Dick LeBeau Quotations

Make no mistake, they've got a great quarterback. It's not easy to hold him under 20. Our guys did that and it gives you a great chance to win. It was the execution of our players. They did a great job with their timing.

Nobody remembers who loses the Super Bowl. Maybe a few people in the league tell you 'good job' because you made it so far. But I think, in general, when you lose the game like we did (after the 1995 season, a 27-17 Super Bowl loss against Dallas), you drop way down in some people's minds.

He had a couple (of) injuries early in his career that kept him from growing at a normal pace. But soon as he stayed healthy, which he has, he just really became a fine defensive lineman.

He looked like he was 100 percent to me. They said he's 90 percent. If he's got more than that, he's pretty good.

There is a finite number of blitzes you can come up with. But it?s sort of like music. There?s a finite number of tunes, but we probably haven?t come close to exhausting them all yet.

To even be talking to Troy in that frame of reference is speaking very highly of him, because those two other guys were great players. I began to see a lot of the things that they did that Troy could do, and I think Troy has a ways to go.

He runs real, real fast. And he's very instinctive. He just can diagnose and get to the right spot.

He's a lot faster runner than you would think for a man of his dimensions. But his real strength of course is anchoring and inverting the line of scrimmage and letting us play around him.

Our guys did a great job with their disguising and their timing.

Our coaches were good to us. They treated it more as a bonus for us. We didn't work too hard and we got some time off.

Troy's got that rare ability to play at all levels of the defense - deep, intermediate, at the line and blitz. Those people just don't come along every day.

We were able to take away the big play. They've got a great running back and an tremendous quarterback, and they were able to move the ball on us. But we were able to get things straight for the second half.

You can just do more with the 3-4 (than the 4-3). If there's any advantage, there's not as many 3-4 teams in the league right now and that gives us maybe a slight advantage. They don't play against it every week.

We always know where he's going. But I'm not always sure how he's going to get there.

The statistics will tell you that: They scored more points. That's usually a pretty good barometer for the effect that the rule changes had on the game for that year. The numbers, in this case, don't lie.

As a defense, we didn't play very well in (the AFC Championship game) and that's going to be in the front of our minds, for sure.

They don?t hold the ball very long. It?s out of there quickly.

They do a good job of protecting the quarterback. So I thought instead of beating our head against the wall, we'd let our guys drop back and play some max-coverage. I thought they did a good job of that.

All quarterbacks have to have time and space to operate. We'll do the same thing we always do: play zone pressure. And our guys play it very well.

It's a nice even number, isn't it? When I reached 30 years, I didn't think about 50. But we're a little closer to 50 now. So we'll see. I'll take it one snap at a time.

I try to stay out of Troy's way. We establish parameters for him, and he has to be at a certain place at a certain time.

In his unique way, I think he creates not any better than those guys but in a different manner.

I haven't changed a bit over the years. I have tried to learn from all these people and have tried to dissect what makes them so successful. What is it that made them better teachers, better communicators?

He's similar to those guys in that he has good size and speed and can really run, yet he can blitz, too. I think he enjoys playing in our system, just like they did.

He's very quick, and he can make plays with his feet and his arm. He is also very accurate, and his ability to escape adds to his overall package.

He's a rare threat. We've had Carnell Lake and Rod Woodson do similar things, but players like that don't come down the road too often. Troy is special.

He's not like any other safety I have ever seen.