MIAMI -- When Atlanta Falcons backup quarterback Steve DeBerg first saw his team's playbook this week, his immediate thought was "this is very involved, very complicated." He even considered canceling his dinner engagement that night.

Thursday morning, the 45-year-old DeBerg was feeling considerably more at ease.

"I was shocked at how well the team executed the game plan," he said. "It's very involved, a lot of new stuff, and it really kind of proved to me how focused this football team is, even with all the distractions. The players are doing what they're supposed to do."

The game plan was released to players Wednesday morning. They took part in that day's Super Bowl XXXIII media interviews for more than an hour then left to study the plays, which were used at that afternoon's practice in Coral Gables. Falcons coach Dan Reeves, when he coached Denver in three losing Super Bowls, was criticized each time for instituting changes to the Broncos playbook with only a short turnaround.

Whether DeBerg overreacted to the playbook is unclear. What is clear is his teammates and coaches were saying Thursday the new "wrinkles" don't amount to much in their preparations for Sunday's game against the defending champ Broncos.

Quarterback coach Jack Burns, a 23-year veteran of the coaching wars, played down the changes.

"We've always got a few new wrinkles up our sleeve. We have a very veteran staff, so we all have these exotic plays that we come up with from our past experiences," said Burns.

"Wednesday is the day we introduce the game plan to our players," he said. "So they get concerned that they understand our formations, our shifts, and new wrinkles that we may put in. Some of them handle it more gracefully than others. It's a game plan we feel like is sound, solid, and most everything in our game plan is something we've done at one time or another."

The playbook, according to Burns, is "a combination of a lot of things. It could be a new idea. It could be the same old play, we just put a different skirt on it and a different colored shirt to try to disguise it and mask our intent. Every game plan is different and unique in itself."

Burns said the coaching staff was "pleased" with how the team has adapted to the game plan. "They seemed very comfortable," he said.

"Chris Chandler at the quarterback position is extremely bright and that allows us to be flexible with our thinking.We don't have to go back to Ding Dong School with him every week, you know A-B-C-D-E-F-G," Burns added. "It allows us to be flexible, be creative with our game plans and do more things than we would normally be able to do if we didn't have such a veteran quarterback and a smart group of players."

Offensive coordinator George Sefcik said: "We really haven't changed that much. We've had a little bit more time to work on it than normal. I don't see it as being a problem. Our responsibility is to teach them and make sure they're aware of their assignments, how we want it done.

"We'll work as hard as we can to get that done. They'll work as hard as they can to learn their assignments, just like they do every week. Normally you have to get ready in a short span, a one-week period. For this game we had two, we'll be ready," said Sefcik, who has 26 years of NFL coaching experience.

"Wrinkles" is the operative word with defensive coordinator Rich Brooks, too. He's even able to put a percentage on how many plays are new.

"We only have a few new wrinkles. It won't be a large part of our plan but there will be a few things. What we do is do what we do best, to try to mix it up so they can't a read on when we're going to do it. A minor part of our plan is new. We're 16-2, we're not going to change what brought us here. We're going to do a few things different, to give us a new look, but it won't be more than 20-15 percent of what we do," says Brooks, another veteran coach.

Offensive line coach Art Shell, a former head coach in the NFL, noted that the focus now is on execution. "At this point and time there's nothing new. It's all about execution," he said. "We had a very good practice (Wednesday), very up-tempo. The guys are responding very well to what we're asking them to do. We're looking forward to getting our practices out of the way and getting into the game."

"This team has a positiveness about what it's doing. Once we get to practice they're getting on each other. If they make mistakes, they get after each other, so that's good," said Shell. "The practices have been very clean, very good, sharp and hopefully that will continue."

The playbook for special teams was installed a week earlier than for the rest of the team.

"Special teams-wise, we pretty much put everything in the week before. So we're pretty much going over the same things once more. We've had two weeks to watch/double the film. We've had double the practice, so that should help us. You have to make sure you keep doing the things you've been good at all year," says special teams coach Joe DeCamillis.

As for DeBerg, after Wednesday's practice went so smoothly, he was able to keep his dinner engagement.