Bills Coaches Reflect Today on Blizzard Victory Over Colts

Buffalo Bills Head Coach Sean McDermott

Monday, December 11, 2017

Opening Statement: Alright, we’ll open it up to questions.

Q: Where are you with the quarterback situation, starting with Tyrod [Taylor] and then where Nathan [Peterman] is?

A: I’ll start it with Tyrod: Tyrod has made progress over the last couple of days. That’ll be a day-to-day thing as we move forward into this week. Anything more than that right now would be premature. Then with Nate, as you’d mentioned, Nate is currently in the concussion protocol.

Q: Was Tyrod reasonably close to being able to play [on] Sunday, this past Sunday?

A: I’m not a doctor, so there was a chance that he was going to play, that’s why we listed him the way we did. At the end of the day, he wasn’t able to.

Q: How much of the field conditions went into your decision with the Tyrod situation? Did you go purely on having – did the field conditions weigh into not having him dress?

A: A little bit of both; mostly how he was feeling. Certainly, the field conditions were a part of that equation as well, but mostly how he was feeling.

Q: You said last week that if Tyrod’s healthy, he will be your starter. I’m assuming that still applies going into this weekend.

A: It does. I’ll just take the time to mention [that] I thought Nate played a solid game. He was, for a young player in the game, control, had good control and command of the huddle and the situations. I thought he did some good things that were baked into our win; some of those seen, some unseen. I thought he played a solid game overall. But yes, when healthy, Tyrod will be our starter.

Q: With the uncertainty with Nathan, Tyrod, any plans on bringing in another quarterback this week?

A: Brandon [Beane] and I talk a lot throughout every week and this week will be no different. We will talk more about that later on, but the way things stand right now, we feel confident with the guys we have on our roster.

Q: To that end, it actually came down to this – I mean, if you have an emergency again next week, is Logan Thomas the guy who would have to do those things?

A: Right, yeah, he was a third quarterback yesterday, correct. He’d be the guy that would take snaps, right.

Q: When you say that you’re confident, part of that would have to deal with health then, right? Or would you be confident going into a game with Joe Webb and possibly Logan Thomas as your backup?

A: Yeah, it’s too early right now to tell all that. I feel, with the medical reports that we’ve gotten to this point, which is still early, and Brandon and I still coming off of the game from yesterday, we’re still going through our process. But for right now, where we are in our week, I feel confident with what we’ve got.

Q: Are you getting a little tired of these quarterback questions week, after week, after week?

A: It’s part of the job, right?

Q: I mean, obviously the perfect scenario would be [that] you’ve got one guy. You really haven’t been in that position much lately for sure, right? Is that kind of like – do you wish it wasn’t like that?

A: Well, I like the fact that we’ve got a team overall that, when one guy goes down, other guys step up, whether it’s the quarterback position or other positions on this team. The latest example was yesterday: Joe Webb; Kelvin [Benjamin] goes down, you see Deonte [Thompson] catch a big pass in the fourth quarter and overtime. The list goes on of guys that have done that throughout this season. I think the character of the men on our football team was on display yesterday and I’m extremely proud of that.

Q: Is there an update on Kelvin?

A: Still too early to tell right now. He’s being evaluated as we speak.

Q: With all the ups and downs you’ve faced, I mean, you’ve brought up the whole tank talk, you’ve had quarterback questions, and now it’s the big snow storm. You’ve always talked about just how this whole season is how long a group of guys can stick together and maintain focus. What have you learned more about your team after what happened yesterday?

A: I’ll start off just overall our building and our fans. I’ll start there, if I could. I mean, the game ball really needs to go the everyone, all the staff involved in getting that building ready to play, so let’s start there. Then, to keep that thing playable through that snowstorm yesterday, [I] can’t say enough about the hard-work that went into that and the teamwork. The fans, like I mentioned after the game yesterday, and I know Kyle [Williams] made a mention of it too, to stick around. Sal, I think it was you who asked me the question, I couldn’t even see the fans on the other side of the lower bowl until about the second quarter. I could hear them, but I couldn’t see them. Then, in the second quarter when things slowed down for a window of time, just that type of environment was a great environment to be a part of. Then, to your question, the players and the staff and the way that they’ve stuck together, the resiliency, the character like I mentioned earlier, it says a lot about the direction [that] we’re going.

