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© St. Petersburg Times, published September 29, 2002
ON NOT TAKING THE 0-3 BENGALS LIGHTLY: "It's hard to win on the road in the NFL. It always has been. We're facing a football team that is making dramatic changes at the quarterback position. We know the Cincinnati Bengals are going to be ready to play. They have a lot of talented players. They were picked in some circles as the team this year that is going to explode onto the scene.
"They still may. They're dangerous and I think our team, when we start looking at film, will respect that. We take nothing for granted here and we don't discriminate against anyone. We know that we need to go out there and play at the same level. It will be a challenge."
ON THE BENGALS STARTING AKILI SMITH AT QUARTERBACK: "Being a guy who likes studying that position, I studied him coming out of Oregon. He's an athlete. He has great ability. They have had some changes there as far as their system is run the past couple years, and that's tough on a young quarterback's development.
"But he's dangerous. Akili Smith is dangerous. He's an athlete. He has the ability to make plays (and) he has a supporting cast -- Corey Dillon, Peter Warrick and Chad Johnson -- those guys are players and very dangerous."
ON PREPARING FOR THE BENGALS IN THE SHORT WEEK: "You've got to have a short-term memory in this business. We're very conscious of the short-term and we're not going to get totally wrapped up in our successes or our failures. We've got to stay zoomed in on the bullseye.
"Cincinnati will be a great challenge for us. ... You try not to look too far down the road."