Q: Do you take anything out of this other than the loss?
A: We should've won the football game and it just didn't happen for us. We're professionals and we don't want to say we came close or we can build on this. Obviously we can build on this momentum, but we let another one slip out of our fingers. I'm proud of the way the guys fought considering we had guys who came to the stadium today and didn't even know they were going to play and stepped right in and filled in and didn't miss a beat. But it still hurts though.
Q: Eli talked about the energy. Was the energy different than last week?
A: Definitely. I definitely sensed it and I definitely think it was different than last week. I don't have any answers for why, but we really came in prepared to shock the world today. I don't think there was anytime in the game where we didn't feel that we weren't going to win the game, even being down eight and Eli driving. Hopefully something wakes us back up and lets us understand that we still have a great shot of getting to where we want to get if we come out with that intensity and come out with that passion and play like that every game we aren't going to lose a lot of games.
Q: Missed opportunity to shock the world?
A: Well I know I said that, but I don't really care about anything outside of those 53 guys and those coaches in the locker room. They don't care what other people think about us. We understand what we have in that locker room, even considering the guys we lost. We still have a bunch of guys that are going to fight. I thought we did a good job of fighting today. Came up a little short, but we had our chances though. Hopefully something that we learn from it is that those are the champs and you have to knock the champs out. You can't let them linger around. You have to knock them out. Today I think we had them on the ropes and let them off for whatever reason or maybe the bell rung. But when you have them like that you have to take advantage of it and get the job done. We weren't able to do that today.
Q: Can you use this as a springboard like the game against Patriots in '07?
A: I'll find out next Sunday. But I understand where you're going with that and I understand what happened in '07. A lot of people can look back to that and see that we did it before. You look at history and you think that it's going to repeat itself. We still have to come out and find that passion like we did in '07. Like you said, it was different circumstances, but I think this team realizes what we have here. We get tired of swindling opportunities. The opportunities are going to stop coming after a while. For us, let's just take it one game at a time. We're going to go back, watch the film and move on. Obviously we have a tough next four [games] and we need every last one of them. That's where our focus turns.
Q: What was the feeling like in the defensive huddle with 58 seconds left and the score tied?
A: As a competitor, you want those situations. You want that situation where you can, obviously we could've sent it to overtime, but you want those situations where you can shut it down and make sure the offense gets another opportunity. Our offense was rolling at that point. I don't think [Green Bay] could've stopped our offense all night. I think our offense stopped themselves sometimes, but it's frustrating. I think we did a great job up until that point of at least making them drive, not really giving up the big, big plays. And then we give two back-to-back and that kind of breaks your back, but we just have to find a way to make sure they don't get into field goal range there. [We weren't] able to do it. But you have to give those guys credit. They were in those games like that and they've won, now, 18 straight for a reason. Like I said earlier, you have to knock them out. You can't allow them to linger around and think that things are just going to go your way. They're the champs. They're going to get every call. The ball is going to bounce their way and you have out-play them. I think tonight we played to a draw up until that last field goal. Like I said, you have to knock them out.
Filed under: