What the Falcons had to say after the 34-14 loss to the Seahawks

On if he was comfortable: “I felt it went good. Each and every day at practice I make sure to work hard so that I’d be ready for any moment that I get. To be able to get that moment today and operation smooth and at a high level, I feel like that was good.”

On his first pass: “When Casey (Washington) got the ball. He’s guy that works hard every single day. He goes full speed. You saw him when he got the ball he made a couple players miss. Jase coming in and running the ball, extremely hard was good to see him out there as well.”

On if the team was flat: “I’m not sure. At the end of the day you have to find ways to win. Whatever it is, if it’s something that we did during the week. When gametime comes, you have to be ready. If coach said we came out flat, I feel like the rest of the team feels that way as well. We know that will pick it up as well.”

More on his first NFL action: “I can’t get complacent. I can’t get comfortable. There is still a lot of football left. I feel like I’ll play a lot of football in my future, but it is definitely a blessing. Something that I’ve been dreaming about all of my life. I’m blessed to be able to have the opportunity.”

On his surreal moment: “It felt good. It was kind of a surreal moment. Obviously, it was not the best situation that we were in, with us being down. To be able to go in and just operate at a high level it was definitely good.”

Jase McClellan, running back

On his NFL debut: “It felt good, Finally to be doing the thing that I love. Getting in there and getting a chance.”

On being inactive for the first six games: “I knew it was just part of the game. Staying focused and staying the course. Playing my part.”

Chris Lindstrom, right guard

On the loss: “The only thing we can do from this one, is evaluate it and use it to sharpen us going forward.

On all the false starts: “Obviously you don’t want to give away momentum. Just being dialed in to the cadence and just the accountability, to one another. That’s all that you can do.”

On the drive to start the third quarter: “We as a team knew we needed to go down there and score to get the second half off to a good start. I think a lot of guys made a lot of players. We made adjustments in the run game, which made it a little bit harder for us. The skill guys, Kirk and those guys, did a good job of moving us down the field and keeping us in the fight.

Justin Simmons, safety

On how he describes the loss: “That’s not good enough, unacceptable. There were a lot of things that didn’t go well, and just speaking defensively we didn’t play nearly well enough today to even give us a chance to win the game, regardless of what happened around the offense and special teams. I already talked about especially situational ball at the end of the half, on me giving up that score. That can’t happen. So, if we want to be where we want to be and there’s no panic mode button, but you can’t do stuff like that.”

On the Seahawks’ score at the end of the half:”It was a miscommunication on my end, and making sure that, obviously no timeouts, knowing to protect the sideline, also knowing you could get a short play. They took the short play. I blocked it up well, and they ran a little sting and it’s unacceptable. Like I said, that’s on me. That can’t happen as a guy, then a safety, last line of defense. I got to make sure I get that down.”

On Head Coach Raheem Morris describing the game as ‘flat’:”Yeah, I think that’s accurate. Again, from a defensive standpoint, you just felt on our heels a little bit. In those moments, you rely on guys to make their plays, not go chase plays. I felt like a lot of the times we were trying to chase plays, but do your job, trust the guy next to you and make the plays that come to you. They made a lot more plays than we did today. Like I said, there is no panic button, but if we want to be where we want to be, we need to fix that.”

Bijan Robinson, running back.

On what went wrong for the team today: ”First off, I just had to give honor to God, to the Son of Jesus, for getting us all healthy. We just continue to play for Him and play for the Lord, and we didn’t get the best results for Him. But to your question, it was definitely a tough one. Obviously, you know, we needed to execute earlier in the offense, and I think penalties and things like that definitely hurt us. I think we had like nine or something like that. For us, it’s just a matter of staying physical throughout the game and not letting mental mistakes and not letting bad things that might have happened throughout the game affect us. For us we got to do our part and put the ball in the end zone, especially when the defense gives us opportunities to do it, we have to do it. We didn’t execute enough to go out there and get the win.”

On what is working for him to have over 100 rushing yards this game:” We trust the O-line, all five of those guys. The tight ends, Charlie [Woerner], Kyle [Pitts], and Drake [London], [Darnell] Mooney, Ray-Ray [McCloud III]. They’re doing a really good job blocking. So it’s me and Tyler [Allgeier]’s job to set them up the right way and to find the open gaps and explode and make people miss in the second level. Even in the pass game, I’d be available for Kirk [Cousins] as well. When we do those things right it’s going to be hard to stop. But for us, it’s just continuing to run the football the right way so we can open up everything else in the pass, and then we’ll be balanced.”

On what the team needs to work on: ”Just continue to just trust each other, play our hearts out. We wanted this fourth win, but we understand that sometimes it just doesn’t happen that way. I think this is a big learning lesson for us because, you know, we have a really big game next week in Tampa Bay and, you know, we got to let this one just go. I think the really good teams, if they do lose the game, I think they’re really good at putting that game away immediately. We’ll probably watch the film tonight, but then put it away, focus on this next team, and execute as much as you can for that game right there.”

Tyler Allgeier, running back

On how he would describe the loss today: ”It was just a tough loss. Just execution. The penalties hurt, and just the execution all the way around. We just didn’t play our best.”

On what he feels leads to the lack of execution: ”I feel like the energy was there, maybe a little flat. I feel like we all had good intentions. It just wasn’t our day.”

On whether he was surprised at the run and pass game struggles today: ”Oh for sure, especially when you want to build upon what we’ve been working on and just not having any lulls. I think today was just a lull day. But the good thing is we can watch film and watch what we did that we can correct and move on to the next one.”

On OLs Matt Hennessy and Kyle Hinton stepping in after injuries: ”I thought that they did really well just stepping up. I think whoever dresses are the best 48 on the field. So, just having the best 48 on the field and them being able to step in and handle business as they did, it was really good.”

On how RB Bijan Robinson played today: ”He was going crazy. Like you said, it’s a whole video game on Madden or NCAA with how elusive he is. But I thought he did really well. Just got to keep building on it. There were a lot of blitzes that we all picked up, so it was a good day for us.”

Jessie Bates III, safety

On not overreacting to one game: “I think that’s a great point – 17 games, 4-3, 3-0 in our division, going to Tampa Bay next week. So, if you want to overreact – there’s going to be a lot of people talking and all – we got beat, but we’ll be fine.”

On if having the ability to extend winning streaks separates good vs great teams: ”I guess you could say that. I think a good team just goes 1-0 each week. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a streak or not. The goal, it doesn’t matter. If we’re trying to go on a five-game win streak, that doesn’t matter. It’s to go 1-0 every single week. This week we didn’t, so next week we’ve got to move on. Like I said, huge divisional game to remain undefeated in our division.”

On what Seattle did well: ”I think some of their tempo, some of the stuff that they did hurt us a little bit. I think the trick play, the 20-yard play, and then right before halftime, the 35-yard pass. It’s not anything that’s out of the ordinary. There are just certain details we have to tighten up.”