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Rams Head Coach Jeff Fisher
(On the team’s performance)
“Yeah, we would have like to have seen touchdowns, but we gave them an opportunity. The fourth down thing was just one of those things that just happens. You’ve got to learn from it. (QB) Sam (Bradford) lost the ball. Basically what we looked for going into this ballgame was improving over last week. Right now I don’t feel like we saw that, but you look at the tape and hope you can find some things. Now the good things that happened, of course, were the big plays. We made big plays, another play to (WR) Chris (Givens). As you said, ‘Cookie’s’ (Jared Cook) play and got the ball in Tavon’s hands. Defensively, we were a little caught off guard. We didn’t anticipate the fast tempo offense like that. I thought we, other than the missed tackling, the fact that we kept (Packers QB) Aaron (Rodgers) out of the end zone is something to be said, considering we didn’t really gameplan them. So, once we made the substitutions, then obviously we had some difficulties, especially on offense up front with protection things. You know, I look at things from this standpoint: last weekend the punt cover team gives up the punt return for a touchdown, this weekend they improved significantly – recover a muff and also down a ball inside the one. Some of the younger guys on special teams here are certainly improving and I think that’s a positive thing to take away from it.”
(On if he saw what happened on QB Sam Bradford’s fumble)
“The ball came loose. The ball popped out. I haven’t talked to Sam about it, but it popped out. So we’ll get that fixed.”
(On missing tackles)
“We had one-on-one situations and you need to finish the play. So we’ll look at it. Those things get corrected. I thought overall last year we were a good tackling defense and we’ve got to do better than we did today.”
(On the illegal formation penalties)
“There’s an emphasis on it this preseason and it’s good that it came up. We’ll get it resolved. The players were frustrated at the process. Normally if the tackle starts to get back a little bit, he’s warned and then the next series they usually, if you don’t adjust, then they’ll penalize it. But those things, we can get those fixed. Now you’d like to see a little bit of consistency from crew to crew, but this crew is going to go right down the line with calling them.”
(On RB Isaiah Pead starting)
“We wanted to give Isaiah an opportunity to run behind the starting line and against a good defense. We have a good feel for what (RB) Daryl (Richardson) can do, obviously. Isaiah got tired, came in and Daryl makes a big play down the sideline. So Daryl’s in good shape as far as camp goes right now, but again, it’s hard to get enough reps to get all the ‘backs involved, especially the way this game went. So we’re going to have to continue to do our best to evaluate them.”
(On if he planned to have S Rodney McLeod enter the game early)
“No. We were just precautionary with ‘Stew’ (S Darian Stewart). His hamstring was getting tight and we really didn’t want to take a chance. So as far as the training room is concerned, it’s empty. So that’s a good thing and the guys that did not play tonight because of injuries are healing up. So from that standpoint we’re in good shape.”
(On leaving LB Alec Ogletree in longer than the other starters)
“Yeah he needs more reps, that was exactly why. He just needed more playing opportunity.”
(On if Green Bay’s decision to frequently play three wide receivers affected LB Will Witherspoon’s involvement in the defense)
“No. We were in the sub-defense, but with Will’s experience, he knows the defense and he’ll be fine if he ends up having to play a lot of base.”
QB Sam Bradford
(On how he thought they played tonight)
“I think there were a lot of good things about tonight. I think we were able to generate some explosive plays, which is always nice to see. That’s an area we’ve struggled with the past couple years. I don’t know what it was tonight, but I think we had three explosive plays in the first 20 plays of the game, which I think that’s great. I think everyone saw obviously there’s a lot of things we need to get cleaned up. We’re a long way from where we need to be by the time week one gets here. We’ve still got a couple weeks. We’ll look at the tape on Monday, figure out exactly what needs to be corrected, but I think everyone in this locker room knows that we’ve still got a lot to prove.”