Q: Because there’s so many times a team could have folded, whether it was when Marcell [Dareus] was traded, going back to Sammy Watkins and Ronald Darby, or even when Nathan Peterman threw the five interceptions, or yesterday when it looked like you were down and out in the final minute of the game. You must be impressed?

A: Yeah, there’s still a lot of work to do, so keeping things in perspective; a lot of work to do. A lot of building to be had yet, in terms of where we’re trying to go and the foundation [that] we’re building, but I do. I’m proud of what the guys accomplished yesterday and the way they accomplished it to this point. Still a lot of work to do.

Q: With the conditions the team dealt with and how difficult it is to move through snow, I’m guessing there’s a lot of heavy legs today. Does that change the recovery process at all this week?

A: We always, this time of year, always look at our schedule, making sure we’re putting the players in position from a physical standpoint to be as fresh as possible. I think most teams this part of the season are, you’d say, a little weary just in terms of the grind on the season. We always take a hard look at that. Our strength and conditioning staff does a great job with giving me the valuable information so that we can put a good practice plan together to get them back in this case as well.

Q: Now that you’ve watched the game again and maybe played the scenario out in your mind, would you have still punted in overtime on fourth and one when you did?

A: Well, look, those are hard situations. Those are challenging situations, but decisions I have to make as a head coach. Yesterday, look, it worked yesterday, right, to our benefit? When you look at those type of equations, there’s a lot of different variables that go into making those decisions. It’s never just one thing or another. Field position, I felt like when you look at how the game was trending with both offenses trying to come out from the shadows of their own goal post at times, leading up to that point in the game. You look at where we were on the field and how overtime works with points, and deciding a game. A lot of things went into that decision. In this case, it worked out, and I would do it again. But understand this, every situation’s different; no two situations are exactly the same. I felt confident that we could get the ball back with four minutes-and-change to go. We talked about it, [and] I wanted to make sure we used the timeout to talk about it, because I knew it was at a pivotal point in the game. Those were good discussions. Then, today, we come back, even though it worked out, [and] we continue to learn and focus on the process of growing from it, even though it worked out this time. So that if you say ‘hey, if this variable was different, would we do something differently? Would I do something differently?’ Those are all good valuable lessons for us, and we’ll continue to move forward with that, and grow. That was a great, I thought, situational-game yesterday when you look at: when we took the field what the conditions were, and then we ended the game what the conditions were. I go back to our preparation as a staff, and the way the players prepared during the week; we were in some of those situations during the week, and we had a plan going into the game of how we wanted to play the game. We did a good job of handling those situations.

Q: How comfortable would you have been in that situation if it had ended in a tie?

A: Well, when you look at it, you’re saying there’s three possible results: a tie, a loss or a win. I’ve been in those situations before where you want to win the game. Once in Philadelphia, and once in Carolina we ended up with a tie, that tie ended up helping us later on down the road of the season, in terms of where we were trying to get to. You’d rather it be a win. Certainly, those ties happen once in a while in overtime games.

Q: Were you aware of what a tie would’ve done to your playoff chances when you were making that call?

A: Those are all part of the variables that I take into consideration. That’s all the computation that’s going on in my mind; whether it’s this situation or another situation that you try and go from big picture to very minute details as quickly as you can in a span of what, 15 seconds?

Q: Did the coaches in the booth have to hustle, with golf carts not available, from what I understand? Did everybody get down and did everybody get back in the necessary allotted amount of time?

A: Are you referring to halftime?

Q: Yes.

A: Yeah, there was a challenge a little bit, with getting down, then getting back up because of the weather. The staff around the building did a phenomenal job. It was a little tighter than we’re used to, but we were in fact up there in time.

Q: Usually in a game like that, you see a few fumbled snaps and things like that, especially on long snaps. The job that Reid [Ferguson] did, especially with Colton [Schmidt], he had a big punt yesterday, can you just walk us through what that takes, because if you don’t hear from the long snapper, that’s usually a good thing?

