That's tough to do against anybody, let alone a noted run defense like the Steelers.
There was some good football going on, some tough football - two physical teams going after each other. It was a good solid contest.
Did you feel like you had the game in hand if you kept the ball on the ground once you were up 22-7?
Exciting football. We gave them a chance to make a play, and they made a play. They punched it in, then made some more plays. They caught it, and we had to go back out there and continue to play, and continue to win the game. Obviously we had control, but we understand it's a four-quarter ballgame. They're a proud team. They caught an opportunity, and seized it and jumped back in the ballgame. So we did the best we could there and fought through it and came out of there with a win.
Did you find anything out about your club that you didn't already know?
How many times have we seen this? There are so many examples where David (Garrard) and the offense have taken us down and shown us. I've talked about David and the clarity at the quarterback position, and that's been a positive for us. As the weather turns cold, being able to run the football like we did today, that was certainly a big plus for us.
You were able to get pressure on the quarterback. Did you do anything different?
We played a little better. What happened the first 12 weeks, 13 weeks, 14 weeks now doesn't have a lot to do with how we're going to do going forward. Obviously we're able to draw some conclusions based on what you watch over the course of a season, but we feel like we're going to be able to do some things to affect the quarterback, and we're going to be able to play some good pass defense. We're going to be able to stop the running game, and give our offense the football so they can do their thing.
One area today that really allowed this game to stay the contest that it was until the very end was the special teams. We've got to be able to kick an extra point, and we botched a couple of those. One thing that we can take out of this is that this was a great experience for this football team, to come here and play in this weather. We know we're going to play in this type of weather in order to advance in the post-season, so it's good experience. Some of the guys that had some issues, we need them to draw on that experience and be better the next time out. Just like we do on this football team across the board, we identify things we need to be better at, and we get back and work on them and expect to be better the next time out. It's good to be able to go back with a victory.
One area today that really allowed this game to stay the contest that it was until the very end was the special teams. We've got to be able to kick an extra point, and we botched a couple of those. One thing that we can take out of this is that this was a great experience for this football team, to come here and play in this weather. We know we're going to play in this type of weather in order to advance in the post-season, so it's good experience. Some of the guys that had some issues, we need them to draw on that experience and be better the next time out. Just like we do on this football team across the board, we identify things we need to be better at, and we get back and work on them and expect to be better the next time out. It's good to be able to go back with a victory.
As a result of playing San Diego and Pittsburgh, do you have a better read on your team?
I am the head coach of the football team - I have a pretty good read on them. Maybe other people might get a better read on us, but I'm not really concerned about that. We just want to play good football. We know that when we fundamentally do things right - block, tackle, run the ball, stop the run, throw the ball, limit the other guy from doing it - we know that we can have success and play with anybody. We've played some good football teams this year, and I feel like the team has a real good feel about what we can accomplish together, and we'll just keep working. The guys are - I think they're hungry for more. I think they're hungry for us to continue to work as a team, and play our best football down the stretch.