(Are you comfortable with the way your special teams guys played last week without Derrick that you'll be able to overcome his absence?)
Derrick Martin still has a chance for the game. He tested yesterday and has made some improvement during the course of the week. But on the other side of that, I thought the guys that played, we actually moved a number of individuals around last week, and I thought they played well. I was pleased with our production in special teams. We've prepared either way for Derrick or without Derrick. He's a big part of our special teams. He actually was voted one of two special teams captains for the playoffs. We're going to give him every opportunity to try to make it back for the game.
(How much does it hurt your special teams with the chance he might not go?)
Special teams is always the first unit that's challenged when you have injuries. I think anytime you have an injury, particularly to a core player, it really probably affects two positions right away, and that's no different. But it's part of our business. It's something you have to overcome, and I'm confident that we'll have guys step up.
(How does it work when you have to game plan for a team that might be missing a key guy like Boldin? Do you have one game plan for if he plays and one if he doesn't?)
Well, we've game-planned all week for Anquan Boldin and we frankly have planned for all their injured players to be part of it. It's easier to react the other way than to plan for them not to play. That's just part of it. Conceptually, they're not going to probably change a whole lot what they do. If anything they would probably do less, just philosophically, would do less with a backup player or second player. Because we're talking about Anquan Boldin here. We're talking about a Pro Bowl player. We're talking about a prominent, a very physical player that you can do a lot of things with. But that's just all part of game-planning.
(Are turnovers or takeaways in your mind the most important aspect of postseason football?)
It's definitely one of them. I think anytime you play a football game, the football is very important. You need to take care of it, and we've done it very well during the regular season, and you have to take it away, and we've also done that very well. It's very important for us to play to our capabilities, but also to our strengths. We're plus-24 in turnover ratio. We feel that's a strength of how we play football, and that's something that we need to do in the playoffs. To be successful, we're not going to change the way we play or our identity as a football team, and we have to make sure we play to our fundamental strengths, and that's one of them.
