“We moved some guys around hoping to get our best five, what we felt was our best five or combination of five. It did not work as well as we’d like. The quarterback was hit too many times. We had three sacks. We had the turnovers. We didn’t win third downs. We gave up explosives plays. That combination is not going win you a whole lot of football games.”
—Falcons coach Mike Smith on reshuffling of the offensive line.
“We’ll have to see. It didn’t come out the way I wanted it to, so I think I got knocked around. It’s one of those things.”
—Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan on if he was hit on the Mason Foster interception.
“We tried some new guys today and I think we’ll continue to do that as we move forward. I don’t think there is anything that is out of the question. It’s all on the table when you play the type of football that we’ve played over the past four weeks. You’ve got to look at everything. You’ve got to turn over every stone.”
—Smith predicting that more lineup changes will be forthcoming.
“We had a guy miss a block… We had a guy who absolutely did not execute a block. The guy was clean and we had way too many procedural penalties. We are a team that prides ourselves in playing smart football and we have not done that especially in the last four football games.”
—Smith on the block punt.
“It was just one of those things (Dekoda Watson) is a good player. In a situation like that, you’re just trying to not make a bad situation worse. I just tried to pick up the ball and not let them get it and go in the end zone.”
—Falcons punter Matt Bosher on the blocked punt by Tampa Bay linebacker Dekoda Watson.
“I was excited with the opportunity that the coaches gave me to get back out there. It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to play. There is a lot of stuff that I need to work on and get better at. Getting some experience today was good, but I need to improve everyday.”
—Falcons center Joe Hawley on his return to the starting lineup.
“I have to be a better football player for this team in order for us to be in games to win them. I’m going to focus a lot this week on getting back to the fundamentals of football. I’ve got to fix myself personally. I can’t turn the ball over myself or drop passes that I’m supposed to catch. It’s going to be a short week, but we have to go out there and get ourselves ready to go. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves in any way, form or fashion.”
—Falcons wide receiver Roddy White on his play against Tampa Bay.
“I feel like morale is good. I’m walking around and the players seem ready to play. It’s not like anybody is down or doesn’t want to play. The attitude in the locker room is positive. We are just not executing on the field. We are doing a bad job … everything was just so good last year and we felt like everybody was on the same page. This year, we just basically have two or three mental mistakes on one play.”
—White on the team's morale.
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