**
Q: You know Coach Sparano as well as anyone, what's he going to be like?**
Howard:"He's one of the best coaches I've had in my career. A guy who really understands how to get the players motivated, get us all on the same page. He knows how to win games. He's turned a lot of programs around and it's kind of crazy what's going on right now, but we're excited to have him and we're ready to follow his lead."
Q: Can changing coaches provide a spark to a team?
Howard:"It can. It can actually go either way, but I believe that we have the guys on this team who can turn things around. Obviously things haven't gone our way so far, so we've been anxious to figure out what we can do to change things and how to get better. We're all in like they say, so we're ready to get things changed around here."
Q: We talked yesterday about philosophy change, what sort of changes do you expect to see when you guys come back next week?
Howard:"Yeah, we do expect changes, but obviously we're not in that position to say exactly what's going on. We actually don't know ourselves. We do expect change, but like you guys, we're just going to head into this thing and do what we do best and that's just give 110 percent and go out there and try to turn this thing around and have success."
Q: How important is it to get the first win and then to kind of build off of that?
Howard:"It's very important. We want to get the first win, the second win, the third win and keep that thing going. It's important for us to win as many games as we can. It's not necessarily just focused on one game here, but now it's focused on the entire season. It's a good week to kind of get away from football during this bye week and then head back next week and get things ready to go for the rest of the season."
Q: Who will be coaching the line now, the offensive line, will it be Tony [Sparano] still?
Howard:"Yes it will. Tony will still be in there and he'll be our o-line coach."
Q: When your head coach gets fired, how much responsibility as players do you guys take for that?
Howard:"The responsibility lies on a lot of the veterans on this team. We understand that things pretty much aren't typical ways in which a season goes at this point, so we understand that we have to get things going and turn things around as much as we can as much as leaders as we can, and whether you're a rookie or a young guy or a veteran, we all have to do our part."
Q: Do you think it was a case of guys needing more time to gel together or what's been holding you guys back you think so far?
Howard:"You know what, like I said, obviously we haven't figured out the answers yet, but we are all very much on the same page of understanding that we have to figure this out soon and do whatever we can to turn things around."
Q: You guys met with Tony today as a team?
Howard:"Yeah, we did."
Q: How did that go and obviously you know him pretty well, but what was the other player's reactions? How was the feeling in there?
Howard:"We respect Tony a lot. We respected DA [Dennis Allen] a lot. We respect whoever is at the helm of this team and we all focused in on what we had to say, and like I said, we're just getting ready for next week to start and get things going."
