Bills Safety Donte Whitner
11/14/07
On what it will take to be able to beat the Patriots
For the defense to get some turnovers and for us to make some nice plays out there and for us to match them offensively, defensively and on special teams play for play. If they make a big play then we have to make a big play. We have to know that New England is a great football team with tons of weapons. We have to come prepared and we have to make it a physical football game. On playing with the same intensity as the last Monday night game
That's what we are going to need to beat this football team. We need to come with that intensity that we came with against Dallas. We need to get some turnovers. We don't necessarily have to get five, six, seven turnovers like we did in the Dallas game, but we do need to get a group of turnovers. On what needs to be done tactically to win this football game
I don't know if you can hold this team down. They are going to make plays. In the running game (Laurence) Maroney is a good running back. They have great players across the board starting with Tom Brady, (Wes) Welker, Donte Stallworth and Randy Moss. They have great players everywhere. So we have to be on top of our game and make them earn everything that they get. We can't have busted coverages with the linebackers. Everybody has to know where they should be and how we are going to attack it. On ever seeing a team with this many weapons
I haven't. Even when we played Indianapolis last year and they had weapons. But New England has weapons like I've never seen or played against. We played against them one time this year and we felt pretty good in that first quarter, but after that we had some busted coverages and Tom Brady made some great throws. Moss and Welker made some outstanding plays and they beat us 38-7. We just want to make them earn everything they get and make it a physical football game. On what makes Brady so tough
He's doing what Peyton Manning has been doing in Indianapolis. The way I look at it is, he's saying to everybody, 'let's see what I can do when I have the weapons that Peyton Manning has in Indianapolis.' They gave him his weapons and now you see what he can do. Last year, the guys that they had really weren't Welker and Moss and Stallworth. They were solid guys, but they weren't real big playmakers. This year they have playmakers across the board. At any given moment anyone of those guys can have a huge game. On the loss of Kiwaukee Thomas
It's a huge loss for us because he's one of the oldest guys on the team. He's played a lot football games. It's his ninth year in the NFL. It's a tremendous loss for us but JB (Jerametrius Butler) is going to step in there. JB and Ashton (Youboty) are going to fill that role at the nickel spot and hopefully they can get the job done. On how the loss of Kiwaukee Thomas will affect the nickel package
I don't really know how that's going to shake out. We haven't put that package in today. We only put first and second down in today. We do third down tomorrow with the nickel and everything. We'll put that package in in the morning when we get in. As I see it, I see JB and Ashton, whoever has the best practice and whoever can pick it up the fastest will probably be in there and I believe that they will do a good job. On having options to fill that position
We do feel we have options and when JB came over he showed some things in practice and he's a good player. He's played the nickel before and he's been in the league for a number of years. I think he'll do a good job in it. On getting to play in front of a national audience again
We're looking forward to it a lot. Nobody gives us a chance. Nobody ever gives us a chance around here. We like that though. We don't want people going in and saying maybe Buffalo can upset New England. We want them to say, 'yeah (New England) is going to blow Buffalo out.' Just like they thought Dallas was going to blow us out and every other team and Cincinnati was going to come in and set records against us. We want to be the heavy underdog going into this football game so we can maybe shock some people.
