Head Coach Raheem Morris & Quarterback Kirk Cousins post-game press conferences | Atlanta Falcons

Head Coach Raheem Morris & Quarterback Kirk Cousins post-game press conferences | Atlanta Falcons

tough day. Um, obviously at the office, you know, Sundays, man, these things you can be humbled and today was one of those days. Questions? Uh, yeah, coach. Um, could you discuss uh Kirk’s play and the play of the offense and that uh touchdown right before the half for 11 seconds? You know, tough to discuss anybody’s play uh when you go out and play that way. Um, it was it was bad across the board. Starts with us and that’s something that we got to fix all together and we got to go and get those things done this week. the touchdown right up before half looked like they kind of swung momentum. You know, they they swung momentum pretty early there within this game. Now, that touchdown to half actually didn’t help. Um was one of those things where you got to find a way to go get a stop. Um we had too many penalties uh to set those guys up and backed up situations. Uh not allowing us to keep the football to move on third down. It was an all-around bad day. Let you can you can talk about that, but um you know, quite honestly, it was it was a tough day all around. Did you feel like they had a beating on what you were doing offensively? Um, you have to say yes. I mean, they went out and smashed us today, you know, and uh, they had a they had a beat on what we’re doing defensively. They had a beat on what we’re doing special teams. They did a a nice job today, and we did not do a well job today. You’ve had a tough time following up both the Minnesota game and the Buffalo game. Any explanation for that at this point? Uh, I don’t, you know, we got to go back and look at the tape, evaluate those things, and get ready to go. Any update on Jesse? I don’t. I just checked on him just in the locker room. you know, he had to come out of there. So, I don’t know anything yet medically. And do do you know anything about Pennix or Drake for next week? I do not. Obviously, we’ll get back in and check those guys out next week. Josh, just want to ask Ram about about Drake because he was a late addition to the injury report yesterday. What was the deal there? Uh, just like we added, you know, we changed his status yesterday, you know, had a problem during the week, you know, trying to make it, couldn’t make it all the way up until today. So, had to be ruled out. um in three games I think you could say Carolina and then last week and this week it just didn’t seem like you were equal to the task ready to play. What would you have to say about that? I’d say Carolina and uh this week, you know, was one of those things. Last week, you know, obviously it was a 13-10 game in the fourth quarter. Um tough game going out to the West Coast and we lost it. You know, this week we got smashed. You know, that Carolina week definitely got smashed. I agree with you Ken. Um coach, what do you think about uh about third down conversions today for your Not very good. You know, we got to go. We got to find a way to convert those. We got to find a way to to move the chains. We got to find a way to actually stop those guys on third down. We got to get off the grass. Uh we were not good. We were not good on a lot of aspects of football today. We got to be better. When did you make the decision to go with Cousins and how much how many reps did he get during the week relative to uh the what a first string QB usually gets? So, as you know, we go throughout the process of all week. Obviously, we made the decision today. You know, you take that thing all the way to the wire when you’re talking about your quarterback. You know, Kurt obviously got a majority of reps as we talked about all week, like we said in our press conferences and we talked about it throughout the course of the week. You know, he got a lot of those things, a lot of those things from a mental standpoint, a lot of those things from practice standpoint. Um, but we had to make the ultimate decision today. Raheem, seemed like there were a handful of throws down the field that Kirk made where there was some confusion with the wide receiver without looking at the tape. You know, what did you see on some of those plays? You know, I could think about the one where we did have a confusion in third in the third quarter, made the wrong check. You know, obviously we want to get that ball up and down to the receiver. Um, but we shouldn’t have made that check. Uh, from a coaching standpoint, what do you do to keep the locker room together after a game like this? Yeah, that’s the easy part, you know, for us, man. These guys are together, guys, man. This is a team, man. These guys won’t won’t stray away from each other. The locker room will stay together. They’ll stay bonded, you know, not worried about that, but we definitely got to correct the physical mistakes that we made today. We got to correct those mistakes. We got to be upfront and honest, which we will be. We got to communicate because where that lacks, that’s where, you know, the things that that you don’t like creep in, and we won’t let that happen. So, we’ll we’ll constantly communicate. Are are you kind of surprised by the inconsistency of the of the team? You play a good game and then kind of slip back a little bit. You know, not not surprised. You know, that’s this is the National Football League and if you don’t come ready to play, clearly we’re not today. Um these things can happen and we got to go out there and fix those things. How badly did you miss Diablo today? Um is you’re always going to miss those players, but nobody