Atlanta Falcons Media Conference

Sunday, October 20, 2024

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Raheem Morris

Postgame Press Conference


Seattle 34 - Atlanta 14

RAHEEM MORRIS: Obviously didn't play as well. Came out flat for whatever reason they didn't play well. Those guys got the win today. Hats off to the Seattle Seahawks and what they were able to, and we gotta play better next week.

Q. Coach, you all are able to slow people down in the second half. What happened today?

RAHEEM MORRIS: Turned over for a touchdown, a big play by Metcalf at the end of the half. A penalty or two penalties to keep drives alive on third down. That's what I remember right now off the top of my head.

Q. And did you all think how -- the numbers suggest you all might be able to attack them through the air. Were you all able to do that and get that accomplished today?

RAHEEM MORRIS: No. We did not get it accomplished, clearly not today. The success you need in order to win games in this league and we were not able to do that today. We didn't play well as a unit across the board, special teams, offense or defense. We gotta go to the lab and put it together and find a way to go get a win next week.

Q. You mentioned the time the penalties, nine penalties. How do you fix that? How do you correct that?

RAHEEM MORRIS: We've been pretty good most of the year. We've been a pretty disciplined team. We've been doing the right things. So today was kind of an anomaly. And we gotta go back to fix those things, look at it on tape, correct what we gotta get corrected, and I got a lot of confidence in the guys that we can do that.

Q. I know you said you can't really put your finger on why you came out flat. How surprising was it to you that that was the case?

RAHEEM MORRIS: You know, you can't really put a finger on it right now. You gotta go back and look at it, what you gotta get done and how you want to do it. But we did not come out with the energy that was required to win a football game today, and we need to be better, like come out, get that stop. I don't know whether it was the penalties that kept their drives going. Right off the bat I think it was three penalties in that first drive, and those are the things that kind of slap the air out of you and you can't allow those things to happen.

Q. Being able to sustain -- three good wins, feeling pretty good about yourself. Is the ability to sustain that type of thing and not come out flat the fourth time, is that part of building something and taking another step?

RAHEEM MORRIS: There is no doubt. It is hard to win a game in the National Football League, let alone three. So to be able to go out there to go out and win four, it's definitely something good teams do, and we gotta figure out how to do it.

Q. Raheem, Bijan Robinson had a great game tonight. How do you feel about how he's moving forward and how he's progressing throughout the season?

RAHEEM MORRIS: I think everybody knows what I'm going to say about the stats. They're there for losers, and we lost today. But Bijan came out and was really running the football well, he was able to catch the ball in the back field pretty well. But you gotta put it all together as a team, and I would never glorify individual stats over team wins. That's just not my makeup.

Q. Coach, do you have any concerns about the pass rush?

RAHEEM MORRIS: Yes. We gotta get the quarterback at a timely fashion. We gotta get him on the ground when we send people. Can't let him scramble around, do some of those things, and we gotta go back and find ways to fix them.

We did hit the quarterback I think once today, had an opportunity to get a throw-away in the pocket. We got an illegal hit low. We gotta fix some of those things, see what we can do to correct that. We're looking at it on tape.

Q. And the decision of Michael Penix getting his NFL debut today?

RAHEEM MORRIS: All those guys, at that point the game was out of hand. It was gone. So we were able to sub all those guys and get them out. Made the mistake of putting Bijan in one play and got him out of there and made sure we can substitute as many people as we could at that moment.

Q. And how can you fix the false starts? You had one series where there were three and the one possession that kind of killed the possession.

RAHEEM MORRIS: Yeah. That's what we talked about. Those are all the same things we talked about. You gotta go back and look at that and see why that happened, and they hadn't been happening all year. We had a small little segment there where we had a couple of opportunities that we didn't like. We were able to fix those things. But penalties are based on concentration and we gotta go fix those things on concentration level.

Q. Raheem, all three phases have contributed to wins at different times individually. Is that what stings the most about today that they were all collectively not contributing at all?

RAHEEM MORRIS: You always look somebody to pick you up in this team effort game, and it didn't happen today. It felt like we got something going on offense, big play by those guys, not good on defense. We get a stop on defense, they go right back out and turn the ball over and give them a walk-off touchdown. So we gotta put all those things together. We gotta be able to go out there and find ways to win together and we did not do it today. Tough day.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
149933-2-1234 2024-10-20 20:36:00 GMT

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