Asked and answered: Vince Wilfork, Patriots nose tackle

The Patriots' locker room normally is a deserted place when the door swings open and the media hordes swarm in. It's hard to blame them; answering endless questions about the Miami Dolphins' "Wildcat" offense has to get pretty tiresome. But reporters still need to ask questions and get some responses to share with their readership or viewers, and it can get pretty difficult finding willing players.

Randy Moss, for example, declined several interview requests this morning; when a Boston Globe reporter asked, "Can you help us out today?" he responded with a flat "Nope!" and then completely ignored another entreaty. When a Boston Herald reporter squatted next to his locker to try to talk about it, to tell him they weren't "trying to be a pain in the ass," Moss said, "I don't like talking to the media. It's not in my contract, so I ain't got to do it. I'll give you crumbs here and there, and that's all I've got to do. If I talk, it's going to be after the game on Sunday, and if I don't talk on Sunday, maybe the next Sunday. If I don't talk then, maybe the next Sunday."

Some, though, are endlessly available. Cornerback Ellis Hobbs is one; fullback Heath Evans is another. Both are friendly and personable and set aside a few minutes whenever quote-desperate reporters need them.

Nose tackle Vince Wilfork is another one who generally treats reporters like human beings and gives thoughtful answers even to inane questions. A group of cameras gathered around him at his locker right at the beginning of the open-locker-room period, and he smiled at the group before walking out of the room. A few minutes later, though, he returned with a wise grin on his face: "Y'all thought I wasn't coming back, didn't you?"

He did come back, though. And here's what Wilfork had to say:

Though this week isn't completely do-or-die, does it have a playoff feel to it?
"Yeah, it does. For one, being a division game, and for two, what they did to us last time we played them. Right now, it's a one-game season for us, so we've got to put all our eggs in this basket, and next week will be the same thing. We'll need everybody. This is a tough football team we're facing. We know that. We're going to get their best, and, hopefully, they'll get ours. This week, we've had some good practices and put some good practices together, and we feel good about this whole thing, going down there.

"Hopefully, we'll walk away with a win, but it's going to take our 'A'-game. Anything other than that, I think we're going to walk away with an 'L'. We're going to do everything in our power to try to play that type of game. But it's a challenge. It's a challenge. This is what you live for. Games in November and December determine where you'll be in February and January. We've got our hands full, but we're looking forward to the challenge."

Are you "Wildcat"-ted out yet?
(laughs) "No. I'm pretty sure they have something else brewing up, and we have to do a good job of making sideline adjustments, whatever they may be. They might not, but having the success they’ve had early in the season with it, they’d be a fool not to try run it."

Do you feel comfortable, after a week's preparation, that you will be able to stop it?
"I feel very confident with what we've done in practice. We've covered a lot of ground. Every week, it seems like somebody's pulling something out of their bag of tricks to throw at us, and (the Dolphins) might have something new. At that time, we'll have to go to the sideline and make adjustments. That's going to be real important. But going forward, we're pretty prepared. We're prepared, and I feel very confident going into this week's game. I think my teammates feel the same way."

What does Chad Pennington bring to his team?
"I'll tell you what: Leadership is one thing. He doesn't turn the ball over. He was like that when he was at the Jets, and this team thrives off that -- and when you have two running backs and they're running the ball so well, sometimes they don't need to throw the ball. He has a high completion rate, and anything that's open or in tight coverage, he'll throw to. We have to be ready, and the guys in the backfield have to cover the receivers and go forward from there. But it's going to be tough getting to him because they're doing such a great job of blocking for him. He can identify blitzers and coverages and identify those quick and get the ball out right away. We're going to have to get to him real early and often in this game."

Is there any different feel in this locker room, seeing as how it's November and you're playing kind of a desperation game, as opposed to past years?
"This locker room is still the same locker room it was last year when we were undefeated and the years before when we were winning championships. It's the same locker room; we just have different faces. We're very confident. We have a group of guys who love what they do. You can't ask for anything better than that. We're so used to winning around here that I think the fans and the media sometimes get lost in that just because we have won quite a bit. We have four losses. It's not the end of the world. Sometimes people look at us, and I don't think people look at us like a football team because of the success we've had.

"We know we'll normally go through ups and downs in a season. We're going through them. But it's not the end of the world. Nobody is telling us our season is over. If they do, I'll tell them something, and it's not nice. We're very confident. We know what's at stake, and it's going to start with a win against a tough division game and move forward from there. The week after that, we'll do the same thing. It's tough, but it's NFL football."