Steve Hutchinson Quotations

We're really coming into our own. But that's what happens when you've been together four or five years. The entire offense is trying to take our game to the next level.

What we did do in that game was to find out what worked and what didn't. I'm sure we will try to utilize some of that stuff.

Nobody gave up. That's the difference between this team and teams from the past. We are not going to accept 'no.' We did not play anywhere near our best game. The defense played their butts off for the entire night against a very good offense, and we struggled a little bit. We covered for each other, and that's what a team does.

Frankly, we get sick of hearing it. You'd think we'd earned respect. All we can do is keep winning.

What else is he supposed to say, 'We're going to try and lose? Every player is supposed to think his team is going to win.

When he said it, everybody wanted to scream. But nobody had the energy and it took a couple of minutes to sink in.

Going into the playoffs, the so-called experts said that there were 12 teams in the playoffs and out of everyone, we had the worst defense. Well, you can't play any better than that, can you?

He's been thrown into the fire. It was the lowest of the lows. In my rookie year, he was getting booed off the field. Of anybody, I'm proudest of Matt.

He was the best man at my wedding.

He lets it be known what he's thinking, and yeah, sometimes his opinions get on your nerves. Sometimes I want to beat him, but that would look bad, because you're not supposed to beat the elderly.

I talk to him every week. He was my best man in my wedding. Yeah, I talk to him a bunch.

I think that reflects the whole offense. We just knew that once we got down there, with their type of weapons, we can't just settle for field goals.

I think the entire offense is really trying to take our game to the next level. Every position, every guy on the offense. I think we're starting to see it pay off on Sundays.

I think we're all kind of hoping for it. But we all kind of had it in our head this is going to be a long week.

Pittsburgh has the tradition of being a blue-collar, three yards and a cloud of dust team. I can appreciate that, coming from a Big Ten school. But I don't think many people know much about us. And that's not a bad thing, flying under the radar. But you can't play in this league without being physical.

My wife loves the area. I love the guys on the team. We've gotten pretty comfortable calling it home.

I think I'm more excited about it than he is because he's now a rookie. When he gets to Hawaii, he's a Pro Bowl rookie.

That would be kind of funny. I guess it would be kind of an honor, too. But at the same time, you hear guys saying, 'I want that long-term deal,' because of the security.

I wasn't really anticipating it to be as big of a controversy. I knew about the clause. I knew it would be hard for Seattle to match. I did what I thought was best for me and my family.

We've gotten to where we just flow with the play. But that's going to be tested this week.

We found a way to win. The last couple years, in close games, we'd find a way to lose.

Walt never gets in a position where he's off balance. He takes pride in what he does and wants to win every play.

Walter is undoubtedly one of, if not the top, offensive lineman in the league. We've played next to each other for five years now, and the continuity we have and the bond we've formed, that's been key.

Walter is undoubtedly one of, if not the top, offensive lineman in the league.

We were kind of shocked. We didn't know what happened. It felt like we rear-ended someone at 10 mph, but there was no car in front of us. It was kind of weird.

We're just as proud of it as Shaun is.

We'd been hearing that our team had the worst defense of the 12 teams that made the playoffs. They proved people wrong today. Can you play any better than that?

Up until (Friday), everything was about me being new, the poison pill, the contract and what the league wants to do to amend the rule or whatever. Now it is back to football and putting on a helmet and being able to play. You can kind of put that behind you, so it's nice.

This team is really coming together, making plays for each other.

We kind of knocked the rust off a little bit. We had a light practice, meetings, got back into it a little bit and tried to get back in a normal schedule. (Monday) was a good start for us.

Even though we really don't see each other as much as we'd like, we talk a lot, probably once a week. We helped each other out as a rookie: 'What are you seeing? What's going on here?' You're a little intimidated and you don't want to ask the veterans on your own team questions. We kind of tried to help each other out that way.

I've been blessed. I pride myself on my motivation.

You really don't need it (then). This year, it's kind of smack dab in the middle, which is nice. You can really take advantage of it. You can really use the rest.

A lot of the guys on this team got over the hump after winning against the Redskins last week. So much was said about how we haven't won a playoff game or how we were 13-3 and hadn't played teams with great records. Our defense is probably the worst rated of the 12 teams in the playoffs. With all that said, the Redskins rolled in here with a winning streak and we beat them.

They had a lot of guys in the box. It was like beating your head against the wall.

It was special. An offensive lineman doesn't really have stats for himself, so any time you can get the rushing record or a touchdown record like that it's big for us, too.

It's a fairly young franchise. And it really hasn't had much postseason success prior to this year. Everybody was talking about it. That seemed to be the big news. The ('83) team reached the conference championship. I was 7, 8 years old then.

Everybody is kind of playing for each other and when Shaun got his 27th touchdown and tied the record, his first thing was to come over to the line and kind of thank us. It just kind of shows how this team is a little different.

It wasn't a big deal at all. I don't think we were going fast enough for (the seat belts) to matter. But I know we're going to need a different car.

They were prepared to stop that today, and we caught them with the outside stuff.

They were one of the most physical teams I've ever played against. It was a big scrap in there.

Once they find something that works well they continued to blitz us.

It's not a big secret that we like to run left. Because of that, other teams are going to overload to that side. But Shaun can see that and make the defense pay by cutting it back. Shaun single-handedly a lot of times will force the defense to play it honestly because of the cutback.

In this league really, it's hard to run the ball like that. When you have a good running game, you end up with 120 yards in this league and you're happy.

I just got a little sick of hearing about we couldn't beat them. I mean, we're out here with a 13-3 record and people keep doubting us.

His first thing was to come over to the line and kind of thank us. It just shows you how this team is a little different.

I don't know if you can play any better than that against an explosive offense.

Hopefully some of the teams that aren't use to playing in cold and rainy weather have to come out here in the middle to end of January.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: This is something that's way overdue for this city.

He's now the rookie. The veterans over there have a tendency to find your room number and send the lunch bills to that room.

He played hard, played fast, really came off the ball. I think he's going to be a good player in this league.

All year long, we've heard why we shouldn't be able to do this or that. Finally, we got sick of hearing it. As an organization, we had to go out and earn our respect.