Delanie Walker: “We’ve got G-Ro and they’ve got Mike Nolan. It’s going to be a battle.”

SANTA CLARA – Delanie Walker spoke at his locker Wednesday afternoon. This is what he said.

Q: Is it going to be important to establish you and Vernon in the passing game against the Falcons?

WALKER: Most definitely. Crab’s been doing that, so I’m pretty sure they’re going to have to stop Crab. And that’s going to give everybody opportunities to make plays.

Q: You guys do a lot of shifting and motion. After the Seattle game, some guys said you had to dial that back because of the crowd noise. When you go into a dome game like this, do you feel like you won’t be able to do all that stuff?

WALKER: We’ll see what we can do. If it’s pretty loud, we’ll change it, but we’re going to go in there with our game plan and see if it works. If we put points on that board, we’ll quiet them down.

Q: Atlanta’s secondary ranks near the bottom of the league in passing yards allowed. What still makes them dangerous?

WALKER: That D-line is pretty good. They get after it. But they all play physical. We’ve just got to make plays, break tackles and try to score.

Q: Do you think Mike Nolan has an advantage because he’s coached you guys and he knows you?

WALKER: If he knows us, then he knows that we’re going to play hard because we did that for him. I’m pretty sure he’s over there telling them guys, “They’re going to fight.” They’re going to have to do different things because he knows we’ve got playmakers over here. He is a defensive-scheme type of guy. He’s going to give us different stuff and we’re going to have to figure out how to get open and make plays.

Q: Have you seen on third downs, do they still have a lot of motion on their defense?

WALKER: They do a lot of stuff. We’ve just got to pick it up and do what we’re supposed to do. Hopefully we can make plays.

Q: Can you see some similarities in the Falcons defense and the defense you had here under Nolan?

WALKER: Oh yeah. Most definitely.  It’s the same defense. We’ll see what we can do. We’ve got G-Ro and they’ve got Mike Nolan. It’s going to be a battle.

Q: Is the read option a passing fad or the new direction of the NFL?

WALKER: I think will evolve into the read option pretty soon. Everybody that’s been doing that has the best offense so far. It’s been the most explosive in this league.

Q: Is it a fun offense to run?

WALKER: It’s fun. It gives you advantages and it opens up big plays down the field when you have a quarterback who can run or hand it off or throw the deep pass. It gives you multiple options.

Q: Can you blitz it?

WALKER: You can blitz it, but we can always change it to either side. You never know which side we’re going to run to. That’s the hard part about it.