"You almost, when things like [Pittsburgh's touchdown] happen, you want to run away from the play because you know it ain't you, and you don't want to be on TV," said Hobbs. "But you can't do that.
"What really encourages me is when guys don't make excuses. Regardless of if it's their fault or not, they don't make excuses. They just accept it."
The chatty cornerback said he's never afraid to face the music if he messes up, but the only critics he answers to are his coaches and teammates.
"It doesn't bother me," said Hobbs. "Those people, critics, whatever, they don't establish my job. They didn't get me here. They're not going to take me away.
"What those coaches say, and those guys in there, that's who I'm worried about. When we look on film and we see things, we know what defenses we're in. We know who is supposed to make that play. I can sit in there with guys like Vince Wilfork, Richard Seymour, and they can tell what we're doing in the back end. We can see what they're doing up front.
"The film doesn't lie, so as far as the plays being made, yeah, I'm a part of that defense, and when individual things are done wrong, I'm the first one to come out and say, 'Yeah, I messed up.' But I'm not going to sit here and take the blame for something I didn't do, but I'm also not going to throw my teammates under the bus, either. We did it as a team. We're going to lose as a team. We're going to win as a team."
But football is often a game of one-on-one matchups, and one of the few matchups Jacksonville has to like against New England is its tall receivers against the 5-foot-9-inch, 195-pound Hobbs.
Jacksonville has a trio of wideouts who would look at home on the parquet of the TD Banknorth Garden in 6-4, 212-pound Reggie Williams, 6-4, 218-pound Ernest Wilford, and 6-6, 232-pound Matt Jones. The three make 5-11 Dennis Northcutt, who had 44 catches for 601 yards and four scores for Jacksonville, look downright Lilliputian.
