Head Coach Raheem Morris & Quarterback Kirk Cousins Week 14 post game press conferences vs. Seahawks

Head Coach Raheem Morris & Quarterback Kirk Cousins Week 14 post game press conferences vs. Seahawks

drives that could have been touchdowns. Um those killed us. Come out of the second half, you can’t give a kick our turn. You can’t um allow those guys to answer with a nice drive by offense and then fumble the ball in their territory. And then those guys were able to get the ball and really go down and score on us at will at that point. Um kind of took took it away from us and u we lost the football game without opening up questions. you you had been feeling so good about the way this team was holding together. Does that second half change the way you feel about it? No. Um that was within the the confines of the game. You know, the kickoff return was a backbreaker, the fumble was a backbreaker. Those things happen back toback. Um in combination those things, that’s a game-like thing. That’s a individual moment, a oneame type of thing. These guys will come back ready to fight on Thursday. Uh couldn’t be nothing better than a quick week, short week, ready to deal. How at this point can you fix the special teams problems? You know, we got to go figure it out. We got to watch it. We got to put more people out there, change it up, who’s going, who’s running down, who’s covering, um, who’s doing all the things that we ask those guys to do. You can’t give up a block, field goal. You can’t do any of those things. So, it’s not just one person to point at. Um, it’s just not what thing to point at. You got to go figure it out and look at it on tape and try to come up with some answers. Defensively, the way they moved the ball in the second half. Were those breakdowns by y’all or do you feel like your defense just sort of got overwhelmed considering the special teams in the office? You know, they did a nice job. and they forced into the situation of the two-score game and you got to play some man and those guys did a nice job of beating man coverage. They were able to run away from a couple plays, made a couple plays down there in the stretch. They able to run the football really well. Um there’s always going to be some correctable things on tape that we’ll go back and look at tonight. I got the quick week, so we’ll look at it all tonight. We’ll get it corrected tonight. We better move on pretty quickly tomorrow. Um because we got to go get ready for Tampa. Coach, you spoke about a quick week. I was going to ask you, what did you see that you can remember right now that you can take into Tampa on Thursday from this game? From this game? Yeah. You know, you can’t you can’t give up back breaking plays that allow your team to self-destruct when you’re playing a a really tight football game like that. That first half, you know, that was what the team should look like. You know, if you can find a way not to have those penalties, um you score some of those touchdowns, you’re in plus territory. You got a great opportunity to win this football game or at least give yourself a chance to win a football game. And when you come out the second half and you give it the kickoff return, you’re able to turn the football over, you give yourself no chance. Um, coach, you talked about, you know, some of those momentum shifting plays that happened. Um, you know, the kickoff return and the fumble. As a coach, when you’re seeing that and you’re recognizing that, is there anything you can do? Is there like a a call you can make? Is there something you can say like where you you sense the shift and you can try to get it back into your favor? There’s no magic call, you know, you got to go out there and play. Um the guys got to go back there and recapture the momentum and somebody’s got to go make a play whether it’s on defense, whether it’s on special teams, or whether it’s on offense. You know, somebody’s got to go make a game play, a gamechanging play. Um and that didn’t happen. You know, those guys went out, made plays on us, and you know, hats off to the Seahawks. Um end of the first half, under two minutes to go, it looked like Darnell reestablished himself when he caught the what appeared to be a touchdown. Would have given you guys momentum going in the half. It wasn’t reviewed. Do you have any explanation why should have been reviewed by the NFL because it did appear he did come back and play? I don’t know that, Zach. I do know um I gave my explanation. My explanation was I thought it should have been a call on the play. Um potentially um if you get the call on the play, you can reestablish yourself, catch the ball, should have been a touchdown. Um they explained to me didn’t see it that way. You know, whatever the case may be. So, it’s not a touchdown. It is what it is. Um you go what the official said at that moment. We’ll figure out what the right decision was moving forward. Do you feel was the momentum turning play? Uh, no. The momentum turning to play was the kickoff turn out of the half. You know, um, I felt great about what was happening up until that point. You know, you always want to have those extra points, have those extra things, those extra moments, but that wasn’t the