From the locker room, 9/21
Posted on September 21, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized
Courtesy of the Patriots’ PR staff, here are some quotes of note from the Patriots’ locker room after today’s game:
- Ellis Hobbs III, Cornerback
- (On how Miami was able to run up the middle so often today) “I expected us to execute our game plan. I guess they [Miami] saw it as a weak spot or a spot that they could hit in their game plan. I think they did an excellent job of what they wanted to do today. They controlled pretty much every phase of the game. ”
- (On Miami being able to execute the direct snaps to the running back) “Going into the game, we knew there would be some element that we would see that we haven’t seen before. You can only game plan and practice so much for everything. Everything else you have to adjust to. As a whole, we didn’t do a good job adjusting to pretty much anything. They kept us on our heels and did a good job of executing their plays on offense.”
- (On if he is tired from the amount of running he did today) “I am exhausted but that is the business. You are not going to sit here and mope and complain. Trust me, I could be doing something else making a lot less [money] for running around. I am tired. I try not to show it but when you are tired you are tired.”
- (On If he can take any positives from today after how well he did in the return game) “It’s bittersweet. I always say ‘if you have a good day at the office individually, please let’s win so you can enjoy it.’ It didn’t happen. You take it for what it is and understand that it is a plus but as a team it is not going to win ball games doing things out here individually by yourself. We all have to play as a team.”
- Deltha O’Neal, Cornerback
- (On if the bye week coming up makes it any tougher to deal with a loss) “It is going to be hard because you have to sit on it [today’s loss] for two weeks until you can play another team to get the bad taste out of your mouth. It is going to be a rough couple of weeks but it is a long season. This is only the beginning. We have a lot more football ahead of us.”
- (On how much worse today’s loss was because it had been so long since they had lost a regular-season game) “It does [make it harder]. I just can’t wait to get back out there. I wish the bye week wasn’t this week but later in the season so we could get this nasty taste out of our mouths.”
- Richard Seymour, Defensive End
- (On the defense’s performance) “They ran some unbalanced formations that it didn’t seem that we had any answers for. You have to give them a lot of credit. They made the plays that they needed to make. We were a step behind and a step late all day. It felt like we were just reacting to what they were doing and didn’t really have any answers. Even when we were in the hole, we didn’t even make the tackles and make the plays that we needed to make. When you have a day like that, it’s very disappointing. Competitively speaking, it stinks because we have the bye. You want to get back out there and redeem yourself.
- (On the Ronnie Brown’s performance) “Like I said, they were running unbalanced formations and they were long ones sliding over to the other side. We would slide over and sometimes we stayed. We were running around like chickens with our heads cut off. We really didn’t know what to do. We didn’t even make the plays when we had him wrapped up, bottled up sometimes. They did whatever they had to do to win.
- Jarvis Green, Defensive End
- (On the team’s performance) They made more plays than us on defense. This just wasn’t New England Patriots football today.
- (On whether he was concerned by the team’s performance) We have concern. We’re all human. We need to get better. We need to work. We have a bye coming up so I think it’s a really great time for us to start over and get better on the things that we messed up on today. We need to get better and get ready for the next opponent.
- (On adjusting to Ronnie Brown during the game) We just weren’t making the plays. We went into the locker room and came out ready to adjust and got everything together that we needed to do make the plays and we didn’t make the plays. They still outplayed us.
- (On the Dolphins’ running game) Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams are great running backs. Those are the best guys that they have to carry the ball and to have that option — whether to give it to Ricky, or to give it to Ronnie — we just didn’t make the plays. Inside, we were still getting basic blocks in between the tackles.
- (On the play of Jake Long) He’s a pretty good player. He had a great game today. They did a lot of different things on us today. The way we prepared, there were a lot of things that were new to us.
- Sammy Morris, Running Back
- (On the offense’s execution) “We didn’t have a lot of continuity on offense. Offensively, we didn’t do enough. We didn’t have a lot of turnovers, we just didn’t execute and we’ll come back in tomorrow and see exactly what happened.”
