What Falcons players had to say after loss to Commanders

On Penix’s spirit: “He’s an absolute dog. That goes with everybody on the offense. I’m not going to say too much because they know themselves. I’m the same type of person, I don’t need nobody to get me going or anything like that. He’s an absolute dog. He stays poised. You may not see it. But he’s got that (stuff) in his eyes for sure.”

On how tough was the loss: “Is it tough? Of course, it’s tough.”

On playing in a big game in prime time in December: “For me, they are all the same. I go out there and play my heart out every play, every game. It doesn’t matter if it’s week one or whatever. Postseason. It doesn’t really matter, I go out there and play my heart out. Every game is the same for me. It’s not different, the thing different is that it’s dark outside.”

On playing with his sixth starting quarterback and how he handled it late: “Absolute poise. He has that dog mentality. You can just see it in his eyes, what type of player that he is.”

On having fun later: “I’ve had fun this year. I’ve had a ton of fun. I still have one more game I’m still looking to have more fun. This is a growing team. We have a young corp. A young cast. I just feel like if we keep putting it together, if we have more time together the sky is the limit for us.”

On working more with Penix: “It’s only been eight quarters and we are still getting a groove for everything. Definitely, exciting but you can’t say that because we just lost a game.”

Matthew Bergeron, left guard

On playing in a big game: “For me it means a lot, obviously, I’ve never been in a game like that even in college. Never been in one of those meaningful games in December so it felt good. We came up short. They made some awesome plays on offense and defense. We have to do better.”

On if they learned a lesson that they could take into the playoffs: “No doubt, as soon as you get in the playoffs, anything can happen. Our focus is just getting in. Whatever is possible. In the playoffs you see a bunch of stuff happen all the time. I think the focus of the whole team is getting in. Bouncing back from this loss. Hopefully we some help from other teams and we just get it.”

Justin Simmons, safety

On the loss: “We’ve got to take care of business and do our job first, that’s beating Carolina. Then, I didn’t think I’d say this, but ‘Go Saints.’ "

On the play of the defense: “My initial takeaways is defensively we didn’t execute nearly well enough to win this game. The effort and the execution, the detail of in the first half was great.”

On Jayden Daniels: “Knowing that Daniels has been terrific all season long. Extending the plays with his legs. We never game up the big-big play, the deep ones. We just didn’t do a good enough job in the run game rallying when he did scramble. That’s what ended up hurting us. Too many mistakes in the red zone. Instead of three, it ended up being seven.”

On getting off the field in the second half: “A lot of it was self-inflicted. It’s not to single any guy out. We had our opportunities to get off the field several times. At the end of the day, it all 11 of us doing our jobs at a high level.”

Chris Lindstrom, right guard

On playoff situation: “For one, focusing on all of our preparations and handling our business, trying to go out there and beat the Panthers on Sunday. Then I hate saying this, but be a Saints fan.”

On the offense running three plays in the third quarter: “Jayden and them are a really good offense. Obviously, we had our opportunity, but we went three-and-out. When you do that verses good teams you never know when you’re going to see it again. They made really great plays. We didn’t let that deter them from continuing the fight.”

Grady Jarrett, defensive tackle

On the state of the team: “The fight. The effort. The last drive, the offense (went) down and Mike Penix throws that dart to Kyle (Pitts). Just the confidence that they (showed). Even on the defensive side, we did some good things. (There were so) many good things.”

On Riley Patterson: “I’m even proud of our new kicker. He came in and makes a crucial extra point to send us to overtime. He came up a split second short on the (potential game winning) kick. At the end of the day, he just showed up. He gave us his best and that’s all that we can ask.”

Arnold Ebiketie, outside linebacker

On the game: “It was pretty tough given how we lost the game. We were leading at halftime and in the second half they came back to take the lead. Late in the game we were able to make some plays and tied the game. This one (hurt) because we felt we were in position to win that game. Now, we just have to control what we can control.”

On building of the win: “Especially, this one was one of the biggest games that we had. That’s why it (hurts) so much. We weren’t able to finish the game.”

On Jayden Daniels: “He’s up there. I don’t know off the top of my head who’s the hardest. I was say he has speed and give the fact that he can move a lot in the pocket it definitely makes it hard on the defense just being able to control the rush angle, knowing how to attack him, being disciplined so I would say he’s up there.”

On time of possession in the second half: “I think they had a lot more. ... I think that’s one of those things. ... There was that one drive where we had a couple of flags and he was able to extend play and scramble all over the field. That was kind of one drive where we want to have back if we could. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to stop him and he was ablet to make things for his team.”

Darnell Mooney, wide receiver

On the second half: “I just know the second half, they pretty much had the ball game the third quarter. We went three-and-out. Just take back that three-and-out. They were third-and-15 when they came out. Then there was a penalty. That kind of hurts and the three-and-out kind of hurt them.”