Andre Goodman Interview

With the Patriots coming to town, I thought it would be a good idea to have a talk with someone who will have to defend this high powered offense.

JR – What’s the Dolphins game plan going into Sunday against one of the top offenses in the NFL?

Andre Goodman – The best thing to do against an offense like this is to get to the quarterback, now that’s easier said than done but the key to slowing them down is pressure. In the secondary we have to maintain our coverage position.

JR – You covered Randy Moss when you were Detroit, what was that like?

AG – He's pretty different than any other receiver in the league. Even when you get position on him, he can go up and get the ball. You know that he’s good with his intermediate routes but you have to play to deep ball too and if you worry too much about the deep route he’ll kill you in the middle. He’s a double edged sword, but as a corner you still look forward to covering him.

JR – This defense has struggled to create turnovers for the past few years, is that a scheme problem?

AG – It is a little bit of the scheme, we are a pressure style of defense, which means we the corners are always in man to man. In man to man you’re trained to watch the receiver not the quarterback, so it’s hard to make interceptions when you don’t see ball coming. We don’t have the luxury of sitting in the backfield waiting for the ball and making interceptions. Our thing is to get up man to man, create pressure and in that scheme the quarterback has to make a mistake and we have to make him pay for it. Over the past couple of years we haven’t made them pay for it and that’s big, when we get our chance we have to make them pay.

JR – It hasn’t been just a problem with interceptions, the defense hasn’t created many fumbles either. Do you work on it with the Dolphins as much as you did with Detroit?

AG – Yeah, we work on it all the time and when I say all the time I mean all the time. We emphasize getting the ball out at the reception point, so it’s definitely a point of emphasis. But its not always easy to get done, some guys carry the ball loser than others at the same time our defense has to be optimistic and over the past few years we haven’t been and you can see the results.

JR – Earlier in the year you were out with an injury, Zach Thomas said he would rather be out there getting his butt kicked than on the sidelines out. Did you feel like that?

AG – You never want to sit and watch your team struggle and even if you’re in there and you’re just 50 percent it’s always better playing. No true competitor wants to watch the game from the sideline, regardless of the injury or injury history you want to play.

JR – Your teammate Lorenzo Booker talked about his worries that the team may not know how bad he wants to play. Is that something as a teammate you can see his desire?

AG – It’s obvious, very obvious, Lorenzo is a very good athlete and a nice resume coming out of college. Football players want to play, true football players want to play, you can read guys who just want to get by and he’s not one of them.