Inside The NFL Quotage From Its Super Bowl Edition

The Super Bowl edition of Inside the NFL debuted Wednesday on Showtime. If you missed the premiere, there will be replays throughout the weekend leading up to the game.

On this week’s edition, New York Giants defensive end Justin Tuck and New England Patriots wide receiver Deion Branch made guest appearances and answered questions from the Inside the NFL crew.

We have the quotage for you below.

ON INSIDE THE NFL ON SHOWTIME^®

SUPER BOWL SPECIAL EDITION INCLUDING INTERVIEWS WITH NEW YORK GIANTS JUSTIN TUCK AND NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS DEION BRANCH PLUS ATLANTA’S TONY GONZALEZ AND JIM ROME

INDIANAPOLIS (Feb. 1, 2012) – Prior to their Super Bowl XLVI showdown, New York Giants defensive end Justin Tuck and New England Patriots wide receiver Deion Branch sit down for interviews with James Brown, Phil Simms, Cris Collinsworth, and Warren Sapp on this week’s edition of INSIDE THE NFL.

Plus Atlanta Falcons Tony Gonzalez joins INSIDE THE NFL to give an on-field tight end demonstration, and the newest member of the CBS and SHOWTIME family, Jim Rome, joins to give his unique insight into this weekend’s Super Bowl in Indianapolis.

INSIDE THE NFL, now in its 33^rd season, airs every Wednesday night through the NFL season on SHOWTIME for a total of 23 episodes, with multiple replays each week on SHOWTIME and SHOWTIME EXTREME^® and availability on SHOWTIME On Demand. INSIDE THE NFL is produced by CBS Sports and NFL Films. The executive producers are CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus and NFL Films President Steve Sabol. Pete Radovich Jr., the Emmy Award-winning Creative Director for CBS Sports, serves as coordinating producer.

Following are excerpts from this week’s episode:

Tuck on rushing Tom Brady…
TUCK: You’ve got to be in his face. Some quarterbacks you don’t really care where the rush comes from. But with a guy like Tom, if you allow him to step up and step up into his throws, you’re going to have a long night. And I think that’s why it’s so important for our front four and particularly our defensive tackles, getting people right in his face so he has to be mobile in the pocket. That’s not his strength. When he is able to step up he is deadly. We’ve got some things in that hopefully can knock him off his point and make him be a little bit more of an athlete and I think we stand a better chance of having success against him when we are able to do that.

On his health going into Super Bowl XLVI…
TUCK: It’s the Super Bowl man, I’m great. We can get it all in after this and I can go get the MRIs and all that after this but you don’t ever want to regret having an opportunity like this. The adrenaline of this football game here, you are going to feel like 100%. I don’t care who you are. I expect (Rob) Gronkowski to play because he knows as well I know, playing in this game, I’m not worried about any of the injuries I’ve had. I’m going to go out there and give it everything I’ve got and I told our doctors 10 weeks ago, we’ll deal with that at the end of the year.

On Tom Coughlin coaching through the season while fans called for his termination…
TUCK: He has continued to be the Coughlin that everybody knows, but I think he’s done a great job of allowing his players to have a little bit more say-so. So he’s given us a lot of leeway to make some of the decisions about how we go about things in the locker room and with the Giants and I think it’s paid off for us.

Branch on the difference between playing for the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots…
BRANCH: To commend the guys, things didn’t work out the way we thought it would and I was traded to Seattle which I was very thankful to be blessed to go to another first class organization. You start noticing when you have a high turnover within an organization there is no stability, so therefore you are not producing on the football field. You are not producing wins. Those W’s turn to L’s…When Coach Belichick gave me a call and told me he was thinking of bringing me back, this and that, and trust me I was truly honored to have the opportunity to return to the team that drafted me with the same head coach and the same quarterback. The stability is there (and) the foundation for greatness with this organization

On the New England Patriots playbook…
BRANCH: It is a very complex offense, it is a demanding offense. I think we change so much stuff week to week and daily. There’s so much stuff that we go through during the course of the week and then Friday here it is, they spring another 20 plays on us, 48 hours before the game. That’s just part of being here.

SIMMS: You said it right. It is a memorization offense. One word tells everybody. A lot of offenses have a lot of words and they tell everybody what to do…You have to learn the whole concept.