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Head Coach Chan Gailey**
Monday, November 26, 2012
Q: Are you satisfied with WR Stevie Johnson's explanation for what he meant after the game yesterday?
A: I had not heard it. I have not heard his explanation.
Q: I thought you talked to him.
A: Nope. (Bob Bicknell) talked to him. I did not talk to him, but I talked to Bick and I know where he is coming from. Stevie just wants to win. You say a lot of things and he just wants to win. He is fine.
Q: When things like that come out that players said, does that upset you?
A: It does, but you have to understand it is the heat of the battle and if you know a guy…if you do not know a guy you might tend to get really upset, but if you know a guy then you know where his heart is. Even though he might not have said it exactly right, you know where his heart is. I know Stevie.
Q: How much frustration is there knowing where you are at right now?
A: There is a lot right after the game and the day after. There is a lot of it, but it is what it is. You have to find what you can find positive. Build on it and go to the next one.
Q: Is there any way you expected to be standing here 4-7 at this point in the season?
A: No. I did not. I expected to be 11-0. That is the way I always look at it.
Q: I know you cannot change it, but is it safe to say you will be sending some stuff into the league regarding what happened at the end of the first half and how they were officiated?
A: I looked at it. I do not know what they see and what they do not see. If you send in judgment stuff, you are not going to get any response so you are wasting your time. Most of that was judgment stuff.
Q: Do you plan to talk to Stevie?
A: No.
Q: What about tempo? A couple times this season your offense has needed some time to get going. No-huddle is a part of your playbook. What about turning to that to jump start things?
A: We have done that some, but it has been revolving around the pass game. We are trying to make sure we get the running game going. When you do no-huddle sometimes it revolves too much around the pass game. We do not want to get into that. We want to keep a balance between our run and pass.
Q: You have said a couple of times this season that you feel the team is still making progress. Do you still feel that way?
A: In some areas. In some areas not.
Q: What areas are improving?
A: I feel like our defense is getting better and has become more consistent. Maybe our run defense in particular has gotten better. I think we have taken a step back in some areas. We have done some good things in special teams, but what we get we give up sometimes. That is frustrating at times.
Q: When you look at the season as a whole statistically you are further behind than you were a year ago so progress seems to be a hard sell.
A: Yeah, right now I would agree with you. Until you win games. The statistics go out the gate when you win games. Statistics do not matter. Statistics are a way to evaluate losing in my opinion.
Q: Do you have confidence K Rian Lindell can kick a 52-yard field goal or does he not have that in him anymore?
A: Yeah, he has it in him. The question is do you want to play the field position game at that point in a ball game? Right before half, right at the end of the game—sure I might try it. I know we did not in overtime for the field position reason in Arizona. I think he can make one. He makes them in practice. It is not that I do not have confidence, just percentage-wise it is against you in general over 50 yards. I do not want to play those percentages.
Q: What is DE Chris Kelsay's situation moving forward here?
A: Not good. He had a recurrence of that neck strain and he may miss some time.
Q: Is it season threatening?
A: I do not think so but you have to wait and see about these things. We will have to wait and see how it comes around.
Q: QB Ryan Fitzpatrick said he has plenty of freedom inside the offense. Can you describe the scope of Ryan's freedom to help fans understand it?
A: Not in a 20 second sound bit, I cannot do that. Freedom comes in different packages depending upon the play and the situation whether it is a run or a pass. Is it the route within the pass? We do all of that. We do a little bit of all of that. We do not do it every snap because sometimes we want to hand it off. We do not want to adjust things.
Q: Ten to 15,000 tickets remaining for the December home games. I would imagine that is as good of a source of frustration that the fans are feeling as any. Are you feeling the fans frustration?
A: I do not feel it because I do not deal with the outside a lot to be honest with you, but I know they are. These are loyal, great fans that live and die with the Bills. They are suffering right now. They are suffering and I understand that. I do.
Q: Stevie said that he misspoke and when he said he wanted Fitzpatrick to call the plays, he meant audibles. Can you tell us what your philosophy is with audibling?
