Eric Rowe – September 8, 2019 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 8, 2019
Postgame – Baltimore
CB Eric Rowe (transcribed by Paola Argueta)
(What happened? Was it lack of preparation? If you could put your finger on it, what happened out there today?) – “No, it wasn’t lack of preparation. We had a good practice week. At the end of the day, we had a slow start – all three phases. We dug ourselves a hole and we couldn’t get out of it. It really just came down to our fundamentals and technique. They weren’t on point like how we know it should be.”
(Who wants to be on the negative part of history? It’s the most points the Dolphins have ever given up in a home game. That’s got to sink in. I know talking to S Bobby McCain, he said Head Coach Brian Flores wants that to sink in a little bit. When you hear that, that’s got to even hurt more.) – “He told us let it sink in, remember this feeling. I think everybody is going to remember this feeling because that’s just going to motivate us to push harder in practice. And then obviously for next game, come out (and) everybody just (has to) play to their fundamentals and techniques. Everybody has talent. We can get it done.”
(What is it that a QB Lamar Jackson offense – how difficult is that to try to defend?) – “They came out ready to go. Lamar, he obviously had a great day throwing. They had a great day running. Just all around. The offense was kind of what we expected. At the end of the day, we just have to play better.”
Josh Rosen – September 8, 2019 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 8, 2019
Postgame – Baltimore
QB Josh Rosen (transcribed by Katharine Bohlmann)
(Not the ideal situation for you to make your debut, but how did you feel like you did out there controlling the offense when you did get in?) – “Not really well. Throwing a pick is never what you want to do. We’ve all got a lot of work to do.”
(Overall, how did you feel the offensive line played today and the offense? Head Coach Brian Flores said you guys moved the ball and did a good job of it, but obviously you can do better.) – “We can all get better at a lot of things. We will watch the film and see where the holes were and try to fill them.”
(When it gets rolling downhill like that for another team, how hard is it to stop and change that momentum?) – “It is very hard. We didn’t do that. It’s back to the drawing board.”
Jerome Baker – September 8, 2019 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 8, 2019
Postgame – Baltimore
LB Jerome Baker (transcribed by Ken Mendonça)
(Does the way the team lost this game upset you?) – “I mean, you can’t be mad at anybody but yourself, so we have to out there and play better next week. It’s just a wakeup call. We’re all we’ve got, so we’ve got to go out there, and perform next week.”
(What led to this performance? Was it a lack of preparation or execution?) – “It was a snowball effect in my eyes. They got rolling, and we couldn’t really slow it down. Also, we have to go back and watch the film, but it’s not a one-person thing. It’s not a one-unit thing. It’s ultimately a team thing. It’s a long season. It’s the NFL …”
(Was the communication where it needed to be out there?) – “The communication was good. It’s more of an execution thing. We just have to execute, and that’s pretty much it. We didn’t execute today, and you see the result.”
Kenyan Drake – September 8, 2019 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 8, 2019
Postgame – Baltimore
RB Kenyan Drake (transcribed by Katharine Bohlmann)
(Twenty-one rushing yards. Obviously, there were some issues there. What was the problem in terms of creating production on the ground?) – “The defense – they’re a great defense. You’ve got to tip your hat to them because they came out and had the ability to stop us and we didn’t execute the game plan to our maximum potential. Once you get down early, you can’t really run the ball because you’re trying to pass the ball to get back into the game, so it was just a recipe for disaster from a running standpoint.”
(How do you prevent this from being a demoralizing loss especially considering this is the season opener?) – “We’ve got 15 more games, so you take it one day at a time, you focus on the next opponent and then you obviously look at the film, see what you did good, see what you did bad, correct the mistakes and kind of move forward.”
(Were you frustrated at all with the number of touches that you got throughout the game?) – “I can’t control that, so when I know to go in there, I control the opportunities that I have and maximize those opportunities.”
Bobby McCain – September 8, 2019 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 8, 2019
Postgame – Baltimore
S Bobby McCain (transcribed by Katharine Bohlmann)
(Why did it get away from you guys so quickly there in the first quarter?) – “We gave up big plays. We gave up big plays defensively. I can’t speak for all phases, but I know defensively, we gave up big plays and that’s not okay …”
(What was Head Coach Brian Flores’ message to you guys after the game?) – “We’re going to let it sink in. Let that (expletive) hurt. Let it hurt, let it hurt, because it does. Going out, we gave up 60 points today, essentially. So just going out and coming to work tomorrow. Like I told the guys, we’ve got to come to work tomorrow, put your head down and just work on it. At some point in the game, you have to play for each other and that’s just what it is.”
