HEAD COACH MIKE SMITH
OPENING STATEMENT: "I felt like today, we played good football in all three phases. We were able to finish. That's something that we have not been able to do. Defensively, I felt that we had a good game plan in place. The coaches did a very nice job. We were able to put pressure on the quarterback. We hit him 11 times and sacked him four times and created some turnovers there in the second half. It was definitely a team win. We stated early in the week that our goal was to be 1-0 (after the bye week) and we got that accomplished."
QUARTERBACK MATT RYAN
On the rushing attack
“I thought we ran the football really effectively today. I thought our offensive line did a nice job. I thought that Steven Jackson played extremely physical. He went out there and was running between the tackles. He did a great job for us. My hat is off to him. My hat is off to our offensive line.”
On being opportunistic
“That’s part of the game. When you get a call that goes in your favor you have to capitalize on that especially in the red zone. I think we were two of four down in the red zone today. That was big for us to be able to punch it in and get a touchdown after we got the hands to the face penalty. That was huge for us.”
On bouncing back
“Sometimes after a tough loss like we had in London, you like to be right back at it and be out on the practice field trying to correct the mistakes that you made. I thought (the bye week) came at a good time for everybody. You get away for a little bit, refresh, recharge the batteries. I thought everybody came in with a really good mindset after the week off. I thought we had one of our better practices of the week on Monday.”
DEFENSIVE END OSI UMENYIORA
On the pass rush
“I’m just going to keep trying my best to help this team. It was all right. I felt good. Stop the run and you’ll be able to get after the quarterback.”
DEFENSIVE END MALLICAIH GOODMAN
On the pass rush
“I felt great. We’ve been improving out our rush and getting to the quarterback more and more. We have not executed on the sacks, but today it showed. We were just being relentless.”
DEFENSIVE END STANSLY MAPONGA
On his fumble recovery
“Malliciah did a good job of getting the ball out. I saw the ball. There were a lot of guys around so my first instinct was to just get on the ball and get a turnover.”
On the pass rush
“It felt great. We’d been working all week and hoping to get to the quarterback. Tampa Bay has a good (offensive) line. But we had a great game plan. We just wanted to disrupt the quarterback. We worked hard all week. I thought we did a good job today.”
WIDE RECEIVER RODDY WHITE
On the offense
“We have to go down there and score touchdowns and finish drives. Matt Bryant did a heck of a job making his field goals. But when you get those opportunities, we have to get down there and score touchdowns.”
On the victory
“We want to win the game, but we want to execute and be crisp at the same time. I felt like we were up and down. Up and down. Up and down throughout the whole game. We just need to be more consistent. We are scoring, but we are not executing like I think we can and putting the ball in the end zone and things like that like we should be doing.”
WIDE RECEIVER JULIO JONES
On the offense
“We were clicking on all cylinders. We were making plays left and right. Everybody made a catch in the game or made a play. That was good. The running game was working real well for us.”
On the rushing attack
“Steven Jackson had a great game today on the ground. They had to put nine in the box. We had one-on-one outside and we were winning our one-on-one matchups today.”
SAFETY DWIGHT LOWERY
On the defense’s late stops
“I think we took a stride forward today. I believe that we’ve been taking strides every week. Nothing major or crazy, but we’ve been making sure that we improve in some way, shape or form. I think today showed a glimpse of what it can be. We just have to learn how to be more consistent and also have faith that we can make the plays in those situations. We did today.”
