Quotes from:

Zac Taylor

Head coach

Okay, tough game for us today. Really, the starting point for us is five turnovers, five-to-zero, all five in plus territory when we're going in to put points on the board. Two of them obviously directly led to touchdowns. They all, to the best of my recall, led to points. And so you're not going to go on the road in a tough environment and give yourself any sort of chance when the turnovers are five to nothing. You're not going to put a sixth one on the ground that we recover and expect the win. So, a lot of things came off of that, which made things look pretty ugly. I thought truth be told, defensively, the first drive, they had two penalties that gave 25 yards right out the gate and gave up the touchdown. I thought they did a nice job in the first half. The score was not indicative of how this whole thing was played. The turnovers in the first half are indicative of what the score was. It was the way it was, and in the second half, the dam broke a little bit at times there. But again, we got a buckle up. This is a loss. That first half was ugly. We're gonna have to make a lot of corrections from it, but we're gonna have to be ready to move on. We're on a big stage next week, and we're gonna get a chance to redeem ourselves if we can handle things the right way.

Zac, 17-3, you're driving with less than two minutes to go in the half. Are you thinking chance to double up?
A: I mean, it's 17-3. We've been in some of these games over the past several years that I'm thinking of as we're going through that moment, and we just want points on the board. Love the touchdown, field goal will be great. And then use all the clock, get the ball to start the second half. Obviously, we had two turnovers there in quick moments that gave them a bunch of points. So that was a tough one that set us back there.

What do you think is going wrong with the running game right now, and how much does the lack of that force you guys into a lot of tough spots today?
I mean, when we're playing from behind, they're just chomping at the bit to tee off on us in the pass rush and the run game. There's a lot we have to prove in the run game. It's not pretty right now. We're not going to run from that. We've got to really identify where we're going to be in the run game, what we're going to hang our hat on, who we're going to run behind. I mean, there's a lot of that going on that we gotta really sort out and identify problems and be able to correct them, on the run and during the course of the week.

What are you seeing from the offensive line?
This is a collective effort. I didn't see the line have one turnover today. Okay? I saw a bunch of other guys have five. I didn't see one of those from the linemen. So very clearly, this is on the entire team. That first half, the offense really struggled. We did not put our team in a great spot and it's as simple as that.

All the fumbles, do you feel like it was just one of those games where they all just happened to happen or was there something going on?
I saw some. First and foremost, we weren't great with all the things we talk about. And so, if you're not going to do that, they're a team that hunts the ball. They do a great job. They have one – 55 had on one last week, Eric Wilson punched one out in a very similar situation with Atlanta. Atlanta had a big play, they're going to score, he punches it out. And so for us, there was a lot of those today where, we put four of them on the ground, they got three of them. It's good from that sense, it's not a good thing, it's a little bit of a wakeup call that the turnovers are going to get us beat at this stage, obviously, in the season. We've done a good job avoiding that in the past in terms of the fumbles. Today got us and we got a lot to work on, a lot to improve on.

What did you see on the pick six? The first turnover.
He was trying to throw it to [Ja'Marr] Chase, and Harrison [Smith] got underneath it and tipped it and it was picked off. So he's in scramble mode trying to make a play. I didn't talk to him in depth about what he saw from the backside, but I saw Harrison get underneath it and tip the ball up. And so from there it's a big play for them.

Is there anything you need to say to make sure one loss doesn't…
No. We've said what we need to say in the locker room. I think realistically, we need to look at why this game got away. You're going to hear me talk about these five turnovers over and over. It's going to be easy to make this game a bigger game than that, but really that put us in a horrible spot to where, when you're on the road and you give them the momentum like that, two defensive touchdowns, times we're getting momentum and they're punching the ball free and
getting the ball, it's tough to come back from that. And so it's as simple as that. I'm not saying there's not a lot we need to clean up in all phases, but that made the game really ugly, and it was hard to come back from. And again, we just need to fundamentally clean some stuff up, be better with the ball security. And this is one loss. We have 17 games. Don't let this game beat us twice in terms of our preparation this week and what the negativity is going to be, that exists. We put that on ourselves, and so we just got to do a great job sticking together, battling, and again, unbelievable stage to go on next week if we want to prove who we are.