(On if Tavon Austin’s high involvement in the game tonight was a priority of the team)
“No, it really wasn’t. He got featured. We threw the ball his way a couple times. Obviously last week, when he didn’t have a catch, it was nice to get him a few balls tonight. Like I said last week, I think he and Cook both are going to be very, very involved in our offense, so I wasn’t worried at all about last week at all, but it’s nice to see those tow both come out and make some plays tonight.”
(On if Cook’s pass and run was a sample of what’s to come)
“I think so. In my four years here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shallow reverse zone get out the back door for 30, 40 yards, whatever it was. I think that just shows the type of athlete he is, the type of speed he has, and his ability to create after the ball hits his hands, so I hope that’s just a small sample of what we’ll see the rest of the season, and I’m excited to see him do it.”
(On what happened on the fourth-and-one play when the ball popped out of his hands)
“Yeah, I just didn’t secure the snap. It’s on me. I’ve got to make sure I get the ball first before I get out of there, and secure it. Obviously that’s unacceptable. We can’t have that happen. That’s really what costs us games. When we get down there, we need to score.”
(On how it feels for the players to go for it on fourth downs)
“You talk to us at any time throughout the year and we’d much rather be out there on the fourth down than trying to kick a field goal, so the fact that Coach has the confidence in us and just gives us the opportunity to put the ball in the endzone one more time. I think that’s great.”
(On how he feels about tonight’s passing game)
“I think we killed ourselves with penalties. We were in third and 18, third and 15, and it seemed like third and forever a lot of the night. Obviously I’d have loved to pass to Tavon. That should have been a walk-in touchdown. Hopefully that’s the last one we miss like that.”
(On the pass mentioned above)
“It was just a bad throw to be honest. I missed it. Like I said, I think it was really good to see us create some explosive plays in the pass gait tonight. If we can eliminate some of the penalties, keep ourselves in third-and-manageable, I think we’ll be alright.”
(On the difficulty of differentiating between preseason and regular season games)
“Every time you step on the field, you step on the field to win, but at the same time, you have to take a step back. We know that we’re not going to be perfect. We’re running our basic stuff. You’d love to score points in football, but I think there’s a lot of other things you look at during the preseason.”
RB Isaiah Pead
(On how it felt to start the game)
“It was something I’ve been looking for since I stepped in here. Today Coach let me stay out for awhile, and I felt like it was good.”
(On his play)
“I think it was a solid game. A few mistakes, but a few good things I did, but that’s what preseason is for. That’s why we’ll be going to watch film and get it corrected … I saw a few blitzes that they tried to sneak in. I did a good job of holding on to the ball and not putting it on the ground tonight. As a running back that’s something that is a given, to hold on to the ball”
(On getting a lot of playing time)
“It felt good, but it’s football. That’s what the coaches called, for me to be out there. I’m going to take the opportunity, so I just tried to be the spark that I can be and limit my mistakes.”
DE Robert Quinn
(On how it felt to start the game)
“Missed tackles are definitely a key part … picking up yards after contact. Coach (Fisher) said it earlier, we’ve still got work to do. The regular season isn’t here yet, so we can still improve before the real games start coming.”
(On how the coaches evaluate the defensive play in the preseason)
“I think the way Coach Fisher tries to do it on the coaches side is to be as basic as possible and hope we can dominate or win games that way without doing anything upbeat for us. We were in good situations. We could’ve stopped them multiple times but missed tackles and just little things like that, and once we correct those I think we’ll be ok.”
DE Chris Long
(On the defense’s play)
“I think we’ll see when we look at the tape. The one thing that jumps out at me right away that everybody is talking about in the locker room is we didn’t tackle well enough early in the game tonight. Hopefully that’ll get better. It is the preseason, but we need to work on it.”
(On if not tackling a lot in training camp causes missed tackles in games)
“We’ve had enough opportunities and we are football players, we should have that ingrained in our heads to know how to tackle. Give credit to that (running) back (Packers RB Eddie Lacy). He’s a good back. He’s going to be a good player in this league, and he’s a load. We’ve got to shoulder the football and just tackle. It wasn’t good enough tonight. Again, it’s a preseason game. Had we tackled early on and shut them out we wouldn’t be gloating on a great performance. We’d just say we need to work harder and get better, and I’ll say the same.
