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Q: How is Damon Huard today?

HERM EDWARDS: “Right now unless he has a setback he’s going to play and that’s good for us. That’s where it’s at.”

Q: Will he start?

EDWARDS: “Yeah, as long as he doesn’t have a setback.”

Q: Did his passes look they do normally?

EDWARDS: “Some good, some not so good, but even when he’s OK, some good, some not so good.”

Q: So typical then?

EDWARDS: “Yeah, now I don’t know where he’s at after practice. Tomorrow if his arm’s sore then I’ll know more. But right now he felt OK at practice.”

Q: Was it what you expected today from him?

EDWARDS: “I’m surprised. I’m surprised because after the game when you look at the guy. Obviously, he’s OK. He’s good enough to practice and that’s good. We didn’t cut back on him throwing certain routes. He threw everything we wanted him to throw.”

Q: Is it important to get Brodie more reps though?

EDWARDS: “Brodie gets his share of reps anyway. How we orchestrate practice Brodie generally gets a lot of practice and it’s been that way from the beginning.”

Q: What do you attribute his recuperative powers to?

EDWARDS: “Obviously, it wasn’t as bad as anyone anticipated it to be. Damon’s come back and has had treatment on it the last couple of days. The key today was how he was going to react and how he threw the ball.”

Q: No pain?

EDWARDS: “Not that I know of. From the beginning of practice until the end of practice he just practiced.”

Q: He could throw every pass you need him to throw?

EDWARDS: “Yep.”

Q: Larry Johnson practiced today for the first time in the last couple of weeks. Was it because he only had 10 carries last week?

EDWARDS: “No, he’s been sore. He practiced good today, too.”

Q: Was it important that he was out there today?

EDWARDS: “Yeah, I think for everybody. It was a high energy practice, that’s for sure.”

Q: You said that you needed a hammer-head fullback. Is there a chance you could just throw Boomer [Grigsby] out there to see what he could do? To get experience wouldn’t he have to get it in a game? Wouldn’t you want to see it?

EDWARDS: “Sunday. Sunday. He’ll make a grand appearance. He’ll play. Exactly what you’re saying.”

Q: Would it help your running game?

EDWARDS: “If he does what we anticipate he’ll do along with everybody else. He needs to play some at fullback; there’s no doubt about it. There will be some other players playing too.”

Q: Is it a trust thing?

EDWARDS: “No, it’s not a trust thing. He hasn’t been activated except for the last two games and that’s through no fault of his. It’s just the way it shook out because of guys being injured. But now he’s activated and we need to get him more involved than just special teams. There are going to be some other guys playing too…. There are four or five guys that need to play. It’s time.”

Q: As you know this is the second straight team that you are playing that is coming off a bye. Who did you make mad in the league office?

EDWARDS: “Somebody asked me that yesterday. It’s just the way it falls. You can’t control that. All you can control is how you play. A bye can help you and it can hurt you. For [Bengals head coach] Marvin [Lewis] it probably helps him a lot since he’s got some guys that were hurt and he’ll probably get some guys well. But we’ve got to play a lot better. We have to play a lot better.”

Q: Looking back at it, do you think Jacksonville benefited from coming off a bye?

EDWARDS: “Ahhhh, maybe, but they didn’t do too much that we hadn’t anticipated them doing. They played their game and did what they do. It wasn’t like they shocked us in what they do.”

Q: It will be a special help this week, won’t it, because they had so many guys hurt?

EDWARDS: “Yeah, Cincinnati’s had a lot of guys hurt on defense. I think they’re going to get a couple of them back.”

Q: What’s Priest Holmes’ status? Can he be on the practice field this week?

EDWARDS: “No, it’s next week. You can make a decision and the clock starts and then you have to make a decision. We’ll see. He’s getting a lot better; I know that. We’ve got to make a decision next week. He’s been working since training camp.”

Q: You’ve faced some really strong defensive fronts so far this season. But would Cincy’s defense help you get your running game get well?”

EDWARDS: “The problem [Cincinnati] presents is they’re a little bit of a pressure team always bringing five guys. They create a lot of negative yards on first downs because they can get you. Then you’re in second and third and long. They do it that way.

“The thing with any defense is offensively you have to stay on the field. If you stay on the field you are going to have the ability to make plays. That’s what we have to do offensively: we have to stay on the field longer. We have to get some drives going. The first drive last week was orchestrated very nice. Then we get down there and can’t score. Then we really didn’t do a whole lot after that offensively. That’s what is hurting us. We’re very inconsistent staying in drives. They don’t always have to be 10 or 11 plays but they have to six, seven play drives at least. That’s how you do your damage and how you change field position for your offense and defense.

“When you don’t do that it has a two-pronged affect. It affects you with field position when you don’t move the ball and then, defensively, if they move the ball on you they punt and it seems like you are always coming out of negative territory. You’re always inside the 20-yard line trying to go 80 yards. That’s never good.

“Then if you don’t move the ball offensively, you punt and they get the ball on the minus 40 and a short field - a little of that happened to us in the last game.

“We’ve got to do a better job moving the ball and defensively we’ve got to do a better job on third down. We’ll have a big test this week because they’ve got some good receivers and a good quarterback.”

Q: What about their quarterback Carson Palmer?

EDWARDS: “Big, strong quarterback who gets it out of his hand. He doesn’t take too many sacks. He gets the ball out of his hand. They’ve got good receivers who they throw the ball to and they can run after the catch. They keep the chains moving and can score anywhere on the field. They’re good in the Red Zone, something like 70% scoring touchdowns. They average 26 points a game. You can slow them down some but they’ll score. They are built for offense. They spread you out and attack you.

“We’ve got to play very good defense and what helps your defense is your offense needs to stay on the field some.”

Q: Is there any lingering affect of that game last year where they hurt your QB. Some of your guys can’t still be happy with that?

EDWARDS: “The problem with that is a lot of those guys aren’t here anymore. We’ve got a few but not many on the defensive side of the ball.

“We know what we’re facing and know we’re at. It’s time for us to play better and if we do we’ll have a chance at the end of the year to be a good football team. If we don’t then we’re going to be up-and-down and struggle. We’ll play some games good and some games not so good. That’s inconsistency and that’s what you don’t want to see as a coach or a player. Some of our players have to play more consistent. They know that.”

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