MINNEAPOLIS -- Here’s what Falcons coach Raheem Morris had to say after the 42-21 loss to the Vikings Sunday:
Opening Statement: “Disappointing outing. The guys came with the right intent, they came with a real fight today that I was really fired up to see from the onset of the game, but you just can’t have the self-inflicted wounds and expect to win football games like we had today. Whether it be the penalty that we got to give them back the fourth down, an opportunity in the red zone to score or whether it be turning the football over on the kickoff and giving them the short field. That offense is too explosive. They’re too good. They’re too fast to do that to those guys, and we gave them big play after big play today whether it wasn’t just broken plays or plays that were designed. These guys came out ready to play, and we have to get better. Really the focus becomes about us. We have tock to go out there and focus on us and what we need to do better in order to find ways to win a football game.”
On the game getting away from them in the fourth quarter: ”Really, I attribute that to giving them the points there at the end by giving it back to them instead of the three. The fumble really got away, and then the big plays that they were able to make with their guys down the field on the football that we were not able to track and make some of those plays. A couple of times we had them in the back field. He scrambled out. Darnold made a couple of goods plays down the field. Those things in football games happen, but you have to limit that when that happens more than once. Particularly versus a good football team like the Minnesota Vikings. It’s going to get you beat.”
On QB Kirk Cousins not having a touchdown pass in four games and eight interceptions: ”We have to execute better in the red zone. A lot of the things that you have to do, go out there and get done in practice, have to come to life in the games. That just hasn’t happened the last couple of weeks. That’s something that we have to get better. Kirk threw for 300 and whatever amount of yards. We were able to run the ball in the end zone. We got to the red zone. The goal today was to run in the end zone. These guys played a lot of combo coverage down the red zone. We knew it would be tough to throw it in. Our plan was to run it in. We ran a couple in there, but we have to do a better job of executing in the red zone all around. We had many opportunities that we had. I think it was four or five. I think we only got two touchdowns out of that. We have to get more than that like those guys did. They were able to out-execute us in the red zone, and that’s the story of the game.”
On sticking with QB Kirk Cousins: ”Everything is always discussed when you watch the tape and do those things. Kirk Cousins is our quarterback. We’ll have the ability to go watch this tape like we do every single week. Kirk played significantly better than he did the week before. We have a chance to go out there and focus on us and get a chance to go out there and really work on what we do and what we do well, and we’ll do whatever is best to go win football games, and Kirk is definitely a part of that.”
On penalties hurting them today: ”Crushed us.”
On being surprised the penalties are continuing after addressing them: “I have to go look at them. You know this business. You can’t really talk about penalties, and I won’t, but I’ll go look at the penalties and see what they were, but I won’t make those excuses. It can’t happen. It was the same officials for those guys that we had. If they didn’t get those penalties, we must be doing something wrong.”
On issues in the secondary: “The first one in the early going looked like a broken play. We got a nice pressure. Severely underthrown ball by Darnold that the receiver made a great adjustment on. Tracked it. Addison made a heck of a play. One of the other bigger ones looked like a sack or a near sack. He was able to step up and avoid a sack and throw a strike down the field when the middle field player left the middle of the field. He threw some real dimes. He threw one to Addison down the sideline and the one-on-one coverage. He was able to really throw a couple of balls down the field and really track the football that way. We have to go look at all of them, but in the first half he did a nice job on some of the guys. They did a nice job of really throwing the ball away from A.J. and making other people make plays, and we didn’t go out there and make them today.”
On a lack of attention to detail: ”It’s hard to say that when you go out there and do what this did with the amount of yards and things they were able to do and the execution that happened on offense to accumulate those yards to be able to move up and down the field and be able to get those things. When you get the penalties, we overcame a bunch of them, whether they be the holdings or whatever the case may be, but I definitely agree with you. When you are talking about penalties, it’s always a lack of concentration. It’s always a lack of discipline or loss of control. We didn’t have the loss of control penalties, the 15-yarders and things of that nature. What we did have was what looked like a lack of discipline maybe in technique and a lack of control maybe in body control and what you need to do in order not to get the penalties that we had today.”
On QB Kirk Cousins’ homecoming: ”It’s hard to say when you lose that way, like how you handle the moment. We didn’t handle the moment well as a team. We didn’t go out there and play well enough for him in order to get him a win back at this hostile place. What a great environment they provide. What a great environment to go play in. You like to play in that type of environment every single week. A lot of credit to the Minnesota fans and credit to the Minnesota team. Kirk came out and really did a nice job of trying to get a win, and we did not support him enough around him today, and we got to find ways to do that better.”
On putting in QB Michael Penix Jr. in the fourth quarter: “Not today. Not today. I wanted him to go finish his deal out here in Minnesota, be able to play the game like he wanted to play. That was my decision and my decision alone. Not today.”
On falling to second in the division and regrouping before Vegas: “Really just focus on us, right? We have to go find a way to get a win, and it’s really about us trying to find a way to get wins and really just focus on us. We have to worry about us as opposed to what’s happening around us. Those are things we have to do. A lot of credit to Tampa. They won three in a row. We lost four in a row. We have to give those guys in our division a lot of credit. It’s time for us to reset the page and find a way to go out there and get a win, and it starts next week out in Vegas.”
On whether they are playing significantly worse or just moving away from their early season sucess: ”You have to say worse whenever you lose. You’re not playing as well as you played early on. We were able to finish games and go out and find ways to win those type of games. We were able to find ways to overcome penalties, and we were able to find ways to score in the red zone, and we’re not doing that now. So you have to say worse.”
On repeating the pass rush success from last week: ”Just from a blink of looking at the game is, it looked like we crossed some significant pressure. Even some of the plays he made downfield, he made some outstanding plays in the backfield of avoiding some of the people that were unblocked or people that were blocked and came off on a nice rush, whatever the case may be. He made plays on the field. I don’t want to take any credit away from Sam Darnold what he was able to do when he stepped up in the pocket. I did like to see some of the pressures that we were able to apply. Clearly not enough when the guy goes out there and does what he does.”
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