Here’s what linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson had to say to reporters following the Patriots Divisional Round win in the Divisional Round of the playoffs on Sunday.
On the fact he talked about it, that they g were still hungry, and what the attitude was going in and what they were able to do consistently well to be able to produce the way they did defensively and get to the AFC Championship game:
“Obviously, I think the biggest thing is to protect home [field]. Come out there with a relentless and a dominant attitude, and just play to our identity, man. I think all week we’ve been hearing about the opposing side’s defense. So, of course, that gives us extra motivation, extra boost, just because of who we allow them to be. So just coming into this game, man, we knew everything was on our side of the ball. It was all in our favor for sure.”
On the fact Coach Vabel was saying that there was a lot of people involved in all of the turnovers, and that he had two pressures that led to interceptions and did he see on those plays, and what did he see about the turnovers in general today:
“I think, regardless of what the play IQ was, I think the biggest thing about the game is find a way to get to the ball. We knew this was a big defensive matchup going into the game, and I think field position and turnovers werre going to be the deciding factor going into the game. Regardless of what the play call was, man. You see ball, get ball. We had an opportunity to make those plays happen, and we did.”
On the fact from everything we’ve heard all season, his coach has done a great job of getting them to tune out the noise. With the noise this week being the quarterback change in Denver, what do they have to do to think of the matchup and not whatever advantage it suddenly gives them because of that change:
“I don’t know, man. I think we’re enjoying this win right now. I think we haven’t gotten that far. I know, obviously, we know that’s our next opponent, but we’re not going to skip past this win. We’re going to take advantage of this moment for sure.”
On how long during the week was there talk about not leting C. J. Stroud have a pocket, get in his face, make him make mistakes, and what the plan was to do that? And talk a little bit about actually having to do that and doing it during the game:
“Yeah, I think the back-end did a great job all day, man, giving him different looks and give him different reads to try to disguise and pick apart. So I think that was the biggest thing, man, get him to hold the ball in the clutch, give us an extra second to get to the quarterback. And I think the front four, man, we just wanted to fight and do everything we can to get there. So I think our praise goes to the back-end and the back-7 continues to give us those opportunities, man, and the front four, taking advantage of them for sure.”
On the fact they’ve had to play without some key players on defense down the stretch due to injury and with everybody finally back for this game, what does it mean to his unit to be able to play with everybody and get Milton [Williams] and Robert [Spillane] and guys like that and Khyris [Tonga] back:
“It’s huge. It’s huge, man. Regardless of whoever is in, everybody’s preparing as a starter. But with those guys coming in with the IQ and that ball knowledge, and this is obviously their gameplay. It gives this team a huge boost. Obviously, I think we see it in the last couple of games, just slowly getting guys back, some things getting a lot more dominant on our side of the ball for sure.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE: This transcript was done based on the available footage and is subject to typographical errors. If you spot anything, please let me know in the comments below.)
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
