Which is not to say that that's what I start off asking him about after the game. I was more curious about the bird-flapping thing he's taken to doing with his hands after big plays. "That's why they call me Flying Spur. That's my nickname: Flying Spur. So that's what the bird is."

He claims he's had the nickname -- which I can only assume refers to his car -- for years, but has only just started doing the bird thing. But see, it was immediately after the game, so he didn't want to talk about that. Instead, he went to semi-generic "We" quotes.

"We played good, man," he said. "That's what we wanted to do is just come out here and be consistent in what we did, and I think we did that. But we played a great team, and I think we played to their level. Now I think we want to take it to another level."

This is classic Fred Smoot, by the way. Ask him something during the week and he'll happily hold forth at length about his opinion on it. After games, especially losses, he shifts almost completely into "We" mode, and this week I called him on it, asked how he felt about his performance, not the team's.

"Ah, I have fun," he said. "I have as much fun interacting with the crowd as I do probably playing the game."

But that's not fully true either. He's also a bigger hitter than people suspect, and I asked if people underestimated that facet of his game.

"Yeah," he said, "I think they do, because I went through a period when I didn't wanna do it. I had bought into the Darrell Green and Deion thing, but I love to tackle, man. I love to get in there and mix it up, and I think that people that know me know that I love to tackle."