A: Some weeks we have a lot. Some weeks we do not have very many. We have adjustments that guys can make. Sometimes we do not have adjustments that the quarterback can make. So we just try to strike a balance of we get what we want run, run and then if there needs to be a change out there we allow Fitz to change some of them.
Q: Some people have placed you on the 'hot seat.' Do you feel you have had enough time to try to turn this thing around and do you believe you deserve more?
A: I am just working as hard as I can work to try to get this thing where it needs to be. I do not evaluate that stuff. I do not evaluate it or look at it. I am not going to say I do not care about it. That would be a lie, but I am just doing the best I can every day.
Q: In light of the loyalty you have showed to Stevie, is it a little disappointing what he said yesterday after two weeks ago he was criticizing a play call in New England?
A: Yeah, I know and like I said you say some things sometimes in the heat of the battle that maybe you wish you had not said or you did not say exactly the way you wanted to say it. We all do it. We all try not to but we all do it. Like I said, I know Stevie. I know what he wants to happen for this football team and I know his heart. So I am not worried about it.
Q: Do you get a sense that the confidence your team has in you may be fraying?
A: I do not sense that but you are asking the wrong person. You need to be asking them.
Q: Do you have an update on FB Corey McIntyre?
A: Better than we thought. It could have been a lot worse. There is a good chance for this week that he will get to practice.
Q: What about DE Mark Anderson and CB Aaron Williams?
A: It will be touch and go. They are going to do a little bit of work during the week, but I would say it is less of a chance than more of a chance right now for those two.
Q: Have they had a setback? This is stretching on a little bit longer than what was initially anticipated.
A: It has not been a setback, but it just has not moved forward as fast as we hoped it would.
Q: Do you have any idea why it has been so difficult to turn a once proud franchise around?
A: No. If I had that handle I would have already grabbed it, jerked it and done something about it.
Q: How would you asses the job that CB Justin Rogers has done?
A: He has been up-and-down. He played with a lot of confidence early in the season, then as of late he has not played with as much confidence and you can see it in his play. He still has got the ability to do some things, but I just feel like sometimes his confidence wavers and that gets him in trouble. He needs to play with a great deal of confidence and I think that he can be a decent player, but he has to go out and do it every down.
Q: The nickel cornerback seems to be one of the toughest spots on defense with how teams move their best receiver into the slot.
A: It is getting tougher and tougher as I see football go on because of what you just said. People trying to match-up with those guys inside.
Q: How is CB Ron Brooks playing four games in and is he a consideration at that spot at all?
A: I do not think he is. I think our first choice would be to move Leodis (McKelvin) in there before we move (Ron) Brooks in there. Leodis played it in the spring and played it in preseason. Showed some good things in there and Brooks missing all of that time has not had enough practice or even thought process in the whole thing.
Q: Is that a move you consider for this week or would it have to be when CB Aaron Williams comes back?
A: Maybe. That is a maybe (we would consider it this week).
Q: Your plans for RB C.J. Spiller and RB Fred Jackson moving forward?
A: I still see C.J. getting the majority of the plays and I do not see anything changing our mind in the immediate future about that with C.J. getting the majority of the plays. It balanced out this past week because of some throwing situations that we needed the protection in there. I think as time goes on we will see C.J. get more of the reps.
Q: If they are both healthy, will Spiller be the starter?
A: Yeah.
Q: Spiller did not touch the ball the last 13 and a half minutes of the game yesterday, is that OK with you?
A: Well since we lost, no it is not OK. You would have rather gotten him the football. Maybe he would have given you a chance to win so you'd like to do something different than you did. You think you had some good things on the plate to give yourself a chance to win, but when you do not win then you wish you had done something different.
Q: I know they play different positions but WR T.J. Graham played two more snaps than Spiller did.
A: I do not even think that comparison is fair. Just because of different positions and who the other guy is.
Q: In what way? Because C.J. is doing that much more work in terms of exertion?
A: No, I mean who is playing behind T.J. and who is playing behind C.J.