A: Right, I thought Reid, and really, our specialists overall, and I’ll put Reid into that category; with what Colton did with the punting job, and then what Hausch [Stephen Hauschka] did with the kicking. They executed at an extremely high level for those type of conditions, which you don’t normally see in that type of weather. You go back and you look at how they tried a field goal early in the game, it didn’t work. We came in for the extra point, and we handled that, I thought well; got a nice clean surface, got the kick off. Those types of things going on through the game were – like I said, we handled some situations extremely well.

Q: You said you were in some of those situations during the week, does that mean you guys went outside at some point for practice?

A: No, no, but we tried to manufacture situations that had come up, that we learned from the week before; just like we always do. We’re always learning, always growing, and building off of experiences that we go through from one week to the next.

Q: What made you comfortable throwing the ball when you got it back on the Colts’ side with about a minute left?

A: At that point, we knew time was running out basically, to try and go win the game. We felt like we had to go on the attack to try and go win the game.

Q: The plays leading up to LeSean’s [McCoy] touchdown, the one or two plays leading up to it, how much were you just trying to get set up into a field goal spot, and then of course, LeSean runs a touchdown and it doesn’t matter?

A: Well, two things: we felt like we had enough time where we had some flexibility to do some things, but yet be smart with the football; and still make sure we establish or maintain the position where we wanted the ball for Stephen [Hauschka] at that point in the game. Then, credit to our offensive line, LeSean and Rick’s [Dennison] play-calling. He popped one, which is big for us. In those situations, you rather not have to kick it, in fact, we didn’t have to.

Q: Have you in anyway gone over this whole playoff race thing?

A: No, we’re focused on moving forward and the Miami Dolphins. We have a good Miami Dolphins team coming in here, that’s beaten this team twice the last year, last season. We’ll have our work cut out for us, and that’s what we moved forward onto, and improving what we do as well.

Q: For clarification on that, you said you knew what a tied did to your playoff picture scenario. You said it was a variable, so did you know, have you not peaked at them? Don’t you have to know the scenarios a little bit?

A: When you’re within that game, right, you do. You asked me afterwards, have I looked since that, I haven’t looked since that.

Q: You brought the punt team out, took a timeout, and then put them back out there, what led to that?

A: [I] just wanted us to take our time and think about it, talk about it as a staff, and make sure that it was the right thing that we felt good about, that I felt good about. Like I said, that was a pivotal point in the game, so I wasn’t about to rush a decision because I knew how important that decision would be.

Q: Did you pay attention to the final results yesterday around the league, which all pretty much helped you? Do you want to give a shout out to Ben Roethlisberger for what he did for you last night?

A: Yeah, I appreciate you Ben, out there. Mike Tomlin, former college teammate, appreciate the help.

Q: How close was Leonard [Johnson] to playing yesterday, and where is he right now?

A: It was close, we worked him out before the game. He is improving, so we’ll just see how this week unfolds.

Q: There’s some pictures out there of players in a restaurant parking lot helping push someone out of the snow. I wanted to know if you’re aware of that, your comments?

A: No, I was not aware of that, but it doesn’t surprise me with our guys. We’ve tried to do things the right way, and the players know that this is what we do. It’s not always just who we are, these guys know they have a platform; I think our guys do a good job of using that platform, and just really embedding in our community, which is important.

Q: What’s your take on lake effect snow?

A: Well we were coming down the tunnel before the game, and I said to Paul Sortisio, one of our top security guys here, I said ‘is this normal?’ I’ve heard so many things about this time of year in Western New York, and I just wanted to know if this was normal or abnormal. He said ‘no, this is not normal’. The great part about it, you go out and you execute. I said this going off the field at halftime, when our military goes out, they don’t always know the situation, the conditions, and they have to execute. Again, it’s different, I’m not going to put us on the same level, but why shouldn’t we have to go out and execute the same way, and our players did that.

Q: How tough is it to evaluate the film given just how crazy those circumstances were?

A: Yeah, it was a challenge. Our video guys do a great job every week, let alone this week, it was a challenge to try and get the right focus so we could see, even just the jerseys. For us, it was a little bit easier, having the red jerseys. But overall, their white jerseys, [we] were having a hard time making them out on the film. We have to find ways to learn from this tape so that we can move forward in the right direction.

