Q. Darius, do you think the defense held Brissett today?
DARIUS LEONARD: We did that for a while, and then the last two drives, we weren't up to par defensively. They tried to get going there. So if you want to be a good defense, you've got to play great four quarters of football.
He's a competitor. He knew what read we were going to be in. He was making the right checks, but you've got to understand what you're going against and the tendency they have to run. You've got to stop that.
Q. Going in thinking about 0-4, there's only been one team to make the playoffs. Is that on your mind?
DARIUS LEONARD: No, you don't think about losing. You think every day about winning the games. Who is even thinking about 0-4? That's the mindset. We want to keep building and try to get better each week.
Q. Darius, you made strides today on defense. It seems at times it's not buttoned up all the way. I've seen you throw your hands up. Do you feel like the defense isn't quite there yet?
DARIUS LEONARD: No, you can't find a defense who is there yet. It's early in the season. We're still building, still learning. Who the hell is perfect, you know what I'm saying? You've got to understand that. I don't even know how many plays we've played.
You can't think of a defense that's going to be perfect all hundred and whatever plays it is. There's absolutely no way. But you learn from it and understand what teams are doing. You understand it on Monday or on the way back, you look at the tape and say how can we be better? That's the game plan every week.
You figure out how we got beat. You figure out what you're going to do to not get beat, and you go out the next day and don't get beat by the same stuff.
Q. You feel better? How's your ankle feel? You looked a little bit faster today.
DARIUS LEONARD: It's getting there. It's getting there. It's just taking a lot of time. I think this week of practice really helped out an Wednesday, then Thursday was a little slower, then Friday came and flying guys in, just being on top of it. That's the main thing. You've got to make sure that you understand what's the problem, understand what it is, and understand that you've got to take care of it. You've got to be the professional there.
You don't want people to keep talking trash about you, so you've got to find a way to sharpen up, and that's what I'm trying to do.
Q. Are the big plays coming back? Do you feel like the splash plays are coming back?
DARIUS LEONARD: I think so. I think we missed out some things defensively. Bobby missed an interception. Sendejo missed the interception. I missed the interception. I think we missed maybe two to three sacks. Those are the things we've got to capitalize on to win.
If you want to be a good defense, we talked about 40-plus take-aways. We've got to take the ball away each and every time. I think we only have one take-away. That's Grover with the strip sack. We've got to have more of them and put the offense in a better position to score.
Like if I catch an interception and get the ball in the plus field, that's three points automatic. They don't even move the ball from there. We've got to be better there.
Q. (Indiscernible) How do you guys do that?
DARIUS LEONARD: Just play.
Q. To get to where you want to be?
DARIUS LEONARD: You just play ball. You can't panic. I feel like people on the outside looking in don't see what's getting built. They just see the big picture of the mistakes of five or six plays in the game, but I don't feel like people really break down and understand in the game what's going down and understand it.
We feel like we're building a great defense, and each week we continue to get better and better. We've got to do that. If we want to shut down the critics, we've got to play ball all four quarters.
Q. Explain that play. When they scored a touchdown, you had your hands up. Was there a breakdown?
DARIUS LEONARD: It was a tough play. We practiced that play. We knew it was going to come. It was a man to man. I don't know who was on him. He just came free. Usually two backers in the box, Bobby. Usually if I see a free guy, I'll go on him too. If you see the play, Jacoby's stepping in the pocket, and he's usually running in that situation.
So I stepped up, and I thought whoever was on him was going to be right there, but it didn't work. I wish I would have stayed on him a little longer just to help whatever corner or whoever was on him out, and that's what happened there.
The last play, which I don't think was a touchdown, it was fourth down. I don't even want to talk about that. I fell like we were off the field.
Q. Did you get banged up at all in the middle of the game? Was that anything?
DARIUS LEONARD: Banged up, no. What happened was I went in for a hit, and my helmet hit me in my neck a little bit. Tried to get it out. Just get up, get in, and try to do what you can do to help this team win.
Q. Did you get a chance to talk to Jacoby during the game?
DARIUS LEONARD: I talked to him before the game, then I kind of messed with him on the two-minute mark. He was trying to go no brainer on the play. I was just messing with him, and we kind of laughed about it. After the game, we had a good conversation wishing him the best of luck.
I was talking to Zaire during the afternoon thing when they announced Jacoby's name and everyone is just cheering for them. Those are the things that you want from a former teammate going somewhere else, the new team to love him as much as we did. Jacoby's a great guy. We wish him nothing but the best. He's been a great leader for us, and now he's out trying to change the Miami Dolphins offense. I wish him the best of luck.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports