Gary Kubiak's Monday Presser: More On Antonio Smith, Andre Johnson, And Why Wade Phillips Should Be Canonized

Alright, I may have made up that last part. Gary Kubiak didn't actually say that Wade Phillips should be canonized. I just wrote that so the headline would grab you. William Randolph Hearst would be proud.

Shameless yellow journalism aside, some of the most interesting quotes from Kubes' presser this afternoon are after the jump.

(on if DE Antonio Smith had an MRI today) "Yeah, he’s fine. He’s just got a banged up shoulder. He did take a shot going into the second half. I think he played eight or nine plays in the second half. Really, really sore today, he did not work out with the team. He stayed inside, but knowing Antonio, he’ll be ready to go. He just may miss some time this week in practice."

(on WR Andre Johnson) "He worked out today. The workout went very good. Will he be on the practice field Wednesday? I don’t know. We’re going to take it a day at a time, but we’re back on the track to Andre getting back on the field here very, very quickly. Hopefully that’s this week, but I don’t know. We’ll see, but he’s very upbeat, went through a tough little few days there the week before, but now we’ve come out of this thing fine and he’s back on track."

(on what defensive coordinator Wade Phillips does successfully) "Well going against Wade for years as an offensive coach, he does a hell of a job of busting protections. Without me getting into a long deal, being able to bust people’s protection schemes and get heat on the quarterback is the key in this League. It’s what we face offensively. He does an excellent job of that. Us getting after the quarterback and the job that we’re doing on the back end right now getting Johnathan Joseph I think has really been a key to our success so far. Some people have tried to run the ball on us. Yesterday we stepped up and stopped the run too. I just think it starts with the pressure that we’re able to get on the quarterback and he does a lot of things and our guys have responded and done a good job of learning it at a very quick pace."

(on what worries him about the Buccaneers) "Well the first thing that’s jumped at me, they’ve played some good people. They’ve played the Saints twice already. They got beat by Detroit on opening day. San Francisco’s 7-1, so you got to look at this football team sitting there 4-4, but they’ve played a very tough schedule. A big quarterback, makes a lot of plays. They’ve come back on some football teams. They battle for four quarters. It’s always been a tough place to play when I’ve been in the League. We know we’ll get their best. They’re coming off a tough division game last weekend and like I said yesterday, everything’s going to get tougher. The games will get bigger. Everything will get a little tougher on everybody, so we just got to continue to raise our level of play."