Buffalo Bills Offensive Coordinator Rick Dennison

Monday, December 11, 2017

Q: Coach, how much of the playbook did you have available to you once you had to go to Joe [Webb] yesterday?

A: Well, the game-plan got diminished when we started the game. It was a little harder to do some of the things footing wise, and just execution wise. We started with some motions, we even tried to throw those out because [of the] timing of that. With Joe, it really did kind of the same thing. He knows the concepts that we were running and David [Culley] had him abreast while Nathan [Peterman] was out there anyway. He was working with David, so he wasn’t so much reducing it anymore. We have trust in Joe.

Q: Can you take anything meaningful from either how you called the game, how your players performed given that the situation with the weather was unlikely to be repeated and you’ll never face the scenario where the weather is that bad again?

A: Well, you never know. I’ve been in about three or four of those – snow, rain, something like that. You always take something from the game. Obviously, the experience of adjusting on the move – we had to make some adjustments as we went, not only just cutting plays down, but selection of plays as far as concepts. We’re trying to get double teams, but it was hard for lineman to pull. We had to reduce that even more than we wanted. Whether we’re going wide or tight with our runs, what kind of passes can we call? Can wide-outs break? We take that into consideration [and] use that for another bad weather game and then we take, actually the positive of our players’ mindset. They didn’t care what we called, they were going to get it done. I also want to thank whoever picked the red jerseys. [It was] a lot easier for me to see them up there in the box. Man, it was tough to see the white.

Q: So, you were in the box?

A: Yes, I was.

Q: How was it sight-wise? Early in the game, I know we couldn’t really see a lot [in the press box].

A: You know what, when they first started the game, it wasn’t too bad. Sometime in the second quarter, it got really blurry. We basically – you couldn’t see any numbers of their team. We kind of got to figure out who they were by the way they ran. By the time we got to that point, we kind of understood who the defensive players were and knew they weren’t subbing. They were staying with their base defense and that kind of reduced our calls even more. [We were] trying to make sure we didn’t match or didn’t put our guys in a tough situation.

Q: Did you consider maybe going down on the field at all?

A: I would’ve if I would’ve known what I had to do getting up there at half-time. We had to go through the concourse with all the fans. It was a rough deal, because the golf carts couldn’t go. Once you make a decision, I don’t think you can change the sideline to quarterback. I think I had to go back up no matter what. I missed the kick-off in the first play of the defense because we were kind of stuck going up there.

Q: Were you happy to be upstairs?

A: No, it didn’t matter. That really didn’t matter. We had some things that we wanted to do where I wanted to see overall and obviously we didn’t get to those. It was good to be – I would’ve been happy to be on the field, just as long as we got a good win there.

Q: What was the discussion to determine to be aggressive late in the first half, get the ball back [with] less than two minutes left? You hadn’t had much going on offensively, but you guys actually got aggressive to get it to Kelvin, obviously, in the end-zone.

A: Well, once LeSean [McCoy] broke out and we were trying to see if we could get in, run a couple times, see if we can break one out and Juan [Castillo] had talked about wanting to get to this one scheme he thought LeSean could do, and once he busted a couple of those out and got us into position, you certainly want to take advantage of that. Gave us a chance one-on-one with Kelvin [Benjamin] and Nathan made two good throws.

Q: Rick, how much were you involved in the decision to punt on fourth and one?

A: Just normal, normal deal. The head coach said that’s what we’re going to do, so I set up my plays for the next time.

Q: Assuming good health at receiver, how much do you see and continuing where Deonte [Thompson] is getting more snaps than Zay Jones?

A: I think it’ll be split. I think certainly, when Kelvin went out and Zay [Jones] and Andre [Holmes] kind of split some time, so that’ll be based on game, play-by-play, game-by-game. I think it’ll be split. Obviously, D.T. does a great job. He made the big play at the end. We trust him, but we trust all of them.

Q: What do you, I mean you want to be aggressive when the game is on the line, but what gave you the confidence that that play was going to work with Deonte and with Joe Webb, knowing that you probably didn’t have a lot of time practicing the play with Joe and Deonte together?

