NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS MEDIA DAY - DEFENSIVE LINE COACH PEPPER JOHNSON - Ingles

Super Bowl XLVI – Tuesday, January 31, 2012

(on comparing defensive tackle Kyle Love to players like Mike Wright and others who have made the most of their opportunities) “Kyle Love, he’s one of those guys that have really come around, really grown. He’s still a work in progress. He doesn’t have the years like those guys have, but yeah, he’s one of those guys. I can’t say that he started off with us not thinking that he was going to make the team, as far down as Mike, but he’s one of those guys that have definitely improved. He’s a rock. He’s a rock right now, and hopefully he can continue that for some years.”

(on if this week has forced him to reflect on his career with the Giants) “No. One of the things that helps me the most is the uniforms. They don’t wear the same uniforms that we wore, so it doesn’t give me flashbacks in that aspect. When ESPN shows different highlights of our games back in the day, I hear about them through everybody else. I don’t get to watch TV much anymore, so I don’t really have the flashbacks. It doesn’t hit me the same way, like the last time we were here in ’07. You know, you at least had (Michael) Strahan that was here, a guy that I actually spent training camp with. Believe it or not, that was the year that they kicked me out of there. So it’s the same, but it’s not the same. I can’t just line up across the field like … Here’s a story for you. We actually played against Chris Simms. We played against Tampa Bay. Chris Simms, watching him, I was a guy that was talking to a lot of our (players), especially talking to the defensive line, how we can get to him, his scramble patterns and stuff like that. It didn’t really hit me—Phil Simms’ son—until he grabbed his helmet, and he was running out on the field. I know this sounds storybook, but I promise you, I felt like that was him as the six-year-old, eight-year-old, grabbing his father’s helmet, and the helmet was big on his head, and I had to snap out of it. He was running out on the field. I actually lived that moment for, whatever, maybe a split second. But I actually lived that moment that he was running out there with a helmet too big, and I’m like, ‘I just told my guys to go out and kill Phil Simms’ son. Phil wouldn’t like that. I know he’s up there thinking that’s what I said.’ That was a flashback to me. It’s something different that’s going on now. It doesn’t hit me the same when I look across the field. I see Mike Pope. He’s one of the guys that actually coached us, but other than that it’s not the same.”

(on if his first Super Bowl meant more than the rest) “No, no, not at all. You know what? The best analogy I can give you for that, for all our rings, is it’s like kids. You can’t love—I don’t know if you have one, two kids or five kids; I have five kids—you don’t love one more than the other. It’s impossible. You have memories of how the first one came about, and you have memories how the last one came, how the youngest one came about. But there’s no love for one ring more than the other, and that’s how I feel about my kids.”

(on if he keeps his Super Bowl rings in the same place) “Yes, I finally got a tray where I can actually put them all up in there and put them in my safe.”

(on how Vince Wilfork has emerged as a leader of the defense) “Leaders are not guys that grow into leadership. Leaders are born, and Vince was born a leader. Vince has always been a leader. The big thing about him, he understood his role when he first came in. This was Richard Seymour’s team. He didn’t try to oversee Big Sey, but by the same token, he still has to be Vince. People noticed that even when Richard was here. That’s how he became a captain, and he’s going to always be a captain. I’m quite sure the same way we look at Harry Carson as always being our captain, that’s how these guys are going to see Vince 20 years from now. They’re going to always see Vince as their captain.”