Did you think that [Jordan] Mason having 116 yards was because the dam kind of broke?
It's exactly right. I mean, second half, some of those things started to break. We got to be better, obviously. We weren't sustaining great drives on offense. That was keeping our defense off the field. Even the turnovers were drives we were creating. But again, it was we're turning over as soon as we cross the 50, so we're not giving them a lot of time off over there. So again, collectively, we didn't do enough as a team. Defensively, we didn't get any turnovers. We punched one ball out. We didn't recover it. So again, we've gotten better there.

They didn't feel like you were close to getting something, I don't know, 17-3, you guys were driving.
I mean, 17-3, it's not a great situation to be in, but when you get the ball to start the second half, you just need to create some momentum for yourself going into the half. And there's plenty of opportunity there. That's not the way it unfolded, and so again, we gotta correct the things we can control.

When that happens, such an unusual end to a half, what's halftime even like?
Well, you just get the guys up and say, we're realistic about the situation, where we're at. Doesn't mean we can't come out and put pressure on them, try to score some points, make a 17-point game. All sudden, they start tightening it up, and you never know what can happen, they can make bad decisions with the ball. That's not the way it played out. We didn't do enough of his team, and so we have to own this loss collectively.

What happened with [Dalton] Risner's injury? And was he available?
Yeah, I think he could have been available. I'm not certain on that, but at that point we just, we made the switch.

And Samaje [Perine]?
He's got a hand, so we'll see where that goes. And Noah [Fant] had a concussion.

That's the worst loss in franchise history. Can you put your finger on why maybe you weren't as sharp?
Turnovers. I mean, I don't know how clearly I can say five turnovers put you in a horrible spot, four of them in the first half, two of them for touchdowns. So that's going to lead to a lot of historical issues, when you have two that suck the momentum right out of you, when you're in scoring position and they get 14 points out of it without their offense having to walk on the field. That's a blow to the gut, and the score is going to be ugly when that happens. Usually when there's one turnover for a touchdown on the road is tough. Two is tough, but again, just three more on top of that. I mean, our guys, like, I don't feel like it took the wind out of our sails. I mean, it is a blow, and it's hard to get yourself up, but our guys kept responding and trying to put ourself in position. I didn't see guys quit. It was just a tough, tough all around loss and we're going to have to own it.

How did Jake [Browning] do in your mind?

Yeah, we got to protect the ball, number one. That was – we came into this game, we got to protect the ball. So he had two turnovers, and then we'll watch the tape and assess from there. I thought he did a great job managing the pre snap operation. That was significant going into this game, getting us into the right call, getting the protection calls, operating within the clock. I thought he did a great job mentioning that, and we'll watch the tape and make an assessment where it is. But again, nobody was good, nobody can say, 'I played great, man. I did everything I could to support Jake and do my part.' There's none of us that are gonna be able to say that, so that's on all of us

**JAKE BROWNING**

Quarterback

You took that hit on the last play, how are you feeling?
I feel fine.

How much did that feel like it snowballed?
Yeah, I mean, definitely did in the first half. I think when you have that many turnovers in the first half, you're going to play from behind the whole game, and never really got into a rhythm. And they stuck it to us today, that was bad.

What was your takeaway from the pick six?
Takeaway from the pick six is just knowing when to throw the ball away. Thought I saw Chase, he (Harrison Smith) got a hand up on it last second. And, yeah, I think for me, it's just finding ways to survive those plays with incompletions and throwing the ball away..

What's your process mentally over the next 24 hours, couple days to flush this and make sure that you're ready for next week?

