Opening Statement

When I look at the game, obviously my number one concern is the penalties, so you look at that and that's what I talk to the players about. In other words, we will look at those penalties, we'll see what is being called and what we can do a better job of. We've really been working hard on being able to play a clean game and being able to play it right. So that is the number one priority. I think when you look at the game, obviously we give up the score and we had three penalties in that drive, which gives up the score. You can't do that from a field position standpoint. Other defensively, with the first group, I thought we fitted some things well, but I still think we can tackle better, that is one thing that I mention to the players. I think that offensively, obviously we can do a better job protecting and a better job of ball security, so that was something stressed. I think special teams, I mean we can improve on that. I told them, I said "obviously we got the win", but I don't want them leaving this locker room, obviously we have a day off tomorrow, but I don't want them leaving thinking that "Hey listen, we were really close". We've still got a lot of work ahead of us and we will work our butts off to become a better football team going into this season.

Q:  You limited Cousins to 12 yards passing over four series, obviously there is always room for improvement, but is that a pretty good sign?

A: Yeah it is, I mean granted you know how I am as a coach. There are some things to point out, some performances, some statistics, I mean there are a lot of things you can say, but at the end of the day I'm looking at the things that we need to improve upon. Not to say that we didn't do anything well, obviously we've done some stuff well. It's been an unbelievable couple of days for us with practicing against Minnesota. I can't ask for more from Minnesota with how they treated us here and obviously it was very emotional in the beginning of the game with Tony Sparano and recognizing him with the people that he touched and having his family out there. There was a lot of emotion, a lot of things going on in this preseason game. 

Q: Were the penalties a bit of a surprise? It seemed like the practices were fairly clean in the first few downs.

A: Yeah it was, but it was something, like I said, that you look at and try and make sure that you can do a better job of it because you know, the one thing that I think we all know, is that if we do that in a game, the odds are that we are not going to win. Even though people say statistically that penalties don't factor into winning and losing, but a 140 yards, you're taking about field position, drive and things of that nature. I think that is where it gets a little overlooked from that statistical standpoint