Tonight on Football Night in America, Bob Costas talks with Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints and Mike Tomlin from the Pittsburgh Steelers. In addition, Tony Dungy interviews Steelers safety Ryan Clark. Here’s a preview.
“FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA” PREVIEW – WEEK 8
BOB COSTAS INTERVIEWS DREW BREES & MIKE TOMLIN; TONY DUNGY SITS DOWN WITH STEELERS SAFETY RYAN CLARK
“It starts with taking care of the football.” – Drew Brees to Bob Costas regarding the Saints struggles“He’s really assessing and evaluating, not only what’s important to him, but who he surrounds himself with and how he conducts himself.” – Mike Tomlin to Bob Costas on Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger“Sunday Night Football” Attempts to set Guinness World Record
NEW YORK – October 31, 2010 – Bob Costas interviewed New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin for tonight’s Week 8 edition of “Football Night in America,” which will also include highlights, analysis and reaction to Week 8’s afternoon games. Tony Dungy interviewed Steelers safety Ryan Clark, who has committed his life to making a difference in his hometown of New Orleans.“Football Night” airs each Sunday at 7 p.m. ET with Costas, who won the outstanding studio host Emmy last year, hosting the program live from inside the stadium. In addition to his interviews, he is joined on site by SNF commentators Al Michaels (play-by-play) and Cris Collinsworth (analyst) for reaction to the afternoon games.Dan Patrick co-hosts “Football Night” from NBC’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza studios and is joined by Super Bowl-winning head coach and Emmy-nominated Dungy, two-time Super Bowl winner Rodney Harrison, and Sports Illustrated’s Peter King. Alex Flanagan will report from Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., on the Vikings-Patriots game.VIEWERSHIP: “Football Night” (7:30-8:15 pm) is averaging 8.5 million viewers through its first seven weeks, its most ever for that time frame and up 13 percent vs. 2009’s 7.5 million viewers.GUINNESS WORLD RECORD: Fans attending “Sunday Night Football” tonight at the Louisiana Superdome will attempt to set the Guinness World Record for largest Halloween gathering, defined as a group of people in costume in one place. An official Guinness World Records® Adjudicator will be on site at the Superdome to validate the attempt.DREW BREES
On Super Bowl hangover: We knew that. It’s tough. Maybe the biggest trap that people fall into is just the fact that you think as Super Bowl champions you can just walk on the field and everybody is going to rollover for you and be intimidated by you. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. It’s still about us though. It’s about our ability to execute and to focus and to do all the right things on Sunday; to pay attention to the process throughout the week, our practice, our preparation. At this point, we obviously haven’t performed at the type of level that we know we can and we know we will.On inconsistency and three losses: One of those was a pretty tight loss to Atlanta. The last two losses to Arizona and Cleveland have really been due to turnovers and other things that we…we know the difference between winning and losing in this league and what it takes to win football games…unfortunately, we have not done those things. It starts with taking care of the football, turnovers. It’s all about correcting those things and getting back on track.
MIKE TOMLINOn last week’s play where it appeared James Harrison changed his style of play and pulled up Dolphins RB Ronnie Brown: In that particular instance, they were painting a picture that they wanted to see. The way I viewed that play was that Ronnie Brown caught the ball clean and ducked out like a savvy veteran football player. He’s the person that eliminated the contact as opposed to James pulling off. I took exception to using James in that way.On the NFL deciding to enforce greater discipline mid-season: When you start looking at things that you discussed in the off-season and adjusting during the season, you’re doing it from an emotional standpoint. Usually emotional decisions aren’t good ones. It was an overreaction to a couple of unfortunate incidents that occurred a few weeks ago.Tomlin on changes in QB Ben Roethlisberger: As a player, I think he’s enjoying the monotony more. That’s natural. That’s human nature. When something is taken away from you, you have a greater appreciation for it once you have an opportunity to get it back. As a person, more than anything, it’s about taking an accounting of where he is and what’s important to him. A lot of times in life, we all get off the mark a little bit especially when you experience the kind of success that he has. It can be trap door, if you will. He’s really assessing and evaluating, not only what’s important to him, but who he surrounds himself with and how he conducts himself.Tomlin on Super Bowl hangovers: I don’t know why people are surprised by that. It’s tough to walk the journey and win it one time let alone two times back to back. Your off-season is shorter. There’s more obligations in that off-season that happens to be shorter. There’s a lot of things that can get you off track when you are defending Super Bowl champs. To me, it’s not a shock at all.
And we’ll have the final quotage from Football Night in America later tonight.
