Seattle Seahawks 37 - Atlanta Falcons 9
RAHEEM MORRIS: Drives that could have been touchdowns. Those killed us. Coming out of the second half, you can't give up the kickoff return. You can't allow those guys to answer what a nice drive by offense and then fumble the ball in their territory. And then those guys were able to get the ball and really go down and score on us. At will at that point, kind of took it away from us, and we lost the football game. With that, I'll open it up for questions.
Q. You had been feeling so good about the way this team was holding together. Does that second half change the way you feel about it?
RAHEEM MORRIS: No. That was within the confines of the game. The kickoff return was a back breaker. The fumble was a back breaker. Those things happened back to back. In combination of those things, that's a game-like thing. That's an individual moment, a one-game type of thing. These guys will come back ready to fight on Thursday. Couldn't be nothing better than a quick week, short week, ready to deal.
Q. How at this point can you fix the special teams problems?
RAHEEM MORRIS: You know, we gotta go figure it out. We gotta put more people out there, change it up, who's going, who's running down, who's covering, who's doing all the things that we ask those guys to do. You can't give up a blocked field goal. You can't do any of those things.
It's not just one person to point at. It's just not one thing to point at. You gotta go figure it out and look at it on tape and try to come up with answers.
Q. Defensively the way they moved the ball in the second half, were those breakdowns by you all or do you feel like your defense just sort of got overwhelmed considering the special teams and the offense?
RAHEEM MORRIS: They did a nice job, and they forced us into a situation of the two-score game, and you gotta play some man, and those guys did a nice job of beating man coverage.
They were able to run away from a couple plays, made a couple plays down the stretch. They were able to run the football really well. There's always going to be some correctable things on tape that we'll go back and look at tonight.
Got the quick week, so we'll look at it all tonight, and we'll get it corrected tonight. We'll be able to move on pretty quickly tomorrow because we gotta go get ready for Tampa.
Q. You talk about a quick week. I was going to ask you, what did you see that you can remember right now that you can take into Tampa on Thursday?
RAHEEM MORRIS: From this game?
Q. From this game.
RAHEEM MORRIS: Yeah. You can't give up back-breaking plays that allow your team to self-destruct when you're playing a really tight football game like that. That first half, that was what the team should look like. If you can find a way not to have those penalties, you score some of those touchdowns, you're in plus territory, you got a great opportunity to win this football game, or at least give yourself a chance to win the football game. And when you come out in the second half and you give up the kickoff return and you're able to turn the football over, you give yourself no chance.
Q. Coach, you talk about some of those momentum-shifting plays that happened, the kickoff return and the fumble. As a coach when you're seeing that and you're recognizing that, is there anything you can do? Is there like a call you can make? Is there something you can say like where you sense the shift and you can try to get it back into your favor?
RAHEEM MORRIS: There's no magic call. You gotta go out there and play. The guys gotta go back there and recapture the moment. Somebody's gotta go make a play, whether it's on defense, whether it's on special teams or whether it's on offense. Somebody's gotta go make a game-changing play, and that didn't happen. Those guys went out and made plays, and hat's off to the Seahawks.
Q. End of the first half, under two minutes to go, it looked like Darnell reestablished himself when he get what appeared to be a touchdown, would have given you guys momentum going into the half. It wasn't reviewed. Do you have any explanation why? Should it have been reviewed by the NFL, because it did appear he did come back in play.
RAHEEM MORRIS: I don't know that. I do know I gave my explanation. My explanation was I thought there should have been a call on the play, potentially. If you get the call on the play, you can reestablish yourself, catch the ball. Should have been a touchdown.
They explained to me they didn't see it that way, whatever the case may be. So it's not a touchdown. It is what it is. You go with what the officials said at that moment. We'll figure out what the right decision was moving forward.
Q. Do you feel it was a momentum-turning play?
RAHEEM MORRIS: No. The momentum-turning play was the kickoff return at the half. I felt great about what was happening up until that point. You always want to have those extra points, have those extra things, those extra moments, but that wasn't the case.
Q. You had been hesitant to sort of do anything dramatically different given the way -- given so many close losses. Does a loss like this change your approach? Do you feel like you need to do something to change your approach in some dramatic fashion?
RAHEEM MORRIS: You always look at yourself first. We always look at each other inward first, and I always did that every single game. It's like the dramatic things that you guys are looking for, I don't know what those things are, but you always gotta look inward, you always gotta figure out what's best for the football team and try to figure out a way to win this football game. And the things that we had sought out to try to win this football game we did not get accomplished.
We had to get turnovers on defense. We had to maintain the ball, get to stay to track, which we were not able to do. And on special teams we had to make it more about us, and we did not do any of those things. So when those things happen, the game got out of hand.
Q. Coach, third down offense, again, was a bit of a struggle at this point, or today. What can you do at this point in the season?
RAHEEM MORRIS: You gotta make a catch. When Kirk puts it in position for a guy to make a catch on third down, you gotta make those catches. We had a couple of missed ops from a number of people. Had a couple really good looks at it. Obviously they made some plays as well on their defense, a couple of plays that they made as well. But when you have an opportunity to move the chains and really get it going, you gotta get those things going, particularly in the third and one. We went for it on fourth down, but you gotta be able to move the chains that way, gotta be able to do those things.
And then some of those second half, third downs were kind of ridiculous the situation that we put ourselves in, and you can't allow those things to happen.
Q. Just to clarify on the Mooney play, when you say you thought there should have been a call, you thought there should have been a call on the defender, either a P.I. or illegal contact?
RAHEEM MORRIS: Yeah, call it whatever you want, illegal contact. Call it a P.I. at that moment, and then that play is going to be reviewed. All those things can happen, and we have the key conversation on what it should have been or what it could have been.
Q. Raheem, this clinches the eighth consecutive losing season for the Falcons. I know this predated your era. But do you have a message to the fanbase that has endured one losing season after another?
RAHEEM MORRIS: Our fanbase deserves a winner, and the only thing we can do is try to find a way to go win this Thursday football game. You can't make any promises that you can't keep at this moment. The only thing you can do is try to give them the best effort you can give them potentially on Thursday night.
Q. The decision at fourth and one, you were down, I think, 18 maybe you kick a field goal instead of going for it?
RAHEEM MORRIS: Yes. You like to kick the field goal there. Obviously you got a couple different choices there. You can try to go for it and get it, pick it up, get the score. You can absolutely kick the field goal, go down there, get a quick stop, get the ball back, and then you're right back in the game.
Obviously, when you don't make the stop after the field goal kick, it doesn't matter what you did there. But trying to keep that thing game. You want to kick it and make it a two- score game. You go out there and get a quick stop, start of the fourth quarter you got a chance to go out there and really win that football game.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports