Ryan Fitzpatrick – September 15, 2019 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 15, 2019
Postgame – New England
QB Ryan Fitzpatrick
(Obviously it was tough out there for you. Where do you think your confidence and morale is?) – “It’s a tough way to start a year with the two losses back-to-back at home like they were. They’re not the way we envisioned it going, but (there is) nothing to do but to go back to work and try to get better.”
(What has to happen for the offense to score some points?) – “Yeah, we had a lot of three-and-outs today. I think the first down was a problem for us today, which puts you kind of behind the chains for the other two downs. There wasn’t a whole lot that was going right on offense today.”
(Did you talk to your o-line after those sacks? What happened on the sideline?) – “There’s a lot of different things that go on. Some of those are – you hate to pass blame around. As a quarterback, you try to get the ball out. You try to get yourself in the best position. There are a lot of things, I think, that I could do better in that regard.”
(Are you all right? You got your face thumped.) – “Yeah, I’m good. It probably looks worse than it is. I’m fine.”
(I would assume it happened on one of the sacks?) – “Yeah.”
(How do you physically?) – “(I feel) good. Physically, I feel good. Mentally and emotionally, not so much; but physically I didn’t take any real big shots today.”
(Did you feel any kind of pressure from the fans’ perspective knowing that last year when Miami faced the New England Patriots and that Miami Miracle happened that last play, do you feel any sort of pressure to give the fans the same type of excitement for this game?) – “I think there’s a lot of things – we’re focusing on ourselves right now and trying to get better as a football team and trying to figure things out. That’s our main focus right now.”
(Are you in a no-win situation? It seems like there’s tons of pressure, guys are dropping balls, you’re behind all the time…) – “Well, I mean, as a quarterback, everything – at the end of the day – it’s all going to fall on you. That’s why we play the position that we do. That’s why I play the position, because I want that responsibility. I want that blame. I know I can go out there and do a much better job. I think especially at this position, if you go out there and play better, then the team as a whole does better, so I’ve just got to continue to try to do my best out there.”
(This offense for two weeks has struggled to move the ball running, throwing the ball, having difficulties. Do you still feel confident that this offense can turn around and become an offense that can put the points on the board to allow you to be in these games?) – “Yeah, that’s why we’ve got to go back and go to work. We put a couple of good weeks of practice together and haven’t showed it in the game, and we’ve just got to continue to every day focus on ourselves and keep trying to get better, and hopefully the results will follow.”
(What’s the feeling in the locker room after back to back games where you’ve been outscored by this much? It’s got to be frustrating.) – “Yeah, not great. It’s pretty quiet in there. Not great. It’s never fun to be embarrassed, especially two weeks in a row at home.”
(Trying to move the ball, you had the one pick-six that was a tip that shouldn’t happen. Can you tell us what happened the other pick-six, the first one?) – “We ran a little play out to the right. They did a nice job. ‘K.D.’ (Kenyan Drake) kind of got hit by the defensive end, and it was 3rd-and-shorter. We were definitely going to go for it on fourth down, just in the situation that it was in the game. I tried to jam one in to DeVante (Parker) rather than maybe just trying to run and get a yard; but being 3rd-and-short, I thought that I had to try to make some sort of play, and it didn’t work out.”
(Another tough opponent next week, this time on the road. It’s a short time to get back. How much improvement can this team – they made some improvement from Week 1 to Week 2 – how much of it will you make moving forward?) – “Yeah, we’ve got to improve. We’ve got to get better. There’s not going to be anybody in this league that’s going to feel sorry for us, so we’ve got to continue to try to get better every day with ourselves and collectively as a team, and hopefully, again, the results are going to start showing up on Sunday.”
Brian Flores – September 15, 2019 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 15, 2019
Postgame – New England
Head Coach Brian Flores
(What do you take out of this?) – “I mean, I thought they played hard, and I thought they played hard for 60 minutes. We were there for half, maybe two and a half quarters, and then we just couldn’t get anything going offensively. I thought – that’s a good team, and we just didn’t do enough.”
