Head coach Gary Kubiak spoke to the media after practice on Thursday.
** Head coach Gary Kubiak
(on any injuries)** "The only guy that is a little iffy right now is (FB) Jameel Cook. He has been
battling his knee for a couple weeks and really playing beat up. He wasn't able
to do much today. Looks like that will probably be a game time decision."
(on RB Chris Taylor) "I'm definitely going to play him before the year is out, whether that be this week, I don't know. I still want to see the kid play, but I still want to look at (RB) Ronny (Dayne) and (RB) Samkon (Gado). (RB) Wali (Lundy) needs to continue to improve and get better. I need to take as many reps to look at him as I can. There will come a time with Chris, whether it be this week or not, I can't say right now."
(on if RB Ron Dayne will play this week) "There is a good chance he will. He's looked really good the last month. I think he's about as healthy as he's been and I do want to take a look at him as we move forward. I think there is a good chance he'll be up this week."
(on if Dayne is up over RB Samkon Gado) "I don't know that, they could all be up, depending on Jameel Cook."
(on balancing looking at young players and winning games) "There is only one thing in mind; we are trying to win games. The reason we're having to look at young players is because of a lot of things that have gone on physically with our players right now, so it's given our young guys opportunities to play. In the case of our running backs, talking about Chris (Taylor), you have to create that situation. Most of our situations for these guys have been created, for (C) Drew (Hodgdon) and players like that strictly because of injury. There are a couple of scenarios going on. We don't do this for any other reason than to win."
(on the difference in run games from the past two games) "We ran the ball well that day. How was Buffalo playing us different from the Jets? I can't tell you that. I would just say that early in the game against the Jets, the few runs we ran weren't very good and me as a play caller probably got all out of whack. As I've told you over and over again, it's important that even if we don't run the ball well, we have to continue to try. That is on me. I got away from that in the game and all of a sudden its 23-3 and you're throwing it another 30 times. We can't play that way, we have to find a way to run the ball and even when it's not good we have to find a way."
(on Raiders' head coach Art Shell) "I think he's coaching him the same way. They struggled on offense a little bit and had some injured players up front. But on defense, I really think they have played about as good as anybody in football as a group for as much as they have been on the field. Athletically, the Raiders have always had some of the top talent in this league. If you look at the teams that have gone in there and played this year, they have been pretty good. They are going to play as good as they can play against us. They have a little shake up over there and that is going to give them a spark too, so we're going to have to play extremely well."