- (On what Coach Belichick said after the game) “They made a lot more plays than we did. He said it’s tough to interpret what happened out there, I just know we didn’t play well enough to win.”
- (On what went wrong in today’s game) “I think the better question is what went right, which is nothing. What it boils down to is execution.”
- (On if he can take any positives from this game) “The scoreboard was pretty evident that we can only go up from here. We will go back in tomorrow and look at the film and find out what we need to correct.”
- Ty Warren, Defensive End
- (On the team’s defensive effort) “We’re prepared to come in here and do a good job. They came out and they out-executed us, allowed themselves an opportunity in the second half where they had a cushion to keep it vanilla and run the clock out. You never want it to get to that point in the game. The blame is all on us. I think you can go right down the line from me to whoever else you want to look at. We all have a play we’d like to have back in there.”
- (On Miami’s direct snap plays) “We looked at it on the sideline prior to halftime. You’re not really surprised by it because they have so many options they can do out of that package. They can pitch it the opposite way, they can run like they did, they can toss it out. You just have to be alert and obviously they were a little more alert than we were.”
- (On if they were prepared for Miami’s option formation) “We knew that gadget plays would be a possibility. We spent a lot of time just trying to watch film, but all in all, they just did a good job of executing and the hat goes off to them.”
- Jabar Gaffney, Wide Receiver
- (On playing from behind) “It kind of makes you one-dimensional and trying to catch up, but we never did it. We just never got back in the game. All the credit to them, they played a heck of a game.”
- (On if he saw the loss coming) “No, you never expect to go out there and lose and you definitely don’t expect to lose like that. So we’ve got to get back to work.”
- (On if the team had any problems in practice during the week) “No, we actually had a pretty good work week in practice and we expected to come out here and play good. But for some reason, we just couldn’t get it going.”
- (On if the Dolphins tried to take away the shorter passing routes) “Yeah, they did a good job of mixing it up. Miami always does that. They have a good secondary – a veteran secondary – and they played well.”
- Wes Welker, Wide Receiver
- (On how different the Dolphins look this year compared to last year) “They played really well out there. Obviously they did a lot of improvements and played a great game today.”
- (On Ronnie Brown’s performance) “He’s got a lot of talent and he definitely showed it today and how versatile he is and why he was the number two overall pick coming out [of college].”
- (On if he saw the loss coming) “I don’t think you ever see a loss like this ever coming. It’s one of those deals where they wanted it more and they played a lot better than we did.”
- (On what the problems were offensively) “Getting into a flow out there and making sure that everybody is doing the right things and getting open and making sure everyone’s on the same page.”
- (On if the offense expected to be able score more easily on Sunday) “Yeah, that’s what we expect to do. We’re supposed to go out there and score points and do well out there. Obviously that wasn’t the case today.”
- Rodney Harrison, Safety
- (On the challenges of defending the unique plays Miami ran) “Just staying disciplined and staying in your gap and making tackles. Ronnie Brown is a tremendous player and its hard tackling him in the open field as well as Ricky Williams. You just have to stay disciplined and aggressive. Unfortunately we had no idea they were going to come out and run those kind of plays and they came out and made some plays on us. ”
- (On if the defense sees this game as a step backwards) “It’s very disappointing but we just have to get better. Its just one bump in the road and I tell the guys that we just need to learn from it and come to work tomorrow with a positive attitude. ”
- (On what Belichick told the players on the sidelines) “He was just telling us some adjustments and telling us to finish and play hard. We were basically communicating that amongst ourselves and making sure that none of us quit and we didn’t. It wasn’t that we didn’t play hard, its just that it wasn’t good enough today.”
- (On if the team will just shrug this game off or learn from it) “You never throw a game out. I don’t care if it’s a 40-point win or a 40-point loss, you always have to learn something from it. We understand it’s a long season and we aren’t going to blow people out and we are just going to have to come to work everyday and work hard.”
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.