(What changes are you planning with the defense…?) – “Defensively, I thought the guys played hard, made some stops. I mean that’s a good offense. I thought they played hard. I thought we tackled fairly well. I thought we defended the deep part of the field well. They made some plays, as well. They’ve got good players. Offensively, we didn’t get anything going. We turned the ball over. We’ve got to do a better job offensively and really collectively as a team.”
(Where do you stand with the quarterback? Is QB Ryan Fitzpatrick still your starter or is it open?) – “Ryan is still the starter. We’ll evaluate things over the course of the week, and as of right now, Ryan is still the starter.”
(Do you think the defense just got exhausted out there?) – “They were out there for a long time. I think you want to play complementary football – offense, defense, special teams. I thought we got some good punts out of (Matt) Haack. I thought we played good defense in spurts. We just couldn’t string any drives together offensively, which was — you need to do that against this team. Really you’ve got to do that against this team. They played well defensively. We couldn’t get anything going.”
(How do you turn the page for the next game?) – “We’ll just come back to work tomorrow, come in, we’ll make the corrections on today’s film and we’ll come back Wednesday. I thought we had a better week of practice. But at the end of the day, it’s about our production in games. We’ll just come back, we’ll go to work, we’ll make the corrections, we’ll get better, we’ll improve – and it’s disappointing. Those guys are disappointed. They work hard. They put in a lot of work. But we’ve just got to play better.”
(Today the team celebrated Hispanic Heritage month. Obviously it’s also Honduras’ independence day. Do you feel that the NFL is tearing down barriers for Latinos in the league?) – “Yeah. Football brings people together, from all races, nationalities; so yeah, I think the NFL does a good job of that – a great job of that – and I’m sure they’ll continue to do that.”
(Offensively, all game long you couldn’t get anything going, put a lot of pressure on the defense. Certainly a lot of opportunities left out there on the field. How do you see that improving over the next couple weeks, and what has to be done there?) – “That’s disappointing. There were some drops out there, some plays we could have made. We left some yards out there. I think we know that. The good thing is that we had opportunities. We’ve just got to – we’ve got to capitalize. We’ve got to capitalize on those opportunities. They don’t show up often, and we have to make plays when they’re presented. And I think we’ll do that. I think we’ll improve. We’ll get better. We have some guys – I believe in our players. I believe they’ll make those plays. I know they’re disappointed that they didn’t; but it wasn’t one guy, it was us as a collective group. We’ve got to do a better job as a staff of getting them in position to make more of those plays. The missed opportunities were there. Everybody can see them. We’ve just got to do a better job.”
(It seemed like the offensive line early on was doing some pretty good things and then things started to break down with pass protection, giving the running backs space to run. Tough running out there it seemed like all day long.) – “Yeah, they’ve got a good defense and they do a good job with their rush, picks, stunts, and we’ve just got to do a better job protecting. As the game wore on, we struggled in that phase and couldn’t get anything going.”
(Do you feel good about your defense playing hard against a very good football team, hung in there as long as they could and they just got overwhelmed there towards the end with two touchdowns from the offense?) – “I thought they played hard. Like you said, I thought they played hard. I thought the communication was better, the tackling was better. I thought they played hard, and it’s a good offense. We got them off the field a couple time. It’s a great quarterback, you guys know that. They’ve got great skill players. They made some plays, and I thought the defense played hard. I thought as a team, we played hard. They fought all the way to the end. We’ve just got to continue to do that, and things will turn.”
(You used S Minkah Fitzpatrick differently today, it looked like. How do you think he did?) – “I thought defensively, like I said, I thought there was good communication, there was good tackling. I thought he played well. Again, he’s a very versatile player. You can use him in a lot of different ways. He did a good job today; but at the end of the day, it’s a team game and we’re all disappointed that we didn’t play better. That’s kind of where I’m at on that.”
(Where do you guys stand from a confidence and morale standpoint on the team?) – “I think that’s a resilient group in there. It really is. That’s a resilient group in there. I don’t think anyone is – they’re not making excuses. They’re not going to point fingers. I think they’re just going to – we’re just going to go back to work tomorrow, make the corrections, come back Wednesday, make some more corrections and try to get better. We’ve got a big game on the road next week. That will be a challenge in itself, and we’re going to do everything possible to play better and have a better outcome.”
