In Week 6, we saw the New Orleans Saints lose at home 25-19 to the New England Patriots. While a lot can be said about this game, let’s take a look at some important quotes from various Saints players and coaches after Sunday’s loss in the Superdome:
Head Coach Kellen Moore
On the roadblocks offensively: “That’s on me. We’re not doing a good enough job. We’re extending some drives. We’re not getting the ultimate points that we need out of that drive. Whether it be settling for a field goal from the red
zone or getting stalled out across the 50-yard line, we are not doing enough good stuff. It seems like there are always a bunch of little things that come up between penalties, missed opportunities. We have to find a way to get that because I thought we moved it at a decent rate. We just did not take advantage of the opportunities.”
On the defense’s slow start:
“We’re not starting fast enough from a defensive perspective. We have to play better. We have to have a sense of urgency out there and be ready to roll. That’s a couple of weeks in a row in that scenario, and that’s not the formula we want to be feeling, like we are playing behind for a little while. Again, we have to take advantage of opportunities. They come in all four quarters, and every moment is the same value from the first quarter on to the fourth quarter.”
On the mood in the locker room:
“Just frustration. There are opportunities. I think everyone can feel that. We had our opportunities in this game, and we just didn’t get it done.”
On the explanation he received on the fumble:
“You guys can ask Replay Assist or New York for all of that stuff, whatever their media deal is. We just were told there was some movement on the ball, and that’s all I get.”
QB Spencer Rattler
On the offense:
“I thought it was a game where we moved the ball really well in the first half. We had some great plays. We had some big plays. We could have been a little better on third down. I think we were third and long on a couple of those. We could have finished in the red zone a little more. There were a few plays here and there. It didn’t feel like we played poorly. That’s the thing. We were a few plays away. We just have to figure out a way to make those plays.”
On the frustration of losing close games:
“Like I said earlier, we know that we are a better team than our record says. We have to find a way to win these one-score games. We have opportunities and it is a collective thing. We have to work on executing during the game.”
On if he had to prove anything today:
“I want to put my best foot forward every game. I do not want to go out there and look back. I want to go there and be sharp, play clean and make some plays. I want to keep us in the game. Ultimately, we did not win the game. It is a team thing. We have a lot of playmakers on this team. We have a lot of great players. Like I said earlier, we are not playing like our record says. We have to figure out a way to finish these games out.”
Safety Justin Reid
On the frustration of close losses:
“Yeah, we do not live in a league that we get moral victories for being close. That is not what the NFL is. The NFL is not about points; it is about W’s and L’s. We only have one W so far, so it is a bit frustrating. Every man in the building knows what it takes to win. We just have to go out there and execute better. I see myself as a leader. I won’t let this start breaking the team down, though. We are not going to allow this to turn into something where we’re going to start pointing fingers at each other. And I know that the internet and everything are going to want to tear us apart. But the most important thing is that the team stays as a team on the inside of the building. And that’s what I’m going to continue to push. Because as long as we stay together, we’ll always have a chance. And if we eliminate the mistakes, we have a chance against anybody, seriously. But we don’t stand a chance if we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. There are just too many mistakes across the board. And if we clean those up then we play a lot better ball than what we did today.”
On his method for keeping the team together and morale up:
“First of all, every play that was a quote-unquote bad play is all 11 guys’ fault. Every one of them. It is not pointing the finger at one guy here or one guy there. Because there isn’t any one of us who played a perfect game today. So it is just about cleaning it up. And it is like, hey, as long as we look out for each other, and we have each other’s back, we communicate better. We slow the game down faster. We do not take two drives to slow the game down and start executing. We start executing from the jump. We want to have a better shot.”
