NEW ORLEANS — Here's what the Falcons had to say after their 31-21 loss to the Saints on Thursday night:
MATT RYAN, quarterback
On turnovers:
“It’s just ball security. I thought we moved the ball really efficiently the entire night. We had a couple of scoring chances where we ended up turning the football over. And when you do that, in this building, going up against this team, it’s extremely difficult to overcome that. We’ve got to play better than that and take better care of the football then we did tonight. But I think that’s something we can correct.”
On third down
“In order to take over momentum in the game you’ve got to convert the third downs. And when you factor in the turnovers and not making first downs, we aren’t going to win. But I think we will be better.”
More on the turnovers
“We just didn’t play the way we are capable of, in terms of ball security. I mean we knew it was going to be difficult coming down here – you can throw records out when you’re playing in the division and when we play them (Saints) it’s always physical. But when you don’t protect the football and have a number of turnovers, it’s just difficult to win.”
On taking care of the football
“Every time he (Coach Quinn) and I talk, and in every meeting he has with the team, he always talks about ball security. And that’s who we have been early in the season, but tonight we just turned the ball over too much. And we’ve got to be a lot better than that. It was a tough night, and we just didn’t play as well we’re capable of. We’ve got a lot of football in front of us and we are only 6 games into it. We’ve got some time to rest and heal and starting Monday, we have to work hard and get ready for our next game.”
DEVONTA FREEMAN, running back
On the loss
“We cant get that game back. Learn from it and get our bodies right. We have a lot of football left to play. That’s how we are approaching this. We’re going to keep a smile on our face. It was a football game.”
On the turnovers
“We just have to learn from it. Learn from our mistakes and see how we can get better. We’ll take the next 10 days off watch film, getting our bodies back together and just move on.”
ADRIAN CLAYBORN, defensive tackle/end
On the loss
“It’s always tough to lose your first game. They executed perfectly. The beat us on offense. They beat us on defense and they won the turnover battle. You can’t come back from that no matter how good you play.”
On having a chance after being down 14-7 at the half
“We pride ourselves on finishing and bouncing back. But they just executed better than we did.”
O’BRIEN SHOFIELD, linebacker/defensive end
On the loss
“We came in on a short-week. We had a good game plan and we didn’t execute on all levels and in all facets as a team. That’s something that we have to look at. We’ll be able to clean it up.”
JACOB TAMME, tight end
On the offense
“We were able to run and pass for a lot of yards and we moved the ball real well. But all that’s for naught because when you turn it over like we did you can’t win. It’s just something we are going to have to learn from. When you get it down there that close you’re supposed to score and not turn it over.”
On what the Falcons can take away from this game
“There was a lot of positive things we can take from this game. But the one thing we didn’t do was protect the football and that was the difference tonight. It’s a real tough way to take the first loss. It was a division game, against a rival. The good thing is we will learn a lot of things from this game – one of the best things is that we haven’t had to experience this (a loss) so far this year.”
TEVIN COLEMAN, running back
On the loss
“It’s real tough the way we lost tonight. And the turnovers didn’t help. Now that we have a little time before our next game, we can look at film and get better. We have to clean up all of the mistakes we made out there and come out next week rolling.”
RODDY WHITE, wide receiver
On the Falcons performance
“We’ve got to play way better than that. I felt like we did a heck of a job the first three games taking care of the ball. But in these last two games we haven’t. We turned it over last week but still found a way to win. But this week, those guys (Saints) were on their ‘A’ game and took advantage of our turnovers and took care of their business and made it hard for us to win.
On what went wrong
“We left the defense out there too long tonight – we have way to many three and outs. And then we didn’t start fast coming out at halftime. When you look at it, a lot of things that happened tonight wasn’t us.”
On the turnovers
“I told Tevin (Coleman) just to be Tevin and don’t get down on yourself. I’ve been in this league a very long time. When something like that happens, a player can’t shy away from who he is. He’s a great player and works hard and I know he’ll bounce back and make a lot of plays for us. I thought he played great for us tonight. He did a heck of a job running the ball and except for the fumble, he played well.”
On moving forward
“If we hold on to the ball we always give ourselves a chance to win. We’re talented enough on offense that if we hold onto the ball and not give it away, we’ll find a way to win games. But I tell people all the time – if we don’t hold onto the ball, we’ll get beat, and that’s what you saw tonight.”
TYSON JACKSON, defensive end
On the Saints
“What they (Saints) threw at us was what we expected. The only difference in the game was the turnover battle. We are a team that focuses on getting the ball back to our offense as much as possible, and we just did not do that.”
On the loss
“This is the first time I’ve lost here (in the Superdome) in seven tries. But the positive thing for us is that we have a long season ahead of us. So just like when we win a game, we have a 24-hour window of time when you just have to forget about it and go on and focus on the next team. And that’s how we have to look at it now and just move on.”
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