NFL International Series Packers vs Eagles

Friday, 6 September 2024

São Paulo, Brazil

Arena Corinthians

Green Bay Packers

Matt LaFleur

Postgame Press Conference


Eagles 34, Packers 29

MATT LaFLEUR: All right. Obviously very disappointed. There was a lot of opportunities out there to win the game. We weren't good enough in the red area. We were plus two winning the football. Ultimately didn't score enough points to win the game.

Give Philly a ton of credit. They made some big plays. Certainly we knew the talent they had offensively. Jalen Hurts is a hell of a quarterback. They have one of the best O-lines in ball. They have a lot of play-makers across the board.

There's a lot to clean up. It was definitely a sloppy game I think from us. There was some uncharacteristic things that we did as a staff quite frankly that trickled down to our players.

Ultimately we all got to look ourselves hard in the mirror and find ways to get better 'cause tonight obviously wasn't good enough.

Q. (No microphone.)

MATT LaFLEUR: I don't know. I don't know.

Q. (No microphone.)

MATT LaFLEUR: We didn't score.

Q. (No microphone.)

MATT LaFLEUR: I'm not going to make excuses about the field. It was the same for both sides.

Q. Did they do anything in the red zone that caught you off guard as far as your playing calling?

MATT LaFLEUR: No.

Q. (No microphone.)

MATT LaFLEUR: That's what we were trying to get done two plays in a row.

Q. (No microphone.)

MATT LaFLEUR: I thought the guys competed hard. They played with good effort. It was sloppy. I think, like, it felt like every time offensively we had a drive-stopping penalty... We overcame some of those. But there was a lot of penalties, a lot of sloppy play.

I thought our defense, to force three takeaways against a really good offense, I feel like you should win the game. The stats will tell you it's about a 90% win ratio when you have plus two on the ball. We didn't capitalize on those opportunities.

To come away with 9 points on three turnovers, that is not good enough. That is not going to get it done. Do I think we need to play better defensively? Absolutely. We can't give up 30-some-odd points a game. That's usually a recipe for disaster.

When I look at it, I think it's a collective loss. All of us are responsible: myself, starts with me, goes down to our staff, then to our players. I challenged everybody.

We got to learn from this 'cause I think just watching the tape, I'm not trying to take anything away from Philly, they battled and they played their game, but I think there was a lot of opportunities we didn't capitalize on.

When you don't do that, you get beat. Specifically the red area was a huge problem tonight. I would say a year ago we were pretty damn good in that area. We got destroyed in that area tonight.

Q. (No microphone.)

MATT LaFLEUR: I think week one, you just don't know what you're going to get. You know what I mean? It's kind of a slop fest. Tonight was certainly that.

Q. (No microphone.)

MATT LaFLEUR: I can't hear you. I'm sorry.

Q. (No microphone.)

MATT LaFLEUR: I don't know. I got to go back and take a look at it.

They were having their way with us. I would say it felt like Jalen had a lot of time to throw the football. I think anytime you don't get a pass-rush, and again that is a really good offensive line, I just expected more from our pass-rush tonight.

When we did bring pressure, there were a lot of times it looked like guys were uncovered. We had some mistakes certainly in the run game. Especially we had some blown gaps where they just... Saquon was barreling through there and getting chunk gains. You can't do that against a really good football team.

Q. (No microphone.)

MATT LaFLEUR: Yeah, I thought Emanuel ran well. I thought he did a lot of nice things. I know back to back, I want to say back to back explosive gains on one of the series. So I think with limited opportunities, I don't know what the final stats were with how many yards he ran for, I thought he played pretty well.

Q. (No microphone.)

MATT LaFLEUR: Yeah, it's not just one guy. I mean, I don't think we blocked really well either. You know what I mean? Then he was able to bust some chunk runs.

Philly, give them credit. They came out defensively and did some things that we were not anticipating. There was a lot more spot drop. Not a lot of pressure, especially in the first half. I think in the second half they kind of flipped their mindset, started bringing more pressure.

But they were trying to play soft. When teams do that, you're not consistently running the football, it's going to be a problem.

Q. (No microphone.)

MATT LaFLEUR: Yeah, I mean, obviously he's a young guy that's got a lot of talent. Certainly it hurt him missing a significant amount of time in the pre-season. This is his first game action. You don't know what necessarily to expect.

I know what we see every day in practice. We see a very explosive player that can run and hit. I know there was at least one bust that was pretty critical, a pretty critical mistake.

All in all, I noticed him just like you did. He was flying around. Seems like he was making plays.

Q. (No microphone.)

MATT LaFLEUR: Yeah, I thought the atmosphere was outstanding. A lot of credit to the fans tonight. I thought they showed out. It was an incredible setting.

I'm just disappointed right now that we didn't capitalize on an opportunity to come here and show what we're all about and play our best brand of football.

I thought all in all the people here in Brazil have been outstanding. Overall it was a really good experience - minus the loss obviously. Take care, guys.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
148052-1-1004 2024-09-07 04:22:00 GMT

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