I think you got to sit in it. We got worked today, and you got to sit in it. You got to go through those emotions of like, just being miserable, and then you got to watch the tape and find your key things that you need to focus on for me to do my part and making sure that we move the ball better on offense and don't turn the ball over and get some points up on the board. And so yeah, it's kind of the same process whether you win or lose, but obviously it's just much more painful when you lose, especially the way we did.

How hard was it to get on track? Was there a moment in that first half where you felt like maybe down 17-3, driving late in the second quarter where you thought, well, we're finally getting a rhythm to score here?

Yeah, I think right before the half is really when I think it's snowballed. You're down, I think it was 17-3, we're driving, we're going to get the ball after halftime. I feel like we kind of got into a rhythm a little bit across the 50 and ended up having another turnover. I think, just in general, anytime you turn the ball that much you're going to get blown out and that's exactly what happened.

What hardest part of being in a game like this?
Sitting in it right now, being miserable. Gotta be able to bounce back. Very fortunate, it only counts as one loss. And you know, I think for me, it's just a big emphasis on, there's a lot of things that happen on offense that didn't go well, and for me, it's really focusing on what my role was in that, and what I need to do to get better, and collectively as a group, we got to respond. I think that's the hardest part, is just going out and not playing well and dealing with all the emotions after that and bouncing back.

How hard is it when the run games is struggling the way it has?
Yeah, I mean, definitely makes it tough. But I'm not gonna sit here and talk about the run game when I don't feel like I played very well. I played my part in us not being able to sustain drives, finish drives throughout the game. And so that's my focus. I'll be sure to really know my run calls and make sure we're running the right plays into the right looks, getting it called right. But I got my own stuff that I'm pretty focused on trying to get better at.

What was the biggest difficulty on third and longs?
I think the first thing was just ending up in third and long. We went into the game knowing that we had to be efficient on first and second down to avoid third and longs. We weren't, for whatever reason. Just first or second down we weren't able to get the ball moving forward and ended up in third and long, and they're difficult to deal with on third and long. And just like every team in the NFL, get to that third and seven-plus, it's a lot of different stuff. Just felt like never really got into a rhythm where you're sitting there, going through the read and delivering stuff on time, and we were always kind of backpedaling the whole game.

The team talked a lot about the silent count would be a big deal coming into this place. How
do you feel you guys did overall?

I think the operation of it all was fine. I don't think that particularly stood out as a reason for the score being the way it did. Operated well.

Was there something maybe team wide that was why you weren't as sharp as you would have liked?

It's tough, it's tough right after the game, to give that reason. Obviously, when it was many turnovers, as we did, a lot of different things that did not go well for the score to end up the way it did. I think everybody plays a role with that, me included. So I need to focus on what I what do I need to do to give us the best chance to win? And obviously, there's a lot of people on the team that also has to play a role with that, but I'm really focused on this week, really focused on what I need to do in order to give us the best chance win.

How much do you think that this team needs in these next couple of days to look at things that you did wrong, make sure that you fix them, but at the same time not overreact to it being Week 3? Like, what do you think that you guys need this week to be able to make the corrections, but not let it be something that's defeating?

I think cool heads prevail. Cool heads prevail but not letting that what we just put on tape, not letting that go unaddressed, and trying to remove the emotion of everyone's frustrated. I'm frustrated. Nobody's happy about what just happened. Finding the balance of like, knowing, sitting in that feeling, knowing how it feels, going through watching the film and addressing the issues, but not letting this emotion of how you feel after a game like that, turn it into a bad locker. I don't think that's the case at all. You know, we got worked today, but we had a lot of turnovers, and that's kind of what happens. Trying to separate what you put on film from the emotion of how you're feeling after having a very poor game.

You don't have much time, you're going to be on a national stage. So I know you guys need to talk about redemption and all that, but you get it right away on Monday night.

Yeah, I think take the extra day and really focus on, like I said multiple times, focusing on what my role is, to give us the best chance to win. And, I think collectively, if we do that as a group, we have a chance to bounce back on Monday night. But think right now, need to really focus on what we just put on tape and addressing issues that presented itself on tape