WR Chris Givens
(On the game plan tonight)
“We’re just out here executing the stuff we go over in practice. Just trying to work on the things that we need to work on and correct the mistakes we made last week and continue to work to try to get better as a team.”
(On hanging on to the deep passes)
“This is something we’ve worked on since the spring and we’re going to continue to work on it. It’s a staple in our offense and we’re going to continue to work on that along with other things.”
(On Head Coach Jeff Fisher opting to go for it on fourth down)
“It just gives us more chances to make plays and more opportunities on the field. We didn’t necessarily capitalize on them, but that’s something we’re going to look at in the film room this week and work on.”
(On what they hope to do next week against Denver)
“Play better than we did these past two weeks. That’s all that we can really ask of ourselves.”
TE Jared Cook
(On how he felt after his 37-yard reception)
“It felt real good. It was a good little play the way it worked out.”
(On how low the pass was)
“It was about knee to shin high, and I just turned it up field. I knew it was a big void behind me. (QB) Sam (Bradford) did a good job of finding me.”
(On having daylight to run after the catch)
“Oh yeah. I got a chance to turn up and get down the sideline. It felt good.”
(On how he is connecting with Bradford)
“Yeah, I feel like as an offense, there could be a lot better things done. That’s just up to us to do it as players. At times we’ve got to step up and do the big things. Everything’s going to be on our shoulders. From here to the start of the season to the end of the season, we’ve got two weeks to get it together. We have to focus on the little things that are going to make us better, and that’s going to get the job done.”
WR Tavon Austin
(On how anxious he was on his punt return)
“I was very anxious to get one – get my hands on one. That’s my specialty and that’s what I love to do back there. Hopefully next time I get a little more open field and really get to show what I can do.”
(On how it felt being targeted multiple times)
“It felt good. I had a couple catches today. It made me feel like I’m getting a little more comfortable, got my confidence back in myself. Hopefully we just keep going along.”
(On the team’s performance)
“Yeah, we would have like to have seen touchdowns, but we gave them an opportunity. The fourth down thing was just one of those things that just happens. You’ve got to learn from it. (QB) Sam (Bradford) lost the ball. Basically what we looked for going into this ballgame was improving over last week. Right now I don’t feel like we saw that, but you look at the tape and hope you can find some things. Now the good things that happened, of course, were the big plays. We made big plays, another play to (WR) Chris (Givens). As you said, ‘Cookie’s’ (Jared Cook) play and got the ball in Tavon’s hands. Defensively, we were a little caught off guard. We didn’t anticipate the fast tempo offense like that. I thought we, other than the missed tackling, the fact that we kept (Packers QB) Aaron (Rodgers) out of the end zone is something to be said, considering we didn’t really gameplan them. So, once we made the substitutions, then obviously we had some difficulties, especially on offense up front with protection things. You know, I look at things from this standpoint: last weekend the punt cover team gives up the punt return for a touchdown, this weekend they improved significantly – recover a muff and also down a ball inside the one. Some of the younger guys on special teams here are certainly improving and I think that’s a positive thing to take away from it.”
(On if he saw what happened on QB Sam Bradford’s fumble)
“The ball came loose. The ball popped out. I haven’t talked to Sam about it, but it popped out. So we’ll get that fixed.”
(On missing tackles)
“We had one-on-one situations and you need to finish the play. So we’ll look at it. Those things get corrected. I thought overall last year we were a good tackling defense and we’ve got to do better than we did today.”
(On the illegal formation penalties)
“There’s an emphasis on it this preseason and it’s good that it came up. We’ll get it resolved. The players were frustrated at the process. Normally if the tackle starts to get back a little bit, he’s warned and then the next series they usually, if you don’t adjust, then they’ll penalize it. But those things, we can get those fixed. Now you’d like to see a little bit of consistency from crew to crew, but this crew is going to go right down the line with calling them.”