(What do you chalk this up to? Was it preparation? What was it if you had to put your finger on?) – “We didn’t start fast. We started really slow. We started terrible. Just going out and understanding that we have to be aggressive (in) every phase – players, coaches – everybody has got their hand in it. We’re going to watch the film, go back, critique what we’ve got to critique and just come back next week, because we’ve got a tough task ahead of us next week.”
Brian Flores – September 8, 2019 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 8, 2019
Postgame – Baltimore
Head Coach Brian Flores
(How do you explain what happened out there today?) – “Well, it starts with coaching. It starts with me. I’ve got to do a better job of coaching this team. We’ve got to play better. It starts with me. We’ve got a long way to go. We’ve got a lot of work we have to do. The good thing is, is we get to practice tomorrow, we get to practice this week, and we’ve got an opportunity to get better. That’s the goal, and that’s what we’ll try to do.”
(What surprised you the most about what you saw out there?) – “We talked about playing penalty free. We talked about having a clean operation, alignments, assignments, trying to play turnover free, and we didn’t accomplish any of that. We talked about starting fast. We didn’t accomplish that. But the good thing is, like I just said, we’ll come back tomorrow. We’ll make the corrections. We’ll try to get this team better on a daily basis, and that’s all we can do.”
(Of course, the score really reflects the way the game went. From where you’re standing, is there anything you can hang your hat on now that you can start to build forward on?) – “I thought we had a good drive at the end of the second half. I thought we were moving the ball, getting some plays in the pass game in the first half. I think we can build on that. But aside from that, we didn’t play well. We didn’t play well. Too many penalties…”
(QB Ryan Fitzpatrick, the way he played, he certainly was pushed around, hit, did everything he could to try to get the offense going.) – “I thought he did well trying to move this offense. I thought he made some throws, got some explosive plays in the first half. We had a couple drops that could have been bigger plays. I thought he played – He had the turnover, which we don’t – it was a bad decision there.”
(The timeouts at the end of the game, were you just trying to get QB Josh Rosen some more reps?) – “I was trying to get the ball. I was trying to get the ball back. Look, I’m going to always play to try to win, get reps and get our team better. There’s nothing like game reps, so let’s take the timeouts and try to get another drive. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to stop them, and they kneeled the clock out.”
(What was the thought process behind putting QB Josh Rosen in the game at that point?) – “The score got to a point where we felt like we just wanted to put Josh in there and get him some work. Look, getting game reps are important. Get him in there, get him some work. ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) will be the starter next week, let’s be clear on that; but we just wanted to get Josh in there and get him some game reps.”
(The opponent went fake punt up 35-3 and went for it on fourth down up 52-10. What were your thoughts on that?) – “It’s our job to stop them. Those are my thoughts. It’s not their job to let off. So it’s our job to stop them. (Ravens Head Coach) John (Harbaugh) is a good coach. They’ve got a good team. It’s our job to stop them. I’m not looking for handouts here.”
(What was your message to the team at halftime?) – “Again, there’s a lot we could have done better in the first half, so the message was, ‘Let’s play better. Let’s not have as many penalties. Let’s get aligned. Let’s tackle. Let’s not turn the ball over.’ There’s a lot that happened in that first half. I just wanted us to stick together, play together and fight. We’ve got to fight. We can’t lay down. We’ve got to fight, keep fighting.”
(Pardon me if I misunderstood, did you say QB Ryan Fitzpatrick starts next week?) – “’Fitz’ starts next week, yes.”
(How difficult will the problems on defense be to fix?) – “We’ve got problems on offense, defense and special teams. We’ll try to fix them all. Schematically from a personnel standpoint, we’ll try to fix them all. We’ll try to put our players in the best position to win. We’ve got a lot of work to do from that standpoint.”
(How do you evaluate a situation where you’ve got guys that weren’t even here last week inserted in the lineup, trying to get things going with them? How do you make an evaluation on them?) – “You watch the tape, evaluate it, as we’ve evaluated the entire training camp. Do they know their assignments? Are they playing penalty free? Are we tackling? Are we getting aligned? We’re just making our normal evaluation. The good thing here, the silver lining, is we’ve got an opportunity to come in tomorrow and go into this week and get better and try to improve and we’ll have another opportunity to play next week. I’m looking forward to that.”
(We saw S Minkah Fitzpatrick got pulled in the second half.) – “We were rolling guys the entire game. Reshad (Jones) was in, Minkah was in, Bobby (McCain) was in, (Steven) Parker was in, Walt Aikens played in there, so we were rolling guys. But I would say everyone has got to play better across the board. We’ve got to coach them better. There’s no doubt about that.”
