BRUCE AND FAULK INTERVIEWS, BY FAST EDDIE (Aug 23) Add yourself to The HERD's Official Roster (guestbook), if you think you are man enough!
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Ike doesn't like talking about his hamstring. But Cusamano reluctantly asked him and Ike says he's 100% healed from the injury. He just felt some "regular training camp tightness" and he and the coaches agreed there was no reason to push it.
He likes Trent Green, and said Trent's greatest attributes are his accuracy as a passer and his knowledge of the offense. He saved his highest praise for Mike Martz and Tony Banks, however. He still thinks Tony will be "one of the greatest quarterbacks in the game." He expects him to win the job quickly in Baltimore and be starting for the Ravens week one at the TWA Dome. He said Tony got along great with his teammates, they all respected him, and he didn't burn any bridges with anyone on the team.
He also talked about Mike Martz. Martz does a great job of throwing different angles at the players and preparing them for whatever they may see in the game. He said that a lot of the things Martz is working on now--and has been building on with Trent in Washington--are ideas that first began to take shape for him when he was WR coach with the Rams. "I was like his guniea pig," Ike says.
To those that would say that he has slipped from the ranks of the elite wide receivers in the last two years, Ike pointed out that every defensive coordinator in the league knows otherwise. He almost never lines up against single coverage. He also had praise for Faulk and Torry Holt and he thinks the Rams will put a lot of points on the board this year and he expects to make the playoffs for the first time.
Marshall Faulk stammered around a lot when asked about Greg Hill getting playing time. He said they respect each other and he thinks Greg earned a new kind of respect for him after seeing his intensity on the practice field for the past two weeks.
Faulk is very wide open about how he is to be used. He said he expects to carry the load on the ground with a carry here or there for the fullbacks, but ultimately it's the coaches's job to figure out how many carries to give him to get him in a groove and not wear him out.
Savard asked him how this Rams team stacks up talentwise against the Colts team that he played with that came one play away from the Super Bowl a couple of years ago. He said this team has more talent than any team he's ever played with, but it really is not about talent. He said it's about playing in games with the same intensity that you practice with, playing as a team, and playing as a family. Your real family is up there in the stands, but to win, you have to bond with your teammates and treat those other ten guys on the field like a family.
Asked about the Rams reputation for having a losing attitude he said that the guys that are left here from "back in the day" have a new energy after seeing how team management went out this offseason and brought in some talented guys who want to win very badly. He doesn't think the holdout will hurt him--he expects to "get his legs back under him" from camp maybe a week later than the rest of the team, but thinks that everyone should be fresh and energized by opening day.