A: He actually does take some time, and then he threw, he throws with those guys after practice and does the individual. D.T. had run by the kid earlier when we tried it on the other side, so we had a good feel that he could do something in that particular route and Joe, to his credit, [said] ‘I want that,’ and we’ll go with it.

Q: What happened at the sequence at the end of regulation when Joe was intercepted there?

A: We tried to be aggressive and win the game. Tried one out with Kelvin and [it] didn’t work out, so I was trying to get Charles [Clay] one-on-one with the safety crossing the field, get him isolated, and Joe was a little late with the ball.

Q: Sean [McDermott] mentioned that Logan Thomas was the emergency quarterback if anything happened to Webb. Has he taken a snap at quarterback?

A: He’s taken, just like I said, after and obviously he’s in every meeting. He understands – he has played quarterback in the NFL before. [We’ve] had several meetings with him and felt like we could use something in a limited basis, obviously. He’s got a big arm, I know that, having evaluated [him] when he came out. I was a quarterback coach with Baltimore when he came out.

Q: If Tyrod [Taylor] or Peterman aren’t available early this week, do you expect him to –

A: I think that’s a little bit early to be saying anything. We’re just working on, just started working on Miami right now.

Q: Is it kind of wonder and amazement with LeSean in the snow? This is the second time he’s done this in this type of weather.

A: I’ll tell you what, he – that is remarkable. Guys couldn’t stay up and he hurdled a guy and stayed up and kept running. He did a phenomenal job, excellent job, obviously.

Q: The first fourth down decision on the opening drive, Joe threw, I think, to Clay. What was that? Was that the designed play?

A: Yeah, it was. We kind of set it up, didn’t quite get exactly the look we were looking for. He got out there, didn’t make a great throw, we didn’t make the play. Didn’t execute it as well as we did in practice the three, four times we executed it.

Defensive Coordinator Leslie Frazier

Monday, December 11, 2017

Opening Statement: Good afternoon everyone. What a day yesterday, I’ve been through a lot of cold weather games in my career, both as a player and coach, but that was pretty unique with the snow consistently coming down throughout the day. Hats off to our fans, they were terrific; as we’re fighting, scratching and clawing on every single snap trying to make a play, our fans are just cheering us on and pushing us. It was a great atmosphere. [I] was really excited about the way our guys battled, and we came away with a win which is no easy task, yesterday. A good effort all the way around.

Q: What can you say about overtime and Sean McDermott’s decision that he’s going to punt on fourth and one to pin them back? Certainly, it falls squarely on you, and essentially the game, and maybe the season is on the line. What were your thoughts going into that series that the Colts had?

A: Well we talked to our guys at the beginning of overtime about the rules, just to make sure everybody was clear. Once our offense went out and didn’t score, we couldn’t let them get any points because that would essentially win the game. We were looking forward, as a defense, to getting on the field and getting the ball back to our offense, giving our offense a chance to score and win the game. I think our guys embraced the moment, we were able to get off the field, our offense took the football and of course, LeSean [McCoy] did a terrific job with the finish, and that catch by D.T. [Deonte Thompson] was incredible. It worked out perfect, from our standpoint.

Q: Having been a head coach, and being in those situations where Sean had to make a decision to punt, what goes through your mind in those briefs seconds that you had to make a decision that could ultimately impact your team?

A: You’re right, those are briefs seconds; a lot of different scenarios are going through your mind and you’re probably consulting with your, in this case, the offensive coordinator and talking through some of the scenarios. Then, you have to make a final decision. You have to trust your gut, sometimes in those situations, and it worked out perfectly for us, to be able to get that win. I think Sean made a great decision, it really worked out well.

Q: Is Matt Milano now the starter at linebacker? He started and played 51 snaps yesterday.

A: Yeah, we inserted him in the starting lineup yesterday, and he did a terrific job. We plan on, barring anything happening this week in practice, him starting again against our next opponent, Miami. 

Q: And that would be in place of Ramon’s [Humber] spot, correct?

A: Correct.

Q: Ramon would be his backup?

A: Sure, yeah.

Q: Do you think it’s easier to play offense or defense in a game like that?

A: That’s a tough one, it wasn’t easy. Everything you work on in practice, you can’t simulate what happened yesterday, so I think it’s tough on either side of the ball. You’re just trying to figure out a way to make a play, keep your footing, and stay square as long as you can. You know one slip here, or one false step could be the difference in the ball game. I think it’s tough on both sides.

