FALCONS SAFETY WILLIAM MOORE

“It was the read option. They’ve been successful with it all season. One of our best attributes has been (that we’re) a fast, physical football team. What they did was slow us down today by the read option. You never knew who had the ball. Everybody had their assignments, but again, you had to go where the ball is. You didn’t even know who had the ball sometimes.”

FALCONS BACKUP QUARTERBACK LUKE MCCOWN ON MATT RYAN

“He played his behind off, first half and second half. He played like you would expect your franchise quarterback to play. He led us the whole way, made some huge plays down the stretch to give us a chance. All in all, as a team, we just came up a little short.”

RYAN ON FUMBLE

“I took my eye off the ball for a quick second and it ended up on the ground. Against a good football team like that, you can’t have those kinds of mistakes.”

FALCONS TIGHT END TONY GONZALEZ

“That’s probably going to be the last time I wear that uniform or football pads and cleats. I didn’t want to take it off, tell you the truth. All good things come to an end. And like I said all season along, this is probably my last one. But what an unbelievable ride.”

FALCONS CORNERBACK DUNTA ROBINSON

“Tony Gonzalez, Mike Peterson, ‘Mud Duck’ (Todd McClure), guys that have been in this league 13, 14, 15, 16 years, my heart hurts for them, especially hurts for them because they deserve it. They deserve it. They deserve to win. We wanted to win for them. It’s painful, man. It’s painful.”

FALCONS CENTER TODD MCCLURE ON RUNNING BACK MICHAEL TURNER’S ABSENCE

“I’m sure it was a factor. He runs hard, and he definitely changes the way defenses look at us and their coverages. He can help schematically, but I’m not sure, because we didn’t have him in there.”

FALCONS DEFENSIVE END JOHN ABRAHAM

“It seems, even though we have to give them a lot of credit, it feels like we let them in the game in the second half. I think that is the part that will hurt the most because we had a real chance to come away with the win.”

“I fully anticipate coming back next year to give it another run. This was a special year and I’m excited to continue to build momentum for the coming  year.”

FALCONS WIDE RECEIVER RODDY WHITE

“I just feel like if we didn’t turn the ball over, we had a chance to win. Unfortunately, we gave them two.”

FALCONS WIDE RECEIVER HARRY DOUGLAS

“You don’t like feeling like this, you don’t like the taste it leaves in your mouth. To know that we had the opportunity to win the game, it just hurts.”

FALCONS LINEBACKER SEAN WEATHERSPOON ON TIGHT END VERNON DAVIS

“You definitely don’t want the tight end running down the field. That’s something we’re going to have to work on.”