(On RB Isaiah Pead starting)
“We wanted to give Isaiah an opportunity to run behind the starting line and against a good defense. We have a good feel for what (RB) Daryl (Richardson) can do, obviously. Isaiah got tired, came in and Daryl makes a big play down the sideline. So Daryl’s in good shape as far as camp goes right now, but again, it’s hard to get enough reps to get all the ‘backs involved, especially the way this game went. So we’re going to have to continue to do our best to evaluate them.”
(On if he planned to have S Rodney McLeod enter the game early)
“No. We were just precautionary with ‘Stew’ (S Darian Stewart). His hamstring was getting tight and we really didn’t want to take a chance. So as far as the training room is concerned, it’s empty. So that’s a good thing and the guys that did not play tonight because of injuries are healing up. So from that standpoint we’re in good shape.”
(On leaving LB Alec Ogletree in longer than the other starters)
“Yeah he needs more reps, that was exactly why. He just needed more playing opportunity.”
(On if Green Bay’s decision to frequently play three wide receivers affected LB Will Witherspoon’s involvement in the defense)
“No. We were in the sub-defense, but with Will’s experience, he knows the defense and he’ll be fine if he ends up having to play a lot of base.”
QB Sam Bradford
(On how he thought they played tonight)
“I think there were a lot of good things about tonight. I think we were able to generate some explosive plays, which is always nice to see. That’s an area we’ve struggled with the past couple years. I don’t know what it was tonight, but I think we had three explosive plays in the first 20 plays of the game, which I think that’s great. I think everyone saw obviously there’s a lot of things we need to get cleaned up. We’re a long way from where we need to be by the time week one gets here. We’ve still got a couple weeks. We’ll look at the tape on Monday, figure out exactly what needs to be corrected, but I think everyone in this locker room knows that we’ve still got a lot to prove.”
(On if Tavon Austin’s high involvement in the game tonight was a priority of the team)
“No, it really wasn’t. He got featured. We threw the ball his way a couple times. Obviously last week, when he didn’t have a catch, it was nice to get him a few balls tonight. Like I said last week, I think he and Cook both are going to be very, very involved in our offense, so I wasn’t worried at all about last week at all, but it’s nice to see those tow both come out and make some plays tonight.”
(On if Cook’s pass and run was a sample of what’s to come)
“I think so. In my four years here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shallow reverse zone get out the back door for 30, 40 yards, whatever it was. I think that just shows the type of athlete he is, the type of speed he has, and his ability to create after the ball hits his hands, so I hope that’s just a small sample of what we’ll see the rest of the season, and I’m excited to see him do it.”
(On what happened on the fourth-and-one play when the ball popped out of his hands)
“Yeah, I just didn’t secure the snap. It’s on me. I’ve got to make sure I get the ball first before I get out of there, and secure it. Obviously that’s unacceptable. We can’t have that happen. That’s really what costs us games. When we get down there, we need to score.”
(On how it feels for the players to go for it on fourth downs)
“You talk to us at any time throughout the year and we’d much rather be out there on the fourth down than trying to kick a field goal, so the fact that Coach has the confidence in us and just gives us the opportunity to put the ball in the endzone one more time. I think that’s great.”
(On how he feels about tonight’s passing game)
“I think we killed ourselves with penalties. We were in third and 18, third and 15, and it seemed like third and forever a lot of the night. Obviously I’d have loved to pass to Tavon. That should have been a walk-in touchdown. Hopefully that’s the last one we miss like that.”
(On the pass mentioned above)
“It was just a bad throw to be honest. I missed it. Like I said, I think it was really good to see us create some explosive plays in the pass gait tonight. If we can eliminate some of the penalties, keep ourselves in third-and-manageable, I think we’ll be alright.”
(On the difficulty of differentiating between preseason and regular season games)
“Every time you step on the field, you step on the field to win, but at the same time, you have to take a step back. We know that we’re not going to be perfect. We’re running our basic stuff. You’d love to score points in football, but I think there’s a lot of other things you look at during the preseason.”
