<span> <span style="">New Orleans Saints Head Coach Sean Payton Discusses the Saints' continued preparations for the team's trip to St. Louis to face the Rams on Sunday afternoon (noon; WVUE-FOX 8; Saints Radio Network-870 AM flagship).</span>
<span style="">Q: Earlier in the week Marques Colston and Zach Strief were sick. Is anybody else on the team bothered by the flu bug?</span>
A: "Fortunately it's just been those two guys. We're trying to take all the necessary precautions in regards to staying on top of it with everybody else. So far it's just been those two guys."
Q: If CB Jabari Greer can't play are you anxious to see more minutes from Malcolm Jenkins?
A: "We'll see. I'm still kind of hopeful in Jabari's case, just because of the nature of the injury. Certainly players such as Randall Gay, Malcolm Jenkins, all those guys, have been playing and certainly their role would increase, naturally."
Q: How uncharacteristic was Marques Colston's performance last week?
A: "Usually he's a guy that has real solid hands. He came up bit with the catch to keep the one drive going on third down. I think like anything else, with a position like that (WR), he's someone with sure hands. I think it is somewhat uncharacteristic because he doesn't drop a lot of balls. He'll battle back and he's fighting this flu right now and did some good things in practice."
Q: You said earlier in the week you couldn't wait to get back to practice and to start correcting mistakes that have popped up recently. How do you think the past few days have gone?
A: "Pretty good. We worked on a third down emphasis on Thursday. We spent a lot of time on our third down snaps. It's an area that we think is important each week in extending drives and obviously getting off the field defensively. We just have to continue to work on that and really with the pads on, it's still getting back to the blocking and tackling and front fits, all of the things necessary to play good football."
Q: Do you have to battle for all of your players to treat each opponent the same?
A: "I think the challenge for a coach is getting your team ready. Each week you have 16 games. In the last few weeks we've been able to maybe not play our best game and still come away with a win. That allows us then to focus on correcting mistakes, playing a game without the turnovers and playing a game where we do the little things right in the kicking game and defense. That's really been a challenge as you try to be real critical with your players, objectively looking at the game they just played. I think we have the right type of makeup of guys that want to improve and they understand that challenge."
Q: Is sounds like a cliché but is there something there where sometimes a team can come out flat for games?
A: "I think in the last couple weeks we certainly maybe haven't started like we had earlier in the season. It's hard to come out each week the same. As a coach you try to guard against that and each week it is a different challenge. This is a different challenge for us playing a road game inside where it's loud against a team that's been off on their by week. I think our players will be ready to play this game. They understand the mistakes we're making and how we have to clean them up."
