Ken Whisenhunt Quotations

We're going to take our shots. We're going to put it up. I trust our receivers to make plays.

What has happened at that position is you have bigger guys who can run a little bit, and certainly when you have a bigger target it makes it a lot easier to find them. People are playing zones and giving you the middle of the field in certain situations.

We ran the play at a walk-through on Saturday and we had to kind of walk through a couple things with it . . . . But we thought we'd have one guy left (open) out there.

We set that up from how we thought they'd play us in that set. It's funny. We ran it in practice the other day, and it worked out almost exactly like that.

Maybe he doesn't consider that a gadget play, we run it so much.

Obviously, he keeps showing up, keeps making plays,

If they did (open bracket)call(close bracket), I'd listen. I can't say I wouldn't.

I believe we can win any game throwing the football. Our identity is running the football and we're going to try to run it, but if a game calls for us to throw the football, I believe we can do that.

I felt good about something positive coming out of the play. It was a good time to take a shot at it.

From what I've talked with him when we've been on the practice field, yes. He's seen some things. He's talked about some things. From that standpoint, he's been good.

I don't think it was as much Ben, ... Certainly, he finished strong, he got us down there and we scored on that last drive. That's one encouraging thing that came out of it -- when we had to have it, he stepped up and did it. He handled it very well.

He knew that he needed to practice today in order to play on Sunday, and he did,

I think in the natural progression of things, he's going to get more balls. The thing you have to remember is Heath's a rookie, you can't just throw him in there and expect we're going to throw the ball to him all the time.

I think the big part of it is the quarterback and that tight end's relationship,

Jerome and Duce have taught Willie patience. They've worked with him on how to read blocks. He's been an accepting pupil. But the one thing you can't teach is his speed.

Logging 15 or 16 games in a row will get them physically and mentally worn out. At the end of the year, you have to be more careful because they reach an information overload.

I thought it would be a good play, but certainly you don't expect that. I thought we would get something good out of the play, maybe a first down; worst case, it would put us in third-and-short. Willie popped through there and showed why he's Fast Willie.

That was not my intent. I was sincerely interested in the job, and I have tremendous respect for Mr. Davis. But when we won the Super Bowl, the way the fans were during the parade, it made it difficult to leave.

We've kind of gotten into a little bit of a rhythm the last four weeks, more us. That identity was one that was very good for us last year, and we've been operating pretty good with that the last month.

We didn't have a set number of pass plays, but we did create an inventory we could pull from each week.

When I was finished after the 1993 season, there was something missing. After being involved with it for so long, when Saturday and Sunday rolled around and football was going on and you weren't involved, there was a void there.

Whenever he is in there, he is a threat and you never know what he is going to do. That gives you more of an element of unpredictability.

We knew that on the second play -- because of the way they played it last time -- we'd have a chance. We'd fake the (run). We thought (safety Mike Doss) might run past the guy, and that's what happened.

When you have a different receiver every day, there's timing issues involved. The thing I've been most pleased with is, a lot of times, we're just missing (on pass attempts). Ben's getting it to the right spot, so hopefully, it's just a timing issue with all the different guys out there.

We've been pleased with what we've seen in some of our pass-catchers, ... I think, once they all get their timing down, we have a chance to make some plays in the passing game. Ben is working well with those guys.

We've had a couple situations in a game where we wanted to get him the ball. But, for whatever reason, the coverage hasn't worked out right and we've had to throw the check-down or we got blitzed on the play.

We've had a couple situations in a game where we wanted to get him the ball, ... But, for whatever reason, the coverage hasn't worked out right and we've had to throw the check-down or we got blitzed on the play.

We'll have to evaluate that based on Jerome's injury and after we've looked at the tape.

We almost called that play once or twice earlier in the game. But the spot we were at on the field was what we had targeted would be a good spot for us to do it.

To me, his history has been that he shows up on game day and he plays very well. That's all I can judge it by. He made some good throws, he made some plays and moved in the pocket.

What Ben saw was good, ... He trusted it, which is what you want him to do. And then I told him, 'You just gotta trust your guy to make a play.'

We sit in the room as a staff, everybody has input, we have our arguments, we have our fights.

We had the protection and we felt good that the protection was going to hold up. It was funny because we ran it in practice the other day and it worked almost exactly like that.

We felt good about the line going into the season. Then we had some problems.

Bill said, 'You know what, this is a one-game season from now on. That's the mentality we played with. Leave nothing in the bag.

Early in the week, you kind of lose your sense of perception. It was nice (Wednesday) to get back on the football field and gear back into what's important. In season, you get into such a routine. All of a sudden that changes.

There's only one job out there right now.

