Antonio Pierce Speaks
Do you look at this as an opportunity to put some separation between you and Dallas?
I think it is just an opportunity for us to get ahead of everybody else. Our second division game, we can be 2-0, obviously the Redskins and the other teams in our division have played two or three games, so for us we actually need catch up with those guys. We are excited about those guys coming in and are ready to play.
This is not the Dallas team that started the season?
Why not? They are still the Dallas Cowboys.
They are a little nicked-up?
Everybody is nicked-up. We have guys that are nicked-up. I have a D-tackle playing with two broken hands so that is no excuse. They are not going to use it as an excuse so we are not going to use it as an excuse. All we know is they are going to have 53 men coming into this stadium, 11 will be out there on offense, 11 will be on defense, and we are going to play football.
How fired-up do you get for these games?
It is going to be huge. I am pretty sure our fans are going to be excited. This needs to be a playoff atmosphere for us because the team we faced last week, the Pittsburgh Steelers, that is how their home crowd took it. I expect our fans to go out there and make it a wild house and make it a fun game for everybody.
How accurate is the ‘they hate us, we hate them’ idea?
Everybody hates everybody in this league, so it is nothing new. Obviously when you face a team like we faced them three times in a six month period a rivalry starts to build. Now obviously in the last four or five years this rivalry has got even more intense as far as being competitive against one another. It is one of those divisional games where it is going to be black and blue, you are going to be sore and tired afterwards, and the team that is the toughest and most physical will win.
You guys are big favorites in this game?
We could care less about Vegas. I can’t bet on the games so it has nothing to do for me.
Are you still bothered by the fact that they got the attention for the Pro Bowl last year and you guys got snubbed?
From a personal standpoint, of course. You play this game for a lot of reasons, obviously number one is to win the Super Bowl, then you have your personal goals which is the Pro Bowl and the etcetera awards afterwards so I think the guys on this team just looked at it and laughed. It is kind of funny because going into this year the Cowboys were the favorite to win everything and now they lost a game or two here and the quarterback is hurt and now they are a team that is down by 10 points or more or whatever. We don’t look into all that, we don’t buy into it, and I expect the best from the Cowboys. That is a team that beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last week, who I think is a very good team.
Do you think people are starting to recognize this team more?
Probably. Obviously our record would speak that for us. I think if you just watch us play you will see guys that are going out there individually and as a team playing very well. We need to keep that going, it is early in the season, we are talking about the midpoint, so it is kind of early to say that. We don’t know how this thing is going to turn out in the last month or two so yes, we would like to be the all-pro team, but at the same time we like being the world champions and at the end of the day that is a better ring than anything else.
Marion Barber is not going to be worried about their team being nicked-up when he is running at you?
That is my point so that is why I said I don’t know what all this hype is about the Cowboys not being a good team. They still have Marion Barber, all their offensive linemen are there except for one, big and physical, they still have T.O., they got Roy Williams, I mean the team is loaded so for all these excuses that everybody is trying to come up with for this team there are no excuses and we are not going to have any excuses for them.
So when someone is down you have to keep them down?
They are not down. They won a big game last week against Tampa Bay, like I said. For us it is about not worrying about what everybody else has done, not worrying about what anybody is saying about the Dallas Cowboys, knowing that they beat us twice in the regular season last year, so we don’t need to let that happen again.
Doesn’t it figure that after winning the Super Bowl that finally you are going to have to get the recognition to send some guys to the Pro Bowl?
It is funny because in ’05 we would have had eight guys if one guy would have been able to go from injury, and then the next year I think we had two or three guys so obviously you win and you are playing well in the regular season a lot of guys get attention, the head coach, everybody. For us, as long as we keep winning, all those things will take care of themselves I hope at the end of the day. Our defense is playing well so sometimes it is hard to look at statistics and say, ‘man the guy doesn’t have that many tackles or that many sacks,’ but look how many plays we are playing a game. I think we are averaging like 50 a game now so… it takes a lot of things to play in the Pro Bowl. Obviously you have to have some fans behind you, you have to have some people that want to vote for you.
Do you think even here they will recognize you guys?
Yeah. I am pretty sure the fans in New York want to see…
I mean the nation, the perception that this is a blue collar locker room with a bunch of no-names…?
Hold on, hold on. I didn’t say anything about no-names. I just said we don’t get the respect that other people get. We have names, it is just some people want to have bigger names or they get more credit. For us, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter, I want some more hardware and we are working on the season to get there, hopefully win the division, get to the playoffs, and keep on going.
Is it a more physical game when these two teams face each other?
Yeah, obviously. Like I said, they won the division, they have been one of the better teams the last two years in the NFL, we pride ourselves on being physical and tough and they do too. One of the biggest offensive lines in the league, a running back who runs kind of like our guys, so it is tough. After those games you are very sore and very fatigued.
So it wouldn’t matter what their record was when they come in to play you?
Why not? This is our division, these are our rivals, these are the guys you see every year and you have to hear about, when you watch film you see the Cowboys. We haven’t played them, but I have seen them on film numerous times already. Obviously they are playing the same divisional opponents throughout the league that we are playing so we see them on film. Again, it doesn’t get any better than when the Cowboys come to town. Obviously they have been titled America’s Team and they are coming to the Big Apple so it should be fun.