Q: How do you adapt to the conditions when you see what they are and what they’re like? Is there additional communication that’s going on along the sideline because you really can’t change cleats, there’s no cleat made for that?

A: No, it was a lot of talking amongst our players about how to change their strides, the movements, the importance of just staying where they needed to be and not getting out of their positions. There was a lot of conversation on the sideline in being able to adjust to the situation. I thought the guys did a pretty good job of adjusting. It was not, obviously, a natural situation, and you had to adjust to everything that you were doing. I thought our guys did a good job of that.

Q: That penalty that was called on that two-point conversion, do you think it should have been called one play earlier?

A: I think the officials got it right when they did call it. I’m glad that they called it when they did, obviously. It’s a clever play, but I think they got it right when they called it, I think they got it right.

Q: How difficult was it to be on the sideline – I’m not sure if you’ve ever been a part of 19-play drive?

A: Yeah you know we got them into some fourth downs in that situation; I think three times we had them in fourth down and couldn’t make a play. It was frustrating how we couldn’t find a way to make a play to end that drive. It was difficult. Fortunately, we were able to get back on the field in overtime and help our team. After playing so well throughout that game, and really getting off the field many of times on third down; I think they were [around] 25%. In that situation, to not come up with a play, it was definitely frustrating.

Q: Did you have any déjà vu yesterday by seeing Joe Webb back there at quarterback?

A: [Laughs] I told Joe after the game, I said ‘a lot of people are surprised that you could step in and do that, but we’ve seen this before, huh Joe?’ We both laughed. It’s good to see Joe come through for our team, and not surprised, he has the ability to make some plays in some key moments, and he did.

Q: How wild is it that all these years later, you guys are not only back in the same locker room, but that overtime came down to your defense and him at quarterback, which [is] same thing as five years ago?

A: Yeah, it’s kind of weird in some ways. Excited for Joe, excited for our team; he’s a terrific guy as your probably know, and to see him come through in the clutch, it was really big, big for our team, big for him.

Q: How difficult do you think it was on guys’ legs, with the snow? Does that change how you work players at all this week?

A: Going into it, we get the weather forecast throughout the week. We have a person in charge of that, and he’s given us a report, even on Saturday. But nobody really talked about preparing for that type of snow throughout the ball game. When we got our in pregame and we talked about it, you start realizing that some of the things that we had talked about during the week, are going to kind of be out the window. Fortunately for us, the way our players responded and the way they played, it almost seemed like they embraced the snow. They adapted pretty well; nobody complained, nobody said [anything wrong], they enjoyed it. You saw the celebration after the game, [they were] out there doing all kinds of things to show their enjoyment. It worked out fine.

Q: You have Tre’Davious White who has never seen snow and he’s doing jumping jacks and dancing around, then on the other end you have a vet like Kyle Williams who’s out there pregame with just his pants on and no socks. What did you make of those two things from your guys?

A: Well it just shows you the contrast, probably on every team, but in particular our team because we have a number of guys who have never been in a snow game. I think D.T. [Deonte Thompson] was one of those, he talked about it after the game. It’s just the nature of our business when you have so many guys from so many different parts of the country. Then Kyle of course, who’s played in many of cold weather games, it’s nothing new for him. The reaction is going to be different than a Tre’Davious who’s from LSU, but has never played in this type of condition. It’s probably a natural thing to see the reaction by a Tre’Davious versus a Kyle.

Q: How tough is it to grade or evaluate individual players’ performances given the conditions they were in because they may have been trying to do the right thing, but maybe the conditions just didn’t allow it?

A: That’s a great question. When we put on the tape this morning, we were looking at it going ‘how’re you going to give a guy minus on this play, and you can barely make out who it is on this play?’ We were talking about that, yet, you still want to grade them correctly, don’t want to give them any false positives. It was not an easy game to look at, grade, and determine whether guys should get a minus or a plus on this particular play because sometimes, you could barely make out who was who. It was challenging, but we still are going to put together a few plays for our guys to look at, and try to improve on some areas. It was not easy grading this game, for sure.

