Roddy White Doesn’t See How Tony Gonzalez Can Retire With The Way He’s Playing

Roddy White Doesn’t See How Tony Gonzalez Can Retire With the Way He’s Playing

Roddy White and the Atlanta Falcons are one of only two unbeaten teams left in the National Football League, with both the offense and the defense taking leaps forward five weeks into the 2012 season.

One thing that hasn’t changed is that White, Julio Jones and Tony Gonzalez have been killing it as per usual. So does that mean Gonzalez is still ready to hang up the cleats after the season?

Roddy White joined The Dan Patrick Show to discuss how his unbeaten Falcons would match up with the unbeaten Texans, what’s different about this year’s team, particularly the defense, the last-second bomb he caught to set up a game-winning field goal against Carolina and the ageless Tony Gonzalez and his supposed retirement.

On how they match up with undefeated Houston:

“I think it’ll be a good matchup. They’re so sound defensively, and they do a lot of good things on defense and they’ve just got a lot of good players on defense. And they can run the ball, and they’ve got a good quarterback and good wideouts and things like that. So it’ll be a real good matchup.”

On what’s different about this year’s team:

“I just think we’re more focused. We’re more focused; we’re more locked in. We know this is our time; we need to set ourselves up to be in a great position in the playoffs. So we want to go out there and win a bunch of games so we can have a home playoff game.”

On what’s different about this year’s defense with Mike Nolan taking over:

“I think the scheme has a lot to do with it. … There’s no real position with those guys, they just line up everywhere and then they come. It’s kind of difficult for quarterbacks. All offseason we had to go against those guys and we barely could read the coverages, what they were doing. So when you’ve got six, five, four days to prepare for it, it’s kind of tough.”

On what the play call was on that late bomb against the Panthers two weeks ago:

“Actually, I don’t know. So he said, ‘Go get the ball, Roddy. Next play.’ … He said, ‘Roddy, go get this.’”

On how Tony Gonzalez can retire after this season when he’s playing so well:

“I have no clue. I’m still asking him that right to this day. I’m like, ‘You catch 13 balls in a day and you’re talking about retiring?’”

On if Gonzalez is definitely going to retire:

“I don’t know, he says this is the last year. … I just think if they offer him enough money, he’ll come back and play.” [Laughs]