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Zach attack Miami linebacker talks about playoff win in Seattle
Posted: Tuesday January 11, 2000 02:34 AM
Miami linebacker Zach Thomas led the Dolphins defense with 8 tackles in Sunday's 20-17 win over the Seattle Seahawks at the Kingdome. CNN/Sports Illustrated's Tom Rinaldi caught up with Thomas after he game to talk about Miami's first playoff win on the road since 1972. Tom Rinaldi : Zach, you did a lot to disrupt Seattle quarterback Jon Kitna. What was the philosophy for a quarterback who had never played in a post-season game? Zach Thomas : I thought we did a good job. In the first half he had some great plays. But I felt like we made some adjustments and we rattled him. Our defensive line did a great job. I felt like I was running around free a lot. And when they [Seattle] were coming off on me, the defensive linemen were making the tackle. But when you hold [running back] Ricky Watters to 1.8 yards per carry, we had a chance to win the game. And then we could do some stuff with our defensive lineman who got pressure on Kitna all day. Rinaldi : I know the Miami defense was excited coming into this game because once again you felt like the defense was going to have a chance to win. Was that the game plan? Thomas : It was the game plan all week. We wanted to play conservative. We've been turning the ball over on our slide that we had been losing on so we felt like hey, "Let's change it a little bit and put it in our hands." And we love that. It might be a boring game. But we'll come out with a win at the end if we are playing well. Rinaldi : Tell us about Dan Marino's performance, especially with everything he's been through late this season. Thomas : Oh yeah, he did a great job. Especially that late drive to put us up for the win. I mean, Dan's the man. And everybody has confidence in Dan and there's going to be all this negativity and things like that. He's still got it. The old man has still got it. I'm happy for him and I'm just glad that he made that drive. And hopefully, we can put it together next week. Rinaldi :Finally Zach, this game was the first road playoff win for the Dolphins since 1972. How does that feel? Thomas : It feels good. I wasn't even born yet. I was born in 1973. It feels good. I'm 0-1 on the road from last year so it's not a big thing for me. I've been here four years. It's great to break a streak and hopefully next week, we can do it again.
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