The biggest topic of conversation was, of course, the Whitworth-Henderson fight. Seems it really meant a lot to the Bengals, because just yesterday Whitworth called the team together and said nobody's going to push them around without a fight. Well, he walked the walk on Sunday.
And so did the team. There's more on that later, and I'll put up a link.
One of the oddest things was hearing the Who Dey chant as we were waiting for the post-game news confernece with Marvin Lewis. Who dey? Apparently eight other teams, but not the Jaguars.
Anyway, Chinedum Ndukwe was asked about the Who Dey chant:
""It's been a while, huh? You almost forget the words. That felt good. This is what our goals have been since day one, to win ballgames. This is what it's all about, this feeling. When you put all of your hard work and effort into something and you're not seeing the fruits of your labors, it's frustrating. But it was good today."
From others...
Marvin Lewis:
"The outcome is great, although we do have a way of keeping it interesting."
On the Whitworth-Henderson fight: "All I saw was him grab Andrew from behind. I didn't se anything after that. Unfortuantely Andrew retaliated and they both had to go. The hard thing there, and the thing you have to do as a professional football player, is walk away. There is no retaliation on an NFL football field. You have to walk away. Let him get the penalty, let him get kicked out of hte game. It would be first down for us with the ball on their 20-yard line as opposed to third down. We didn't come out of that one very well."
"The instinct is that you're a proefessional football player and you've been doing this all your life. It hasn't changed from high school and it hasn't changed from Pop Warner. If you've ever played football, you would understand that that doesn't change."
On Chad Ocho Cinco's kiss: "That's his way to tell me to relax"
Does it work? "No, it doesn't work. Obviously."
On the win: "It's good. We've been getting our head kicked in publicly. I think these guys will feel good and get some time out of here a little later in the week and able ot get refreshed because they've worked extremely hard. They haven't backed up on working, how to work and what to do. Hopefully this will be a stepping stone to understand that you have to keep hammering and hammering, and eventually that stone will break."
Jack Del Rio
"I saw what appeared to be a hold in the backfield, which was called. Then I saw two guys lose their cool and draw unsportsmalike penalties, and they both got ejected. That's really all I know. I don't know who started what, or what gave one guy the thought of going after the other guy. I don't know. Clearly you need to be able to keep your composure and not hurt the team. We had achacnce to pick up an unsportsmanlike and a hold on them and we were unable to take advantage of it. We'd like to do better."
"What I'm telling you is the execution is what it boils down to. It's not a matter of a guy wanting to, or pouring out energy. If you're not doing it well, then it deteriorates. It's a confidence thing. You do it well, you do it fast, you do it together and it builds confdience. You put together minus-one and hten minus-two, then the quarterback is getting knocked down and sacked, and the ball comes out early and good things happen. But that's not happening frequently enough."
Andrew Whitworth
"It all started from the play before. The play before, I blocked him and I was on the ground and he came and swung at me in the helmet and it was just a blatant punch and Levi (Jones) started screaming at the refs to throw something. Then when I stood up, he kind of jabbed me in the face and I went back and Levi’s screaming and the ref still didn’t call anything."
"Then the next play happened, he swam to the outside and I pushed him and as he was falling, he ripped at my helmet and ripped it off, so I turned to go back to the play and the next thing I know I have two fingers in my eyeballs and I tried to defend myself from there."
Marvin says you don't fight back, but, well, you do, don't you? "That’s what I’m saying, I don’t know how the NFL is going to rule it and you can say I was wrong for defending myself, but at some point, as a professional athlete, I can’t let some guy dig my eyeballs out of my face. I don’t care what the situation is, I’ll argue that to the end. There’s nothing I can do but defend myself in that situation."
More to come from Whitworth and that whole situation later.... Look for a link
Chinedum Ndukwe
"It's great, and it bodes well for the next couple games and the future of this team. We still have a lot of young guys. We're probably not going to go to the playoffs, but I think the character of the guys is coming out. We're going to compete and fight no matter what the circumstance is, and that's what we did today."
Leon Hall
"To be honest, I think we have felt that way every week -- that we can beat anybody with as much talent as we have. We just have to go out there and play. It's just a matter of us going out there and executing, and today I think we did a lot better."
Chad Ocho Cinco
"Forget the (two) touchdowns. We got the W. Fitz is coming into his own and looking more comfortable, and we had a good day. It wasn't a perfect day, but it was a day that was good enough for us to win."
On Whitworth-Henderson: "I thought it was cool. It was like UFC, two big individuals. It wasn't about them fighting. I just wanted to know who in the world was going to go in and break that up."
Cedric Benson
"It feels great getting myf irst 100-yard game of the year. i can't say enough about the guys up front taking control of the game and etting the tempo. The defense gave us a chance to be on the field a lot more and played great. (Bob Bratkowski) was calling the runs, we were executing them and the offensive line did a great job of leading the way."
What were you thinking about the fight: "I was thinking I better stay out of the way."
Ryan Fitzpatrick
"Relief is one of the biggest words, especially with how hard we worked. We haven't given up. We're still playing hard, we're still practicing hard every week, and to see no results week in and week out (thus far has been) a tough thing. It is tough to win in the NFL and I think that we felt that this year, obviously. Any time you can get a win, no matter how it comes, you have to savor it and you have ot be happy about it. Today it was a team effort and it just feels great to get that out of the way."
"I think it's (the coaches) knowing me better and me knowing them better, in terms of my style of play. I thought we did some good things in the first half that helped us keep drives alive. I felt really comfortable in the first half, and I think it showed with the two touchdown drives that we had. Hopefully Carson gets healthy, but if not, I hope things continue to roll in terms of the coaches' comfort level with me."
On the missed connection with Chad: "Yes, I just overthrew the ball. Chad made a great move, outran the defender, and it was just a ball that was overthrown. I was even more nervous on the sideline after that, having had a chance to put the game away on that third down. But the defense stepped up, we got the win, and we're ecstatic about it."
