Ryan Clark Press Conference Transcript Thursday February 3rd Super Bowl XLV
QUOTES FROM PITTSBURGH STEELERS PRESS CONFERENCE
SAFETY RYAN CLARK
(on the media) “You guys have stick-to-itiveness. You know who was going to be in this game for two weeks, you must have no more questions. There is nothing that we haven’t answered.”
(on the Steelers having multiple players from Louisiana) “It’s an amazing accomplishment for a state that is smaller in area. We have a lot of guys in the league right now. You look at this team; we drafted two guys in the same draft from the same high school in Mike Wallace and Keenan Lewis. Ike Taylor is doing excellent things too. We are definitely proud that we are from there.”
(on Mike Wallace’s speed) “The only thing that allow people to cover him are under-thrown balls. If it’s thrown out there and he has to go get it, I think he wins every time. I believe that Sam Shields from Green Bay is an extremely fast football player and he may be. He is not fast like Mike. It’s amazing to see [Wallace] run eight go routes and practice and by the eighth one, he’s still flying. I cover him at camp, line up 20-yards away and when they call hike, I just start running. At least I’ll be over the top. Both of these teams have extremely talented receivers such as run after the catch guys, but when we are talking fast-track and who benefits more, it’s number 17.”
(on being confident that the CBA will be signed by March) “No. It seems like everyone is only talking about the 18-game issue. That’s the only issue that they’re bringing to the press because it is a ‘sexy’ issue. It’s good stuff to talk about. Health care isn’t good to talk about; fund for former players isn’t fun to talk about on television. If the 18-game season was the only problem that we had, it would get done. There are so many other things that are going into it. There have been rumors of a rookie wage scale. There are just so many things that the CBA covers.”
(on Packers RB James Starks) “The good thing about running backs is that when they get the ball, it’s simple. You want to hit them as hard as you can, hope he falls. If not, hope Troy [Polamalu] tackles him. [Starks] is running like a guy that hasn’t been playing football for a long time. He is truly playing football at a high level and changed their team.”
(on the play of Troy Polamalu) “He’s still humble and pretty quiet. When he gets an interception, he doesn’t let us congratulate him. Casey Hampton tried to congratulate him by jumping on him and [Troy] moved. Casey fell, that’s a lot of man falling to the ground. The biggest thing is that he plays the game with such high intelligence and football IQ. A lot of times, people think Troy is wildcatting, leaving zones and vacating. He has a responsibility in the defense and he does that responsibility. He just does it better than other people can.”