cares, Josh. That doesn’t matter. There’s always got to be the next man up mentality. You got to find a way to go out there and win football games. You got to find a way to put your people in best position to win and that’s what’s required. Nothing else matters. You mentioned, I think, not being ready to play. How do you how do you fix that at this point after it’s shown up twice now? You only got one thing you can do is practice, right? You got to be able to go out and practice. You got to go out and teach. You got to go out and and make sure you get better and and that’s our jobs. Raheem, you had said earlier humbling day at the office, you know, just tough day in general. Without looking at the tape, offensively, what was the toughest part today that stood out to you? It all started right from the beginning. Not being able to run the football and control the game, that’s our lifeline. And when that’s not working, it’s going to look bad on us, whether it be defense, offense, or special teams. Man, that that’s our lifeline, being able to run the football on offense. Thanks, everyone. Thank you guys. Am I good to start, Matt? Yeah, if you want to. Okay. Yeah. Uh don’t have much to say. You know, frustrating day. Uh just wasn’t good enough. And um can take any questions you have. Kirk, just how did it feel to get back out there again as a starter? I know it’s different coming in, whatnot. Yeah, anytime you know, we don’t have a a win, it’s a tough tough day, but um um you know, certainly first time in 10 months being back out there with with you know, playing live football and um you know, that’s always uh good to get that experience again. What did the the week of prep leading into this game look like? Like when did you know that Mike wasn’t going to get to go, that they’re going to lean on you? like what did that timeline look like for you? I think you always try to make the decision, you know, as late as possible, you know, to give every chance to heal because every day you sleep on it, you get better and better. So, um you know, it becomes official today when you make the decision, you know, we’re going to go forward with with Mike resting. But, um um you know, you kind of get mixed in as the week goes on and always stay ready like you do any other week. Raheem talked about the the lifeblood, the lifeline of this offense has been and will be the run game and of course there was the struggles at the beginning of the game and then you had to go away from it towards the end of the game. Um I’m curious from your perspective what what were the issues? Yeah, when I’m uh turning my back to the defense and hand it off, I don’t have a great answer for you. We’ll have to go back and watch the tape, but certainly wasn’t um you know consistently productive enough. Um and we’ll have to look at look at why. Hey Kirk, what how would you how would you diagnose kind of the issues with this offense right now? And I I mean even like dialing it back to previous weeks, not just today, because it seems like the offense could be better than what it has been so far. Yeah, I think it’s it’s not a simple answer. We certainly got to be better than we were today. And um you know, those are those are the things we got to do the rest second half of this season. You know, as we go back tomorrow and watch the tape and talk about it, we got to uh kind of work through all that. you you’ve been in this role before as a backup, but it’s been a while. Did you feel like you were hitting on all cylinders today? That you were sharp outside of, you know, Yeah, I mean, certainly the final result, no one can really say, you know, it was great, but but um um you know, felt comfortable. felt comfortable as far as feeling the rush and recognizing coverage and making quick decisions and and um you know managing the game, you know, felt comfortable. How do you go forward? Obviously, Mike, I guess we’ll go in next week questionable. How do you go forward at this point? Yeah, pretty similar to every other week, you you go in, you know, in everything you do, you know, thinking about, you know, if I’m going to go, you know, how do I get ready for this? How do I do this? And then, uh you just react to, you know, what what ends up happening. and and every day, you know, when you heal every day, you get better and better and better. So, it’s a it’s a fluid situation and you just keep keep getting yourself ready. As as a backup, you may not feel comfortable saying week to week, hey, I like this or I don’t like this. Do you feel any more ownership now to say if you have any game plan or offensive suggestions or thoughts, being more forceful with those, or have you been doing that the same as you would? Um, I think there’s always good dialogue. I think we have good conversations in the quarterback room, good conversations on the field, and I think we’re always trying to um communicate well back and forth, be on the same page. What effect did not having Drake out there have today? Um hard to say, you know. I think uh uh there were just until we go back and watch the film, it’s really hard to say. Um I think uh you know, it wasn’t any one thing. you just feel like uh there were a lot of different phases that um that just weren’t consistently good enough. You have to stack you have to stack plays together and I felt like we we didn’t stack plays together to be able to put a drive together to go down the field and get points. Anything else? Thank you.

Atlanta Falcons Head Coach Raheem Morris & Quarterback Kirk Cousins speak with the media following the Falcons’ Week 8 matchup against the Miami Dolphins.

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