RB Isaiah Pead
(On how it felt to start the game)
“It was something I’ve been looking for since I stepped in here. Today Coach let me stay out for awhile, and I felt like it was good.”
(On his play)
“I think it was a solid game. A few mistakes, but a few good things I did, but that’s what preseason is for. That’s why we’ll be going to watch film and get it corrected … I saw a few blitzes that they tried to sneak in. I did a good job of holding on to the ball and not putting it on the ground tonight. As a running back that’s something that is a given, to hold on to the ball”
(On getting a lot of playing time)
“It felt good, but it’s football. That’s what the coaches called, for me to be out there. I’m going to take the opportunity, so I just tried to be the spark that I can be and limit my mistakes.”
DE Robert Quinn
(On how it felt to start the game)
“Missed tackles are definitely a key part … picking up yards after contact. Coach (Fisher) said it earlier, we’ve still got work to do. The regular season isn’t here yet, so we can still improve before the real games start coming.”
(On how the coaches evaluate the defensive play in the preseason)
“I think the way Coach Fisher tries to do it on the coaches side is to be as basic as possible and hope we can dominate or win games that way without doing anything upbeat for us. We were in good situations. We could’ve stopped them multiple times but missed tackles and just little things like that, and once we correct those I think we’ll be ok.”
DE Chris Long
(On the defense’s play)
“I think we’ll see when we look at the tape. The one thing that jumps out at me right away that everybody is talking about in the locker room is we didn’t tackle well enough early in the game tonight. Hopefully that’ll get better. It is the preseason, but we need to work on it.”
(On if not tackling a lot in training camp causes missed tackles in games)
“We’ve had enough opportunities and we are football players, we should have that ingrained in our heads to know how to tackle. Give credit to that (running) back (Packers RB Eddie Lacy). He’s a good back. He’s going to be a good player in this league, and he’s a load. We’ve got to shoulder the football and just tackle. It wasn’t good enough tonight. Again, it’s a preseason game. Had we tackled early on and shut them out we wouldn’t be gloating on a great performance. We’d just say we need to work harder and get better, and I’ll say the same.
WR Chris Givens
(On the game plan tonight)
“We’re just out here executing the stuff we go over in practice. Just trying to work on the things that we need to work on and correct the mistakes we made last week and continue to work to try to get better as a team.”
(On hanging on to the deep passes)
“This is something we’ve worked on since the spring and we’re going to continue to work on it. It’s a staple in our offense and we’re going to continue to work on that along with other things.”
(On Head Coach Jeff Fisher opting to go for it on fourth down)
“It just gives us more chances to make plays and more opportunities on the field. We didn’t necessarily capitalize on them, but that’s something we’re going to look at in the film room this week and work on.”
(On what they hope to do next week against Denver)
“Play better than we did these past two weeks. That’s all that we can really ask of ourselves.”
TE Jared Cook
(On how he felt after his 37-yard reception)
“It felt real good. It was a good little play the way it worked out.”
(On how low the pass was)
“It was about knee to shin high, and I just turned it up field. I knew it was a big void behind me. (QB) Sam (Bradford) did a good job of finding me.”
(On having daylight to run after the catch)
“Oh yeah. I got a chance to turn up and get down the sideline. It felt good.”
(On how he is connecting with Bradford)
“Yeah, I feel like as an offense, there could be a lot better things done. That’s just up to us to do it as players. At times we’ve got to step up and do the big things. Everything’s going to be on our shoulders. From here to the start of the season to the end of the season, we’ve got two weeks to get it together. We have to focus on the little things that are going to make us better, and that’s going to get the job done.”
WR Tavon Austin
(On how anxious he was on his punt return)
“I was very anxious to get one – get my hands on one. That’s my specialty and that’s what I love to do back there. Hopefully next time I get a little more open field and really get to show what I can do.”
(On how it felt being targeted multiple times)
“It felt good. I had a couple catches today. It made me feel like I’m getting a little more comfortable, got my confidence back in myself. Hopefully we just keep going along.”
