Good evening Ladies and gentlemen, First let me say I'm glad to be standing back in front of this podium. If I can be honest I wish I was in a better mood but I will do my best to answer all and every question. Let us begin.
Discuss your first game of the season. The good, the bad, the ugly.
Wow, Ok, out of order because I like to end on a positive. We start with the Ugly, We let our foot off of their throats. We had the game firmly in control and then came the fourth quarter. We stopped playing loose. We started playing not to lose and we need to do a better job of sticking with the game plan and keeping our foot on the opponents throat. We let them back into the game and had no answers. Now the Ugly...(Takes a deep breath) We have to be able to pick each other up. our defense kept putting them at 3rd and long and they kept making the big first down when they needed it down the stretch. We were able to make them punt in the first half and in the third we couldn't stop the third down. Our fierce four up front did a terrific job of containing the run and putting pressure on the QB. Our DB's must have had about 7 or 8 pass deflections. Our issues came in the middle of the field. We have to tighten that up or it will be a long season. Second, we had a whirl wind of misfortune. From a Missed field goal, to a costly fumble that sparked a fire in St.Louis Then after the late score from St. Louis, McClure gave us some good field position with about 44 seconds left and three timeouts we get a penalty, sack and then dropped a 24 yard pass to keep the drive alive which cost us at the end. We didn't show poise, we kept trying to get it all on one play and it cost us. Now the good, and as doom and gloom as I might sound up here I saw a ton of good. Our WR core was great. The Pitts brothers doing what they do, Zambrano with five receptions lead the team. Our Backs put a hurting on the other team, racked up over 120 yards on the ground. Let me not forget my O-Line who deserves the Player of the game for not allowing a sack out there, great job by them. Over all we did everything we had to do to win until the fourth quarter. Now we travel to Alabama and if we don't play from whistle to whistle we will be in trouble.
Talk about the news surrounding your team this week.
I don't know where it came from that the coaching staff was on the hot seat. They aren't strictly to blame. Costly penalties, blown third down coverage, turnovers all cost us. If any of that is true is that we are all on the hot seat. The staff and Myself. This is probably one of the most talented teams Atlanta has had and if we can't put it together there will be changes from top to bottom which might even include myself. While I am assessing our staff, Ms Barracuda and the board of trustees are assessing me. The fans are assessing all of us. So, what ever that hot seat business was belongs to everyone on this team. Listen, winning is the best deodorant. All we have to do is win to completely change the narrative. Last year we beat Alabama at home when they had statistically one of the most legendary seasons, we played them hard both times. Beating them will do a lot for this team.
Was there a pleasant or unpleasant surprise that you didn't expect from your team in the individual performance category?
Well Like I said, tons of love to the O-Line for not allowing a sack.I knew I put together a pretty good O-line but to actually see them play the way they did was definitely a pleasant experience. Half of that O-ine is new to the system and to play like they did was great.The D-Line played like I knew they would
Talk about your week 2 opponent and what you need to do to win this week.
It's Alabama, people think they lost a step because they lost two of their biggest play makers. Well they still have a solid coaching staff and probably the biggest play maker in Jamie Ortega. When you got him, you are never out of it. They lost to the defending champs, guess what they lost to them before. They just aren't better than them but I tell you now they are looking at the way we played last week at the end and they are telling themselves they are better than us. We all know there is no love lost between us. So we have to play smart, stay away from dumb penalties and keep our foot on the pedal and I think we should be fine. We fail in any of those categories and we could be looking at an 0-2 start.
