Mike Rucker
Mike Rucker
Michael Dean Ruckeris a former American football defensive end who played eight seasons for the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League. He played college football for the University of Nebraska, and was drafted by the Panthers in the second round of the 1999 NFL Draft...
ProfessionFootball Player
Date of Birth28 February 1975
best kept mouths pads somebody talk tough week
It was tough this week not to talk with our mouth. It's tough to have them keep slamming you. But we kept our mouths shut. The best way to show somebody is to put the big-boy pads on, and that's what we did.
atone best expect last league looking next seldom team week weeks
Sometimes in this league you just get spanked, and you usually come back the next week looking to atone for it. Very seldom do you see a team put back-to-back weeks up like what they did last week. We expect their best this week.
games team
Every team is going to have some games like this, but it's how do you respond,
talk
We don't talk with our mouths! We talk with our pads!
carry line weight
But at the end of the day, we're going to carry more weight because we're the line and we're the foundation.
bowl foot guy happens miss problem seen shocking since super time
Since I've been here, I've never really seen him miss any time. He had that foot problem around the time of the Super Bowl (in 2003), but the guy is durable. It is kind of shocking to see him get nicked a little bit, but sometimes that happens in this game.
experience field good help mixture people
I feel like we've got a good mixture of guys. We don't try to overpower each other, but have enough experience on field to let people know what's up and help people get better.
We just feel like we've been through a lot of different situations.
certain guys point shape tired tough twice
Two-a-days do get you in shape in a certain way. But then there's that cutoff point where guys are getting too nicked up or too tired to go twice a day. So it's tough to say.
against anybody definitely next talk team time winning worry
This team is good. We'll see them definitely one more time, and if anybody has anything to do with it, we'll probably see them again. So the next time we play them, we don't have to worry about that. We can talk about something else, we can talk about football. We don't have to worry about not ever winning against him.
distracted fact game lack monday night played short week
We said, 'Hey, we're not going to be distracted by the lack of people. We're not going to be distracted by their record. We're not going to be distracted by the fact that we just played a Monday night game and had a short week of practice,'
best defensive hands
The defensive backs, they will do what they have to do. But the best thing for us to do is get our hands up.
across crowd developed guy home knock lined noise playing simple thinking whether
It's all about having the right mind-set when playing on the road. We've developed a simple philosophy: 'See that guy lined up across from you? Try to knock the snot out of him.' You're not thinking about the crowd noise or anything else. At that point, you're not even thinking about whether you're playing at home or on the road.
ball depending everybody flow gap goes
Everybody has their own gap. In two-gap, you have 'A' or 'B' depending on which way the ball goes and you flow that way. Here you are responsible for that one gap. If you want to make a play, go through your 'B' gap and make the play.