Tampa Bay Buccaneers 23, Houston Texans 16
CHRISTIAN KIRKSEY: We're moving forward, we've got some great players and we're getting ready for Week 1.
Q. What is it like being a linebacker when Tom Brady is being surgical? What's it like trying to respond to that?
CHRISTIAN KIRKSEY: Just keep yourself calm, keep your guys calm and you never want to get too high, get too low. Just being a Mike, just want to make sure guys stay in it, stay focused and not get out of whack, so like you said Tom Brady, when he's in his groove, we've got to keep trusting the play calling and keep playing and find a way.
Q. A couple of the guys, what improvements in the passing game can you build on?
CHRISTIAN KIRKSEY: When you go against a quarterback like Tom who he's seen it all, we have to disguise a little bit better. Make sure we're not showing him the coverage pre-snap. So like I say, he's seen just about everything so he know the holes, where guys are going to be open and we have to do a better job of doing that and making it hard on a quarterback of that caliber and making plays on the ball.
Q. Is there recognition, what you're trying to do?
CHRISTIAN KIRKSEY: There's times where, like I said, he's seen everything as long as he's been playing at a high caliber. If you lineup and play a coverage he's going to shred you apart so we have to move around and disguise and make it tough on him and compete.
Q. Justin says going against a guy like Tom Brady, tells you where the defense is.
CHRISTIAN KIRKSEY: He's absolutely right. You're going against the best of the best. We all know when it's all said and done, he might be arguably the best quarterback to ever play. When you can go against a challenge and see the things that you need to fine tune, it's really great for us. It's not too many quarterbacks like Tom Brady that's been where he's been and made the plays he's made. So when you are going against somebody at that high level, you can just tell like where you need to be as a defense.
So Justin is completely right on that statement that he made, and it was a good test for us today.
Q. What Lovie Smith has been preaching from day one, takeaways.
CHRISTIAN KIRKSEY: You speak it to existence and that's something that Lovie has been preaching to us since day one is go after the ball. Our No. 1 goal on defense is to score and in order to score you have to take the ball all the way. We're practicing it and we're miles way from where we want to be and it's a good start and it's a good feeling going into the season.
Q. Talk about Kamu.
CHRISTIAN KIRKSEY: I was so happy to see Kamu go out there and play very well. He's been working his butt off this whole time in training camp, even the off-season, just doing workouts with him. He's the type of guy that, you know, what happened today, he definitely deserves it. He puts the work in. He don't complain about anything and just gets better and better. I was just, you know, so happy and proud of him, and glad that he enjoyed that moment.
Q. Playing for different teams, different schemes, how would you describe what Lovie wants out of you?
CHRISTIAN KIRKSEY: He wants that linebacker position to be Alpha males out there taking control, show your athleticism, and he want all the weight on the linebacker shoulder. We want the D-Line to just go for it, penetrate. We want the DBs to make plays on the ball, and when it comes to the thinking part of it, he wants to put it on the linebackers. We take great pride into being in that position and understanding that Lovie wants everything to go through the linebacker, the communication part, getting guys lined up.
So we take that challenge and we go full force with it. It shows the athleticism, too, and the tight end and or running back and he want two linebackers out there making plays and running around, so it's a good defense for guys like a Kamu, myself, Ted Davis, other guys in that room who can run around, make plays and think or at the same time over think and it's a good defense for us and I'm enjoying it.
Q. What can you say about the defensive linemen?
CHRISTIAN KIRKSEY: They have been grinding. It goes to show you how deep they are. You can just plug in a guy and show the same speed and momentum and missing a step, so I'm proud to see that group climb the ladder and go out there and perform how they are performing so it gets excited whenever you see a D-Line in front of you that's making it a lot easier for us linebackers.
Sometimes they have to play before me, so you know, if they are making a play, I tip my hat off to them and like I said it makes our job easier to where they are not telling them a lot to do because they already know what to do and they are attacking their line of scrimmage and keeping the linemen off of us and you know, playing gap-sound defense and it makes everybody job easier when everybody is doing their job.
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