Q: If you could dial up the same forecast Sunday against Miami would you do it?

A: Whatever it takes for us to win, that’s what we’ll do, whatever it takes. If we get the same results, of course. The results are what matter.

Q: Was that Ryan Davis’ best game that he’s played so far for you?

A: The last couple of weeks he has really stepped it up. We had a conversation about two, three weeks ago; it’s really encouraging to see his performance pick up again. He was dealing with some things about two, three weeks ago, and his performance has picked up and that’s helped us on defense. He’s a guy who’s shown that he’s more than capable of getting it done for us. Last week was really good too, he did a good job last week as well. He’s come along, that’s going to help us in the long run, especially with losing Shaq [Lawson].

Q: On defense, you’ve had various ups and downs; run defense, whatever things that are happening, losing Marcell [Dareus], and all that stuff. Then, to persevere, for this team, that unit to persevere to the point where it stood when it needed to yesterday, and then to find this team still in the playoff hunt after all that’s gone on?

A: Well, we talked on Saturday night, we were talking with our players about how resilient they’ve been throughout the season just for the reasons you mentioned. There’s been so many ups and downs over the course of the year, but we’re not unlike a lot of teams in our league who have faced some similar situations, maybe not to the same degree. But, one of the things you have to recognize when you’re in this league, the National Football League, there’s going to be some highs, going to be some lows. Now, we’re at a point in December, where things really, really matter to a great degree. And part of why these games are as important as they are to us now, is because of what happened in September and October, with our team. We set up ourselves up to be in this position where we can be in the playoff hunt. Kuddos to our players for battling through some difficult moments where they could have easily said ‘our season is over, we’re not going to turn it around, we’re not going to improve,’ but they are fighting, scratching and clawing, trying to get better. To battle the way they did yesterday in those conditions, and not give in to the elements, that’s a big deal. It’s a credit to our leadership on our team, we have some tremendous leaders; Kyle being one of those guys, even Jerry [Hughes] and other guys on our defense and on our team that are keeping that locker room together. I think Sean deserves a lot of credit as well, he’s done a terrific job of just keeping the guys focused and not getting caught up in some of the other things that could distract you from being focused on the next opponent.

Q: Is it a little bit unique or, I’m not sure rare is the right word, but given the amount of new guys to have come together that quickly and to – it’s easy for a veteran team not to hang its hat and say ‘okay, we’re done’. But for a bunch of new guys that don’t know each other to have gone through this and persevere-?

A: Yeah, and part of that speaks to the culture that’s being created here by Sean. It’s unique in that way, just like you said. There have been a number of times, if you look back at our season, where you could say [that] these guys are done. Here we are with three games left and we’re right in the thick of it. Who knows what’s going to happen in these final three weeks, but I think everybody in this room would agree [that] you expect this team just to continue to fight, and fight, and fight and not give in. It just speaks to the culture that Sean has created here on our football team.

Q: Coach, what did you think of the fans yesterday?

A: Our fans were, like I said earlier, they were just terrific. I looked up in pregame and then as the game went on and saw the bowls filled and I’m going like ‘wow’. The noise, I mean we had some noise out there as well, which made it difficult for the opponent. Our fans were terrific to stick it out through, as we all know, some tough conditions. To be there cheering us on, pushing us, it’s a big deal when you’re the home team. We need to keep giving them something to shout about and we’re going to try and do that again this weekend.

Q: Was your car snowed in when you got to it in the parking lot?

A: It was, it was. It was hard to get out, but I enjoyed getting the snow off, because after a win, nothing gets you down.  It was all good, all good.

Q: Somebody said that it’s tough to look at the film and really analyze it, but what is one of the things that were positive that happened for guys? And what’s that a sign of? Is that the strength of being able to push through the snow? Is it footwork? Is there anything that you’re kind of seeing there as you’re looking at film?

A: Well, there’s some things that we can pull from that tape that should help us if we find ourselves in a similar game in the future, and we very well could. We talked about that; just jotting down some notes about what things we would do differently, how we would approach it going into the game if we knew that the situation was going to be like it was yesterday. So, there’s definitely some things we can pull from it that should help us in the future if we end up in a similar situation. 

 

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