case. You had been hesitant to sort of do anything dramatically different given the way given so many close losses. Does a loss like this change your approach? Do you feel like you need to do something to change your approach in some dramatic fashion? You always look at yourself first. You know, we always look at each other inward first. Um, and I always do that every single game. You know, it’s like the dramatic things that you guys are looking for. I don’t know what those things are. Um, but you always got to look inward. You always got to figure out what’s best for the football team and try to figure out a way to win this football game. And the things that we had sought out to try to win this football game, we did not get accomplished. Uh, we had to get turnovers on on defense. We had to maintain the ball. We had to stay on track, which we’re not able to do. and on special teams, we had to make it more about us and we did not do any of those things. So, when those things happened, um the game got out of hand. Coach, um third down offense again was a bit of a struggle to at this point uh or today. Uh what do what can you do at this point in the season? You got to make a catch. You know, when Kurt puts it in position to for a guy to make a catch on third down, you got to make those catches. You know, we had a couple misops from a a number of people. Um had a couple really good looks at it. You know, obviously they made some plays as well on their defense, a couple plays that they made as well, but when you have an opportunity to move the chains and really get it going, you got to get those things going. And particularly on the third and one, we went forward on fourth down, but you got to be able to move the chains that way. You got to be able to do those things. And then some of those second half third downs are kind of ridiculous. Um, the situation we put ourselves in and you can’t allow those things happen. Raheem, just to clarify on the Mooney play, when you say you thought there should have been a call, you thought there should have been a call on a defender, either a PI or Yeah, you call whatever you want. legal contact, you call it the PI, you know, at that moment and then that play is going to be reviewed. All those things will happen and we can actually have the conversation on what it should have been or what it could have been. Hey Raheem, this clinches the eighth consecutive losing season for the Falcons and I know this was but predated your your era, but do you have a message to the fan base that has endured one losing season after another? You know, our fan base deserves a winner and the only thing we can do is try to find a way to go win this Thursday football game. You know, you can’t make any promise that you can’t keep at this moment. Um, the only thing you can do is try to give them the best efforts you can give them potentially on Thursday night. Yes. You know, you like to kick the field goal there. Obviously, um, you got a couple different choices there. You can try to go for it and get it, pick it up, get the score. you can absolutely kick the field goal, go down there and get a quick stop, get the ball back, and then you’re right back in the game. Um, obviously, when you don’t make the stop after the field goal kick, um, is is is it doesn’t matter what you did there, but um, you know, trying to keep that thing a game, you want to kick it for, you want to kick it, you make it a two- possession game, you go, excuse me, a two-score game, you go out there and get a quick stop, start of the fourth quarter, you got a chance to go out there and really win that football game. Thanks, guys. All right. difficult to uh stand here after a loss. Um um you know disappointing to not uh you know have a better second half and and you know be in the game there at the end and um and so you know we find ourselves in a similar spot where we have to you know go back and you know talk about it improve correct and and on a week where we don’t have much time uh you know try to put a better product on the field next Thursday this coming Thursday night and uh that’s that’s where we find ourselves and take any questions you have. Kirk, I asked for um Coach Morris the same thing. Um it’s a short week, so what did you see today that you can kind of take into Tampa and probably use for the better? Yeah, I’d have a better answer for you tomorrow after watching the film. Um um you know, I think you’re always reminded of just how it’s a four-arter game and you have to keep playing and you never know which play is going to be the play that that can make the difference and so you just um you know, have to play with that sense of urgency at all times and um and today it got away from us. Raheem thought the second half kickoff return for a touchdown was kind of a backb breaker. Did it feel that way on the field to y’all? You know what what I’ll say is pro football for me has always been a test of kind of withstanding those types of moments. Um whether they’re your own mistakes or a different phase of football that you may not have as much control over. So I I’ve always kind of taken pride in saying who cares? like we got to find our way back and and uh that’s how you have