In 1985, Chicag Bears LB Wilber Marshall coma-tized Joe Ferguson with the most vicious hit I've ever seen. Tonight I'm looking forward to Briggs doing the same to Stafford.
Joker Phillips met with the media Wednesday after practice for the second time this week. He offered a frank assessment of his team's Tuesday practice, offered a couple funny one-liners in regard to the feud between Jared Lorenzen and Brent Pease and more. You can see the transcript of his comments below:
Opening statement
Was it bad because of a hangover from the loss?
I think it was bad because we had a lot of backups in roles that weren't used to playing with some of the guys beside them. It can't happen though, regardless of why or how it did. It cannot happen.
Can you go down the injury report?
CoShik (Williams) is really doubtful. Cartier (Rice) is day-to-day. Gabe Correll is out, and Josh Forrest is out.
How about your offensive linemen?
They should be fine. They'll practice tomorrow: (Matt) Smith and (Darrian) Miller.
Does Smith have an ankle injury?
It was an ankle after the game. Now it became a toe. How that happens, I don't know.
Were you playing so many backups in practice because you're still looking for new faces?
No. The other day some guys were banged up. It's the first day back, and some guys were banged up. We sat them to give those guys a blow. Also, it gives you a chance to bring some of those backups along. Somewhere down the line, those guys will have to play for you.
You've talked about playing freshmen early so their first action didn't come in a situation where you were forced to play them on the road. Do you think the freshmen who will play this weekend are ready?
That's the reason why we've played them. That's the reason we've played (Fred) Tiller and the reason why we played (J. D.) Harmon because of that. We've been through this a few times where we've had to get caught in the game, one the road in a SEC environment. Now you've got to put a freshman out there for the first time. We didn't want to get caught in that. Those guys have gotten some reps. Again, it will still be different for them. But at least they have a little comfort with being in games.
Is your experience seeing guys like that wide-eyed and shell-shocked in those atmospheres?
What I've seen from those guys that now have been thrown in there and had to play is you see them prepare a little bit different. I've said that. If you saw Max (Smith) last year as a freshman, how he prepared, there was one game where we didn't know if Morgan (Newton) was going to be able to go back into the game at halftime (Smith) is over there looking at his playbook. It's too late. It's too late to be looking at your playbook at halftime. You've seen guys prepare a little bit different and those type of things. Guys practice a little bit different when you've gotten some reps in games. It definitely helps to get a taste of it. No doubt about that.
What do you make of the feud between former UK quarterback Jared Lorenzen and Florida offensive coordinator Brent Pease? Have you heard about this?
No, I haven't.
Pease says he wants to hang 50 on you guys because of Lorenzen's comments?
He did? Tell Jared to shut the hell up. (Laughter). Nah. That's there business. Tell Pease that Jared is sorry, OK. I'll apologize for him.
What's your first memory of "the swamp?"
My first memory? As a player, I guess my first time as a player was going down, we had Wilber Marshall. My first memory is George Adams catching the ball on the kickoff on the sideline and juking and jiving and stepping out of bounds right before they hit him. My memory is kind of jarred because I was called to run a crack-back on Wilber Marshall three times in a row. First one successful, last two that's the reason why I'm 5-foot-9. That was supposed to be funny.
What do you remember about 2004 game where you traveled to Alabama after losing to Ohio?
What do I remember? It's a little similar. Again, you've got to regroup and get a young team ready to go play in a hostile environment. That's my memory. Down and out, then you come in on Tuesday and you've got to go back to work. I can't remember the outcome of the Alabama game. You've kind of researched all the scores lately, so what was the outcome? I know we didn't win. How did we play?
I think it was 47-18.
We scored 18. That was good then, scoring 18.
You talk about need to improve tacking, but when you have so many young guys how much time do you have to spend on fundamentals in practice?
It's hard to practice tackling this time of the year. You want to try to stay up as much as you possibly can. We're not a good tackling team right now. We're not. A lot of it has to do with youth, but even some of our older guys are not real good tackling guys. We've got to continue to stress it. A lot of it is staying up off the ground. Running your feet and all those things, but take the fundamentals of tackling: wrapping up, running your feet. We talk about playing with balance, and a lot of times when you miss tackles you're out of balance. Your feet are behind you, your head is down and those type of things. You have no balance. Those are the things we've got to stress now, this time of the year. It's hard to go into full-speed tackling drills. We have about a three- or four-minute period that we do a three-on-three period, but after that it's really not much tackling. It's all thud drills.
What is the level of athleticism your team is about to faced compared to what you've seen so far?
This team is a lot more explosive in terms of speed and power. I watched No. 8, who is their wildcat guy and really doesn't touch the ball a lot. He touched it three times against Tennessee and outran their whole defense for 80 yards on one of the wildcat plays, then about 20-something yards on another play. They got a lot of speed and size. He's not a little guy by any means. Then on the outside, they've got big-time speed. The tailback has speed. The receivers have speed. They look like Florida of old, they do. They've got a lot of speed at every position. I thought last year the two positions that were noticeable were (Bobby) Rainey and (Jeff) Demps, and you thought nobody else really showed up. The reason why is they got the ball to Rainey and Demps every play. These other guys, they're now starting to get their touches and you're starting to see the type of speed they have.
Who do you hold most accountable for difficulty stopping the run?
Everybody. When they're rushing for 200-plus on you, that's not just the defensive line. They've had some big plays on us also. The second and third line defense has to be there also to stop that.
On third-down issues…
Third down, a lot of that goes back to tackling. We've had guys in the hole and they drop their head, not run your feet, be out of balance and not make the play. The thing you have to do…I think we're last in the league in third-down defense. The thing that's helped us a little bit in that is we're No. 1 in third-down offense. What's hurt us in that is the turnovers and having our defense have to play too many plays. We've got to get better, no doubt about that, on third down.
Wilber Marshall, Otis WIlson, and Mike Singletary — the ferocious linebacking squad from the '85 Bears. How do you get three of the baddest men in football into Bermuda shorts? Well that's something that only happens in the eighties.
Check out the rest of Sports Illustrated's entertaining gallery of sports posters from the '80s.
