What the Falcons said after the win over Denver

On whether he was nervous at the end of the game: “We were just being us right there, making everybody nervous. We have to stop doing that. We got to find a way to, like coach says, step on their neck and just eliminate all the b.s. and just go out there and execute. Sometime we like to make it a little hard on ourselves. We finished. That is all we had to do. Defense did an excellent job. Rico [Allen] was able to punch it in right after that. As an offense we need to do a little better not to put the defense in certain situations and just get a first down.”

On scoring his ninth rushing touchdown of the season: “It is a win. I am going to focus on that first. I have not really looked at the film. We did not get too many explosive runs, but it is tough to run in this league. It is definitely tough. You have to give credit to Denver. They did a good job of executing on their end. There is definitely some stuff we have to fix on the offensive side that is the point of our football. Whether you win or lose, you can always get better. You can get better with your wins and get better with your losses and learn from that. We just have to keep doing better and keep getting better.”

On the Falcons young wide receivers stepping up filling in for WR Calvin Ridley: “They did a great job. Not only that, the offense did a great job. Those two touchdowns came on third down. Take those two touchdowns away and that is a close ball game. Credit for Matt [Ryan] for staying in there, slinging it and those guys coming in, stepping up, and playing big. Shout-out to those guys. They did their thing and did what they were supposed to do. You got to give credit to those guys. They have been working hard every day in practice.”

Grady Jarrett, defensive tackle

On taking a two-game winning streak into the bye week: “Feeling good, it is definitely good to get some wins. We want to continue to build and see how far we can take it.”

On what was said before the final defensive sequence: “Just stepping up. Two weeks in a row trying to finish it out on defense. We know the omen that followed us for the first half of the season and we wanted to step up again. The fact that we did feels good. We want to carry that momentum the rest of the season.

On how the team has responded to the coaching change and the current mentality of the locker room: “I think we responded as good as you can. We just control going out there and not giving up on our season and fighting every week.”

On the team’s mindset with seven games remaining: ”You said it, we have a huge chunk of the season left to play. Everything we want is still ahead of us and we put ourselves in position to have success for this season still. We have not given up. We are not giving up. And we know we can be as good as we want to be."

Foye Oluokun, linebacker

On whether he’s had time to reflect on the improvement he’s made in the past few years: “No, I know the team is going to ask a lot of me. I’m not really thinking about that. We’re in the middle of the season. I always want to improve every week. I definitely put everything I’ve got into every game this year so far, so hopefully we can get more wins.”

On the importance of him continuing to play well as the organization assess players for the future: “We play for each other on this team, definitely. I want to keep playing well. I want to keep showing my effort and keep making plays and everybody ride off of that. If somebody else is making plays, too, just ride off of that. So, everybody playing together as a unit, I think that’s really important.”

On pass rushers stepping up to fill in for DE Dante Fowler and DE Takk McKinley: “We all rushed as a team today. Everybody gave their best effort and I think that’s really important. I think as a team we always play hard, no matter who’s up for the week. Everybody was definitely busting their ass out there.”

On the discussion before the final drive on defense: “We were just excited to be out there again. We said we were going to win it. Let’s go do it right. Whatever play was going to happen, whoever was in that position, let’s go make the plays, let’s get this W.”

Ricardo Allen, free safety

On winning back-to-back games and getting the first win at home this season:"That felt really good. I know we could have finished a little bit better, but I’d take a win any day. So, I’m loving it. Going into a bye week, winning at home, finally starting to put it together as a team, I’m feeling good. I’m feeling really good."

On his fourth-quarter interception:"I felt like I was getting good reads on the quarterback all night. I was getting closer and closer to the ball and that’s what I always try to tell myself. Every play, let’s see how close you can get. That play, I ended up noticing that Jeudy was on the inside and I knew that was one of the quarterback’s favorite targets. I think they ended up getting pressure early, he let it out early and I think Jeudy didn’t turn his head around, so I was just telling myself, ‘Catch it, catch it, catch it.’ Then, I was trying to score with it. I wish I would’ve scored because I don’t have a touchdown yet, but I’m going to get it one of these days."

On what changed defensively in the fourth quarter where Denver was able to make a bit of a comeback:"It’s really you have to switch your mindset. You have to switch the mindset to understand in the fourth quarter what a team is really trying to do. When a team is down, I don’t know how much they were down going into the fourth quarter, but when a team is down like that, you know exactly what they’re coming out to do. You know if they haven’t been scoring all night and they weren’t scoring fast, they had to go for big shots. That’s the kind of stuff. It’s really just mental because they tried to take shots early in the game, they really tried to take shots throughout the game and our corners and everybody who was matched up on someone they were throwing it deep to did a really good job. We just have to make sure that transitions all the way through tp the end of the game."