comebacks and that’s how you have rallies and so I I I I hear what he’s saying and certainly in a team sport you know there are moments where you say ah that that wasn’t ideal but um you also feel like you got to play your way back from that and you take pride in that too as a quarterback of of how do we respond. Was it discouraging in that case in that sense that y’all couldn’t do that on sort of any of the three phases? Well, I I think the the the disappointment standing before you now is is is not delivering, not not coming through, you know, whether it’s winning 9 to6 or uh you know, 50 to to 51 or whatever it may be, you just you want to deliver one way or another. And so knowing that standing here we didn’t is what is what uh hurts. Interceptions. Do you feel like those were overaggressive throws that maybe couldn’t fit into the spot she thought you could and the ball gets tipped up or was there a theme there? Yeah, I think uh the first one um you know you know Kyle did a good job of kind of trying to give me a quick surface to throw and I tried to plug it on him and the DB you know drove on it and um and the ball got tipped up in the air and it goes right to the other DB and so in hindsight if I could do it over again and knowing what I know now I’ I’d probably try to feel that corner driving it and uh progress backside. Um and then the second one, you know, check to the screen. They kind of read out into the screen and it was a uh bang bang play there that again gets tipped up in the air and they they come away with it. Kirk, uh when when you guys are having a season like this, is there anything that you can say or anybody on the team can say to kind of keep people motivated the rest of the way? I think saying things has has merit. I think doing things is probably more merit and so it’s more about um you know how you practice, how you prepare, how you play on Thursday night is really what it comes down to. Um if if words need to be said or you feel it might make a difference or move the needle, certainly we try to do that. But um I think also just your your habits, your actions, your attitude, your approach also is very important. From from an outsers’s point of view, they seem like you guys have kind of a mellow team so to speak. I guess that could be a positive, but do you think that at this point that you need somebody to for one of a better term pick up a chair and throw it across the room to kind of wake everybody up? Could be. Could be. Um, you know, we were doing Yeah, you never we could be. It’s hard to say. Kirk, you were talking about uh, you know, how Pro Football is about withstanding th those things like that kickoff return second half. Does it feel like you guys have kind of struggled this season uh, withstanding those things? because it seems like every game you can kind of point to one or two turning points where they punched y’all in the mouth and you were not able to punch back. In the games where that’s happened, you certainly you would say, “Hey, it’s happened a couple of times.” I can also probably point to some games that came down to final drives and answers. I think of Berlin where, you know, we kind of have this this drive that we go down and and think that may have won the game and then it doesn’t. And so you kind of punch, counter punch, punch, counter punch. pro football and it kind of comes down to who’s able to throw the last punch with the clock. But, um, some games we’ve been able to do that and and some games we’ve we’ve we’ve fought hard and and counter punched hard and it just, you know, didn’t come down at the end to the final punch being the one that was was able to to be the knockout. One of the punches you appeared to throw was at the end of the first half when Mooney looked like he was shoved out, came back to establish himself. Was that deflating when it appeared to go one way and then the league ruled the other way? Um, you try not to let anything deflate you. You try not to let anything get you too up either. You just try to keep playing, play steady. Um, knowing there was so much football left in the second half, you um just try to keep playing and believe that if you do that, you know that you you can be there at the end. But, um, you know, you look back at the end of the game and you certainly say, “Ah, that would have been would have been a nice one to have there.” And just didn’t go our way. Okay. Would you be the guy? You know, um I’ve I I don’t know about chair throwing, but um he’s got me thinking a little bit. He’s got me thinking a little bit. You know, I’ve given some speeches in my day and done some pregame chants and that kind of a thing and uh did it last year and uh it has its place. Has its place. It can also be forced and it can be really cringe and so you got to have emotional intelligence to know when it works and when it doesn’t and you got to read the room a little bit. But um I understand what what he’s saying. He has a point and there’s moments where it matters. Okay.

Atlanta Falcons Head Coach Raheem Morris and Quarterback Kirk Cousins speak with the media following the Falcons’ Week 14 home matchup against the Seattle Seahawks.

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