Christian Wilkins – September 13, 2020 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 13, 2020
DT Christian Wilkins (Postgame)
(It looks like you had some impact plays today. What are some of the things that you had been focusing on in practice that translated to today’s game?) – “Honestly, I’ve just been working hard all year – all offseason, all training camp and everything to try to be in the best shape and be in the best position to help this team win. But ultimately, I don’t care about the big plays if it doesn’t result in wins. It’s cool to make big plays but I’d rather win at the end of the day. It’s all good and fun; but I’d trade in stats and plays for a win in the win column.”
(When it comes to QB Cam Newton, what made him difficult to contain? And obviously his rush game played a big factor in the outcome.) – “Yeah, Cam is a good player. The o-line is really good. Just everything – the OC, (Bill) Belichick, everybody. Give respect to the Patriots – hats off to the Patriots for what they were able to do offensively against us. But really, we were in – I felt like we hurt ourselves and we’ve just got to be better. We’ve just got – it’s the 24-hour rule in the NFL. We’ve just got to watch the tape, sulk on this one and then just get better starting tomorrow. That’s the plan. That’s what we do.”
(Their last touchdown drive, they got helped out by a big play and a penalty; but even still, you guys had a chance at third-and-6 I think and couldn’t get off the field. What happened there on third and fourth downs and how pivotal was that in the game?) – “Really, we just have to be better. We’ve just got to – it’s a long season and we will get better. I’m very confident in that. We’ve got the right guys. We’ve got all we need on the defensive side. We’ve just got to move on from this. I don’t really know – I’ll need to watch tape to really see what happened and what exactly it is that we need to improve on; but we’ve just got to get better moving forward.”
(What’s the mood in the locker room like among you guys, especially after a game like this?) – “Obviously you want to win the first game. The first of the game of the year, (you want to) start off on the right foot against a divisional opponent and everything. But I feel like all of us kind of have the same mood – just get better next week. We just have to flush this one as soon as we can. Like I said, the 24-hour rule, move on, see what we can do better and get focused on the next one.”
(I couldn’t help but notice the shirt that you’re wearing. I believe it’s new – correct me if, I’m wrong. Secondly, I wanted to ask you what do you think your message was before the game and whether you think your message was heard.) – “I think our message was definitely heard. We spent a lot of time as a team trying to figure out what it is we wanted – portray what message we wanted to portray, and I feel like it was heard, for sure. As far as my shirt, I just honor my grandfather every day. Every day I’m alive, I’m his legacy so I try to honor him as much as I can.”
(Obviously you talked about next week and you have to turn the page. You’ve got QB Josh Allen and the Bills coming up – another running quarterback. What can you learn I guess from playing QB Cam Newton and kind of putting that to playing QB Josh Allen and the Bills next week?) – “Like I said, we’ll have to watch the tape to really see where we could have been better and how we can really improve. I’m confident that we will get better. We’ll just turn the page, flush this one as soon as we can and get ready for the next one.”
Brian Flores – September 13, 2020 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 13, 2020
Postgame – New England
Head Coach Brian Flores – (transcribed by New England Patriots)
(I wanted to ask your thoughts on how Ryan Fitzpatrick played today?) – “Had some spurts there where we were moving the ball, but obviously with turnovers, those are huge. We talk about that a lot as a team. It’s tough to win when you turn the ball over. But I do think he had some, put some drives together. We only finished the one. But just too many turnovers at the end of the day.”
(Coach, they ran for over 200 yards. What did you think of the run defense and the ability to stop Cam Newton running the football?) – “We’ve got to do better at run defense. Obviously the quarterback was an issue. Yeah, we’ve got to do a better job.”
(Wanted to ask you, we saw a lot of Myles Gaskin today. Was that the game plan? Was that because Jordan Howard was injured? Or was it just the plan to play him over Matt Breida today?) – “Myles (Gaskin) has practiced well. There’s a rotation there at the running back with (Jordan) Howard and Matt (Breida). (Patrick) Larid got a few snaps as well. He had a couple of good runs, some good plays in the passing game as well; so we left him in there.”
(What can you say about Jerome Baker’s day? He had the stop at the goal line with N’Keal Harry. Also had the push on Cam that led to the touchdown and then the penalty with Edelman on that final drive there. What can you say about his kind of up-and-down day?) – “It’s a team game. It’s not one guy. It’s not just Jerome (Baker) or ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick). We’ve got to do a better job as a unit and as a team offensively, defensively and in the kicking game. We didn’t do enough to win today. We’ve got to do a better job, so we’ll go back, learn from the tape. We meet on this tomorrow and then close the book on this one and move on to the next opponent.”
(Without the benefit of being able to review the game on tape, it seemed like the offensive line held up fairly well. What was your assessment from field level?) – “I thought from a protection standpoint we were okay. We had the one sack late in the game. But other than that we were able to protect. He had time in the pocket. It’s a good rush, good secondary. But again, that part of it, it’s a team game, so you can play well in one phase and not play well in enough phases. And not enough (is) not good enough.”
(What were your first impressions of Brandon Jones slotted in there in that first drive?) – “I thought he had an up-and-down game without reviewing the film. Again, he’s practiced well. We stuck him in there. I thought he made a couple good tackles in the open field and did good job in the kicking game from what I saw, but we’ll go back and learn from the tape. Again, he’s a rookie. This is his first NFL game, so he’ll learn from it just like all the other rookies.”
(Just curious, you mentioned Cam Newton’s running. How much of their 217 yards do you think was based on that and how much was just outmuscling?) – “It was based on a lot of things – bad technique, bad tackling. We’ve got to clean up a lot of things in the run game, which obviously that will be a focus this week.”
(Do you have a status update on DeVante Parker? We saw him leave and not come back.) – “He’s in there. We’ll take a look at him over the course of the week. I don’t have a status update right now, but obviously he didn’t return, so we’ll see what it looks like tomorrow and in the coming days.”
(Wanted to ask you about the last drive. Did you consider kicking a field goal earlier or was it all along you were going to go for the touchdown? And also do you think that Gesicki was (indiscernible) with that last throw?) – “We were obviously trying to score a touchdown. If we didn’t pick up the last one we would have kicked the field goal. Unfortunately the ball was picked off. Whether they made the call, didn’t make the call; there’s not much we can do. We’ve just got to live with the calls that are made or made on the field.”
(What was the view on the field of Preston Williams on those two interceptions from Fitz in the first half, the one where he kind of lost his footing, at least one of them, and one he was jammed up by Gilmore? What did you see on those plays?) – “I’ve got to go back and watch the film. All I had was the tablets. I didn’t look up for the replay. We were just kind of moving on to the defensive side of the ball. I’ll be able to tell you that probably more tomorrow.”
(How did Xavien Howard look to you, and obviously it seemed as though there was a rep range that you guys wanted to stay within. Is that right?) – “Again, I’m not going to be able to say how he looked until I watch the tape. But, yeah, we wanted to, obviously coming off the injury, no preseason, no games; just wanted to get the three guys in there along with (Jamal) Perry. So I think we got that accomplished. And I’ll be able to have a better evaluation once I watch the tape.”
(You just touched on it but without the benefit of having the preseason, I’m curious of your evaluation of kind of the first time these guys got to live tackle and their conditioning from that standpoint.) – “I felt like overall the tackling could have been better. The conditioning could have been better. Obviously without — we’re not going to make any excuses on whether we had preseason games. They didn’t have any preseason games either. But all things we can improve on. We can improve the tackling. We can improve the run defense. We can improve the conditioning. We’ll work on those things over the course of the week and we’ve got a tough opponent next week and we’ll get back to it.”
