The cold truth: one on one with ... Rams coach Mike Martz.(Q&A)(Interview)

The thought process of Rams head coach Mike Martz is sometimes unconventional but always interesting. Martz spoke recently with Dan Pompei of the SPORTING NEWS.

TSN: In the offseason, you pushed for stricter pass interference rules. Any thoughts on how the new pass interference emphasis has affected play?

MM: Everyone is back to the way they were playing and coaching all those years before the last year or two. You're coaching guys to cover with their feet instead of mugging (receivers). Guys are doing a good job of covering them. You see it very seldom called. Passing yards aren't way out of whack. Receiver numbers aren't way out of whack. It's something that needed to happen.

TSN: How is your defense different with Larry Marmie having replaced Lovie Smith as coordinator?

MM: There are some things I wanted to do differently with defense. I didn't know if we could do it right away because we were so tuned in to what we were doing with Lovie. I wanted to change some things. That's the hardest part with Larry being new. We wanted to try some different coverages and pressure packages. It takes a little time. When these guys have been so ingrained into a system, I'm not sure that's the way to do it, just dump it all on them at the very beginning. But we're making the transition pretty well.

TSN: The injuries to (cornerback) Travis Fisher and others probably didn't help that transition.

MM: With all our injuries at cornerback, we were limited with what we could install defensively. You can't play some of the defenses you'd like to play against certain situations and ...