Here’s what Falcons safety Keanu Neal had to say about the fourth-quarter helmet-to-helmet hit on Philadelphia wide receiver Jordan Matthews and on other subjects surrounding the defense’s performance against the Eagles:
On the Falcons Defense:
“As a defense, I feel like we definitely tried to finish. There are a few things we need to fix-a few plays out there. I think overall we did pretty well. There’s always room for improvement.”
On his perspective of the helmet-to-helmet hit on Eagles WR Jordan Matthews:
“Never do I ever attempt to hit someone in the head. That’s just not the type of player I am. I’m not there to play like that. [Falcons Head Coach Dan Quinn] always talks about the strike zone. You guys know I’m a physical player, but I’m not trying to hit the dude in the head. They didn’t call a flag. I didn’t try to hit him in the head. I don’t think I hit him in the head, but I didn’t attempt to hit him in the head.”
On whether he felt any contact with Matthews’ helmet or facemask during the hit:
“No. When you’re playing the game, you don’t really feel that. You have a lot of adrenaline running, so you don’t really feel the helmet.”
On the reaction from the crowd after the hit on Matthews:
“I heard the reaction, but I didn’t see a flag. I thought it was a clean hit. Like I mentioned earlier, I don’t attempt to hit them in the head. That’s not me. We’re big on the strike zone and in the National Football League they’re big on head-to-head collisions and targeting fouls. I try my hardest to make sure my hits are legal and they didn’t call a flag today.”
On what it was like to watch Philadelphia gash the Falcons defense on the ground by running for over 200 yards:
“They got on the edge a few times. There was a play where I was supposed to be on the edge and he got outside of me. I was supposed to be the guy to set the edge. A little bit of it was on my part, but I’ll give the credit to them. They did a great job. The offensive line, the running backs, they ran hard. We played our ball and did the best we could. There’s still room for improvement, but I’ll hand it off to them.”
On what he thought of the Matthews hit:
“Like I said, I am not trying to hit the guy in the head. That’s not me. Never in the game of football will I ever try to do that. I’m not a dirty player like that. I went for the strike zone, I lowered my shoulder, and I felt like I hit him in the sternum. I don’t think I had any head-to-head contact.”
On if this is a tough way to go into the bye week:
“It is. We hate losing in any part of the game. Losing sucks. We’re going into the bye week and it doesn’t feel too good. But, it’s going to help us in the long run. Two weeks with that bitter taste in our mouth and we are going to come back ready to go.”
On what happened on the screen passes the Eagles seemed to be having success with:
“They were a little unexpected. In our zone, we have to keep our eyes back and be able to fall back to it. They started pulling us out and throwing the screen backside, so we just have to keep our eyes back and be able to fall back.”
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