Here’s what Falcons coach Raheem Morris had to say after the 34-14 loss to the Seahawks on Sunday:
Opening statement: Obviously didn’t play as well. Came out flat. For whatever reason, they didn’t play well. Those guys got the win today. Hats off to the Seattle Seahawks and what they were able to. We’ve got to play better next week.”
On not being able to slow Seattle down in the second half: ”Turnover for a touchdown. A big play by [D.K.] Metcalf at the end of the half. A penalty or two penalties to keep drives alive on third down. That’s what I remember right now off the top of my head.”
On whether he feels the team was able to attack Seattle through the air today: ”No. We did not get it accomplished. Clearly, not today. The success you need in order to win games in this league and we were not able to do that today. We didn’t play well as a unit across the board: special teams, offense or defense. We’ve got to go to the lab and put it together and find a way to go get a win next week.”
On the plan to fix penalties: ”We’ve been pretty good most of the year. We’ve been a pretty disciplined team. We’ve been doing the right things. So today was kind of an anomaly. We’ve got to go back to fix those things, look at it on tape, correct what we’ve got to get corrected. I’ve got a lot of confidence in the guys that we can do that.”
On how surprised he was at the team starting off the game flat: ”You know, you can’t really put a finger on it right now. You’ve got to go back and look at it, what you’ve got to get done and how you want to do it, but we did not come out with the energy that was required to win a football game today. We need to be better. Like, come out, get that stop. I don’t know whether it was the penalties that kept their drives going. Right off the bat, I think it was three penalties in that first drive. Those are the things that kind of slap the air out of you, and you can’t allow those things to happen.”
On whether the ability to win three games in a row and not come out flat for a fourth game is part of building something as a team: ”There is no doubt. It is hard to win a game in the National Football League, let alone three. So, to be able to go out there to go out and win four, it’s definitely something good teams do, and we’ve got to figure out how to do it.”
On how he feels RB Bijan Robinson is progressing through the season: ”I think everybody knows what I’m going to say about the stats, ‘They’re there for losers,’ and we lost today. But Bijan came out and was really running the football well. He was able to catch the ball in the back field pretty well. You’ve got to put it all together as a team. I will never glorify individual stats over team wins. That’s just not my makeup.”
On whether he has any concerns about the pass rush: ”Yes. We’ve got to get the quarterback at a timely fashion. We’ve got to get him on the ground when we send people. Can’t let him scramble around [and] do some of those things. We’ve got to go back and find ways to fix them. We did hit the quarterback I think once today. Had an opportunity to get a throw-away in the pocket. We got an illegal hit low [penalty]. We’ve got to fix some of those things, see what we can do to correct that. We’re looking at it on tape.”
On the decision to have QB Michael Penix Jr. make his NFL debut at the end of the game: ”At that point, the game was out of hand. It was gone. So, we were able to sub all those guys and get them out. Made the mistake of putting Bijan [Robinson] in one play. Got him out of there and made sure we can substitute as many people as we could at that moment.”
On how the team can fix the false starts: ”That’s what we talked about. Those are all the same things we talked about with penalties. You’ve got to go back and look at that and see why that happened. And they hadn’t been happening all year. We had a small little segment there where we had a couple of opportunities that we didn’t like. We were able to fix those things. But penalties are based on concentration, and we’ve got to go fix those things on concentration level.”
On having struggles in all three phases today: ”You know, you always look for somebody to pick you up in this team effort game, and it didn’t happen today. It felt like we got something going on offense, big play by those guys, not good on defense. We get a stop on defense, [and] they go right back out and turn the ball over and give them a walk-off touchdown. We’ve got to put all those things together. We’ve got to be able to go out there and find ways to win together, and we did not do it today. Tough day.”
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