Here's what Falcons coach Dan Quinn had to say after the 27-24 loss to the Colts on Sunday:
Opening Statement: "Alright, for us that was a hard one and didn't get what we came here to do. We told the team it was certainly a tale of two halves in a lot of respects. We didn't have very many plays early on — I think we only had 20 plays offensively. We were able to move it, but came back in the second half (and) played better. But we've got to control what we can and to have 16 penalties and be minus-one in the turnover margin — that puts you in a difficult spot. That certainly was the case. I think there were six, seven, eight maybe first downs you know on fouls. It's hard to overcome that and then minus-one in the turnover margin. So, we've got work to do as we get ready because we've got to get our road mentality right. This one stinks."
Q. You were able to get it back to three points twice. How did the defense not do what they did not do on those two attempted stops that could’ve got the offense the ball back?
A. Well, when we have to get the ball back you usually want to play tight coverage and play man-to-man and that's certainly what we tried to do, but we didn't execute like we need to in that moment, and that's really what allowed the first down in space.
Q. With Keanu Neal, is it a torn Achilles? How tough is it to lose him like that?
A. I don't have any updates on he or any other guys. So, we've not spoken yet from the medical side so we'll give you an update on any injuries tomorrow. I don't have any update for you, that's about it.
Q. Any thoughts on the slow start, again on the road. It’s now 41-3 at halftime of the first two games.
A. Well, like I said earlier, we've definitely got to get our road mentality right. This week's example, we've got to get some stops and I thought they did a good job controlling the ball early to create some first downs. But I think the fouls had something to do with that. We've got to get that part under control for sure. Past that, like I said, we can control what we can, but it's going to be hard when we don't create any takeaways and have that many fouls.
Q. Was there a little bit of miscommunication with the personnel running on and off the field? I know you guys got caught a couple times there, had to call a timeout, maybe there were 12 men on the field at one point. Talk about that and getting that corrected.
A. Yeah, we definitely changed that for the second half. It was difficult to try to match. Usually you get your time to do that, but in this instance doing less was better and that's what we did in the second half.
Q. They seemed to have success with that bootleg play throughout with the tight end leaking out. Why were they having success with that? What could you guys have done to helped stop that?
A. Right. I'll give you two examples. On two of them they were in different coverages so there's man-to-man obviously. You may have lost your eyes, you saw the guy block it down and your eyes went into the backfield as the guy goes to the flat you lost him. Another time might be across the ball, again the run action sometimes can do that. When we go back, we'll look to see if that was the case from a technique side. It's certainly something we can correct."
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