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On Taiwan Jones: “He looked okay. We’re going to have to continue to look at him tomorrow. He’ll probably be a game-time decision. He banged that knee on Wednesday and just really hadn’t quite gotten fully back yet so we’ll probably work him out Sunday before the game and make a decision then on him.”

On Alex Parsons: “I think he’s going to be fine. We’ll work him out again prior to the game, but I think he’s going to be okay.”

On if Parsons' injury requires Tony Bergstrom to be reserve tackle and guard: “Yeah, and he’s prepared to be play both too. And Lucas Nix would come up if for whatever reason Parsons wasn’t able to go.”

On the week of practice: “I thought we had a good week of practice. We understand the preparation still continues and I think our guys are focused in and I think they’re ready to go.”

On the Coliseum field: “The last word that I heard is that we were going to be grass. Nobody has told me anything differently so I’m assuming we have a grass field to play on.”

On if the dirt changed anything: “Obviously there’s a few things that the dirt makes a difference on. You don’t get the same traction on the dirt that you do on the grass. You have to take that into account when you’re calling plays offensively and defensively and really, like the Pittsburgh game, we had to take it into account in the kicking game. So it does make a difference.”

On if there’s a big change in the defense when the signal caller is changed: “There’s some things that go into it and that’s obviously a role that is critical to the success of the defense is making sure the communication is what it needs to be. There’s some things that go into it, but I wouldn’t put too much into it.”

On LB Philip Wheeler as the signal caller: “He’s done a nice job of that. He did it back in college. He hasn’t done it in the NFL, but he’s a guy that takes his job seriously and he understands that that’s now part of something he has to do, so he’s worked extremely hard at it.”

On the defensive backs against QB Matt Ryan: “It was encouraging for those guys to play well. We all know that in the National Football League you have to be able to put it together for 16 straight weeks. Our guys understand that we’ve got another challenge this week and we have to be ready to go to face Jacksonville.”

On if Michael Huff could stay at cornerback indefinitely: “I don’t have that [crystal ball] that allows me to see into the future, but obviously we want to continue to see the improvement with Michael Huff.”

On playing in front of the home crowd: “We’re looking forward to it. We always have a good crowd out there. The fans are passionate so it’ll be good to get back in front of the home crowd.”

On if Khalif Barnes will return to practice next week: “I don’t know for sure. We’ll see where he’s at next week.”

On if Barnes is closer than Shawntae Spencer: “It’s speculation but I would say they’re probably in the same area.”

On the defensive line against Atlanta: “I think it had a lot to do with we had the extra time to prepare. I think our guys fully understand exactly what they were facing. I think our focus last week was better, but I think it was a combination of rush and coverage at the end of the day that allowed us to have some success.”

On when Ron Bartell can return to practice: “Actually, he’s not able to practice I think until it’s next Saturday so really it’ll be the following week that he can actually practice.”

On Bartell’s progress: “He seems to be on track for that date.”

On facing Maurice Jones-Drew: “He’s short, he’s not tiny. He’s pretty well put together. He’s an outstanding running back. I think he does a great job of staying in between the offensive line and when he sees it, he can hit it with a burst. He’s real explosive. Although he’s not tall, he’s not a little back at all. He’s a solid back.”

On if they take Jones-Drew’s height into account: “You have to be able to tackle him low and you have to be able to get to his legs and be able to stop his legs from churning. The biggest thing is you have to be able to wrap this guy up because he just pings off of people like a pinball. It’s not a one-man effort. It’s 11 guys around the football and that’s how you stop good backs. It’s hard to stop them with one-on-one tackles all day long, so you have to get 11 guys around the football.”

On the progress with the zone blocking scheme: “I think it’s guys working together. It’s trying to have the same group of guys up there, the front five, blocking. The runners getting used to seeing the blocks, how they occur. And then it’s also being in the game where you’ve got a chance to continue to run the football and not getting in the situation where you’re chasing a lot of points. All those factors work together. We’re going to continue to work on the run game and at the end of the day, we’ll judge the running game at the end of the year and see how well we did.”

On Aaron Curry: “I thought Curry looked well. I was impressed with the way he looked this week and I do not anticipate activating him for this football game and then we’ll see where we’re at next week with him.”

On icing the kicker: “Icing the kicker is not really something I think a lot about. The play the other day, I felt I called timeout well before they were ready to kick the ball. They went ahead and kicked it, which you kind of know once he missed that, you know what the outcome is going to be. I don’t really think much about it. If I feel like our guys need a little extra rest to get themselves ready to go block a kick, we’ll give them a little extra time. If not, we’ll see how it plays out.”

On when Coach would call a timeout before a kick: “It’s really how you feel at the moment. I don’t really think about necessarily icing the kicker. It’s more about what I feel like our guys need, less about trying to affect the kicker.”

On the defensive calls on the final drive: “Really I think there was really two snaps of three-man rush. The one called that is totally on me, I wish we would have been a little bit tighter and a little bit more aggressive on the last play. I said that from the beginning, I wish we would have been a little more aggressive in that situation on the very last play. I don’t look back at that. If we execute a little bit better, we tackle them in bounds one more time and force them to use their final timeout, the outcome might be different. They executed. They kicked a 55-yard field goal to win the game and they did what they had to do to win the game.”

On if the term ‘prevent’ is used in coaches’ terminology: “No, we don’t use the term ‘prevent defense’ and I don’t know if I’ve ever been in a meeting where we say we’re going to be in ‘prevent defense.’

On if ‘prevent defense’ is a toxic term: “Yeah, there is such thing as situational defense.”