The timing was just a little bit off. He still had a little residual soreness. But he took all the snaps today.

The running game is always going to be important for us. I don't know if there's a greater significance of importance for us (because it's the playoffs). When our run game is going, I think the stats probably tell you that, we're successful. We do still have to throw the ball. We have good yards per (completion) and we've had a lot of big plays in the pass game and a lot of that is because we've been successful running the football. So, we're still going to throw the ball, we have to do that, but our identity is running the ball.

It was weird because usually with teams that have had a pass rush we've always been pretty solid in our protection, ... Our line does a good job. It's unfortunate, but we didn't play our best game. We have some things we can work on. We'll work on those things and we'll be better next time we play.

The thing that was exciting to see was how tough a runner he was inside.

(Our) thinking was since they (Colts) had all of their time outs, taking knees would give the ball back to them. Besides, how often does Jerome fumble the ball? Almost never. It was just a crazy thing.

Coach and I talked about that at the end of the preseason and he was concerned about where we were from passing game standpoint.

You're going to have days that aren't your best days at quarterback, no matter who you are,

You never know when he's going to snap the ball. If you're trying to disguise and he quick-snaps you, you're caught out of place.

They have been sitting through the meetings all year long so I don't think so. They've been involved in it all year long so it shouldn't be a problem.

Absolutely. I think it's a combination of just being comfortable with the system and trusting the guys. We've had some success with some things.

It's a good thing that he wants to play,

That's something that grows over time. We're developing that here, certainly, but it takes time.

That's a big sign of what the really good quarterbacks do.

Everyone says he's fast. I wish he'd score instead of getting run out of bounds. I'm waiting to see that 'fast' from Willie. But he does give you that element.

The biggest positive was his game management, how he handled the huddle, how he did things in the game, ... Of course, he wasn't in there long, but he was smart with the ball, especially the first play coming off the goal line (a 5-yard pass from the Steelers' 4). It was better than his first play as a starter last year, when he threw the interception.

Nothing replaced the competitiveness, what you feel after a game like the Cincinnati game. I started to miss that on Saturdays and Sundays. After so many years of playing, you had that void. I didn't know I was going to enjoy coaching until I got into it.

It was not at the point where that was going to happen. But after meeting with Mr. Davis and Mike Lombardi, I felt good about where we stood.

It went right out my mouth, and it's still up in the booth.

Once I got into it, I knew that's what I wanted to do. It's very exciting to see success for your players as a coach. But I don't think there is anything quite like being a player, physically working so hard and having success on the field.

I'm honored to be considered for that job, but I've been so focused on getting to this game and winning this game that that's been on the back burner. If something comes up, we'll just have to wait and see.

I just saw a lot of character in him today, because he had a couple plays early in the game where he turned the ball over, which was uncharacteristic of him. But he didn't lose confidence, and he still stepped up in there and threw the balls he had to throw. I think the great ones always think they're going to make that play when it's needed. I certainly think he does.

Inventive? Oh, yes. You'll see some of the plays he comes up with. He did some things that were, let's say, not normal.

I had a great visit with Mr. Davis, and I'm grateful for the opportunity. I just realized that I wanted to stay in Pittsburgh.

He throws the ball on the move as well as anybody I've ever seen. That's two touchdowns he's had this year on the same kind of throw. And he hit Hines in stride ? it's incredible.

He's won a lot of games here as a starter for us. Certainly, we'd like to play better. It's disappointing we didn't play better than that in our game. Thankfully, it's only the third game and we have lot more games to go.

I don't think he's a guy who enjoys it that much. But he's handled the whole thing well. A lot of that has to do with how he was brought up. Small town. Good family values. He's more interested in hanging with the guys and playing football.

He's in so many different places. You have to make sure you're protected, scheme-wise.

I could lay it out for you, play by play, ... but a lot of it was just getting lucky and catching them in the right thing. They run a zone blitz, you can catch them inside, they blitz, with man coverage behind it, you can catch them with the toss.

He came here with a good idea of how to block. It's actually been surprising how well he's done with that aspect of the game.

You can't take away his ability to create when he gets out of the pocket,

You can't point the finger at that. There were a lot of factors involved with that game. We certainly weren't giving him a lot of time to throw the ball at times.

The ideal scenario is what we have been doing for the past couple of weeks. For us, we have been so little pass that it seems like when we go 50-50 run and pass, it makes it look like we are really airing it out.

The guy won 13 or 14 games for us, so obviously, your confidence level in him is much higher. He's been so diligent in how he's prepared and how he's studied. If there's a route we want to put in, he now understands the concept, and it can be successful. That's the exciting part.