(How much concern do you have about whether the roster is talented enough to be…) – “I don’t worry about that. We’ve got the guys we’ve got. We’re going to coach them. It’s our job to coach them. It’s our job to get them better. It’s our job to put them in positions to play well and make plays, and that’s my job. I’m not getting into – Look, I’m not an excuse maker. I never have been. Put that in the excuse bucket and you can kick it to the curb, because I’m not into that.”
(You’re going to play your former team next week. How does that affect you?) – “I’ll just go through my normal process, my normal routine. I’ll obviously reflect on what this was this past week and try to improve it and try to do a better job. At the end of the day, how this team plays is a reflection of me, and I have to do a better job, and this team has to do a better job, and we’ll come to work tomorrow and try to do that.”
(What did you think you could do defensively against that team that you thought this could work?) – “Obviously, what we thought we could do, we didn’t execute. I thought we could execute. We didn’t do a good job of execution. We’ve got to do a better job there. I didn’t think there was a scheme issue. There was an execution problem and we weren’t getting aligned. We’ll be better next week.”
Ryan Fitzpatrick – September 8, 2019 (Postgame)
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Sunday, September 8, 2019
Postgame – Baltimore
QB Ryan Fitzpatrick
(It was a tough day in the office.) – “Yeah. It’s never good to be embarrassed like that, especially at this level. What we had talked about: nobody is going to feel sorry for you and your situation. That’s what happens. You go out there and if you don’t execute, you’re going to get beat bad like that. Obviously we need to play better, which is an understatement.”
(What do you recall about the first quarter interception?) – “It happened. Earl (Thomas) made a nice play. We tried to get Kenyan (Drake) down the seam and Earl came out of center field and picked it.”
(How surprised are you at this result?) – “Obviously we all had a much different outcome dreamt about in our head of how it was going to go today, and I think the only thing we can do moving forward is continue to try to string good practices together and continue to keep a positive attitude, and in doing that, hope that the results follow.”
(How difficult was it to try to get your offense going when the offensive line, there were position changes and putting new people in. Certainly they were putting a lot of pressure on you to get out of the pocket quickly. How difficult was that?) – “Every game is going to present its different challenges. We knew coming into this game, the Ravens, with what they did last year and obviously they have some new pieces, but they’re a tough defense. And not just from a schematic point of view, but really the personnel that they have in there, they’re a good defense. We knew we’d have to be at our best in order to combat some of that stuff, and it just kind of got away from us early.”
(You look for good things out of every game, and WR DeVante Parker did some good things. We saw some good things out of him after most of preseason. Anything else out there you felt was going your way?) – “DeVante went up and made a nice catch there. Preston Williams had his first touchdown in the NFL. If you’re looking for small victories, that’s about it. Other than that, not a great day for us at the office. We’ve just got to get back to work and continue to do our best.”
(It’s a small thing, but the first play of the game you looked like you all audibled and you had one-on-one coverage and the guy didn’t hear. What happened there?) – “(It was a) miscommunication, which that was the big thing that we were stressing all week with moving parts and pieces was communication was at a premium. That kind of set the tone for the day there, and not having great communication on the first play.”
(When they hit your head and knocked your helmet off, did you feel like they should have — that should have been called, that that should have been a penalty?) – “Those are always judgment calls, and sometimes they see them, sometimes they don’t. I think I feel protected back there by the refs. I think they did a nice job of it and try to take care of us when they see it.”
Daniel Kilgore – September 6, 2019
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Friday, September 6, 2019
C Daniel Kilgore
(On the honor of being named a team captain.) – “It’s a huge honor. I was a captain last year before the injury. To be voted on by your peers is a true honor. It’s not a job that I take lightly. I think it comes with a big responsibility and I’m ready for it, and get these guys ready to go on Sunday.
(What’s the biggest thing you feel like the captain should do?) – “Lead by example. I’m not like a big ‘rah, rah guy.’ I’m not going to stand in front everybody and give an emotional speech. I’m just going to do my job and come in with that attitude and get better.”
(Is there any difference on being a captain on team X, Y or Z compared to being a captain on a team as young as this one? Do you handle the captaincy any different because of so many young guys?) – “No. I’ll go about my business the same way I have for nine years. I go through the same routine. Be one of the first ones in and one of the last ones to leave. Well, not today. My daughter turns one (year old) tomorrow so I’m going to leave early today. (laughter) But no, it’s no different for me. (I’m) the same guy. The same responsibility – do my job.”
(How much are you going to spoil her?) – “She’s already spoiled. It doesn’t take much. Her mother does a good job of that. (laughter)”
