Dolphins 16, Commanders 13
Q. (Off microphone) -- what happened? What did you see?
MARCUS MARIOTA: Yeah, they covered our first couple of options well. I tried to get back side to Zach. Guy undercut it and made a play. Unfortunate there, and give credit to him. He made a good play.
Q. The red zone, you guys got down there. What did you think was -- I know there was, though, one because it slipped.
MARCUS MARIOTA: Yeah, unfortunately. Sometimes that's the way the ball bounces. We have to be better in that zone. I think this offense can score a lot of points, but if we're not converting our red zone opportunities, it's tough.
Defense played unbelievable today, made some huge stops. We just didn't convert when we needed to.
Q. In the first quarter you got a pass blocked on third down. Tell me what happened on that one.
MARCUS MARIOTA: Which one? Sorry, it's out of my mind.
Q. It was in the first quarter. The first drive.
MARCUS MARIOTA: In their red zone? Yeah. They did a good job. They had a spy. I tried to check to a different play, tried to scramble out to my left, and the spy was there.
In that moment probably could have dirted it, gave us a better field position for the field goal, but didn't think much of it.
Q. Then your 44-yard run, what did you see?
MARCUS MARIOTA: Yeah, they did a good job of disguising their pressure. They brought it to the weak side, so we were short. I just figured I had to make a play.
Zach did a good job blocking downfield for me. Yeah, just tried to make a play.
Q. This season has been frustrating. It feels like it's one thing after another.
MARCUS MARIOTA: Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, all these trials and tribulations that we're going through I think ultimately is going to build us better, and we just have to kind of take it on the chin.
It is what it is. We're not where we want to be, but the only way that we can dig ourselves out of it is learning from these mistakes and learning from these games, and I think we will.
Q. You've played obviously in a lot of different environments, college and NFL. How would you explain this environment?
MARCUS MARIOTA: It was fun. I think being able to come out all the way out here to Spain, get an opportunity to bring football to places that it hasn't been before was a really cool moment.
Obviously we would have loved to have it finish a different way, but looking at the big picture of it, I think it's awesome that we're globalizing football and bringing football to places that we think need it.
Q. How did you find the stadium with turf on it?
MARCUS MARIOTA: I thought it was fine. I wore 7-studs. I know some guys wore molded, but I thought the field was great.
Q. On the touchdown attempt to Zach Ertz, was there something special before that on kicking instead of going for it, or was that the play all along?
MARCUS MARIOTA: It felt like that was what we wanted to do. I love the aggressive mentality, and I think kind of that was how we played all game. The first drive we were fourth and one in our own territory going for it, so I appreciate Q and his belief in us as an offense to go and convert those. We just have to do a better job of doing it.
Q. On the concussion, what happened on that play?
MARCUS MARIOTA: Yeah, I got a stinger, and unfortunately when you get stingers, they kind of group that all into the concussion protocol, so I had to go in the blue tent for a little bit.
Yeah, it was just a stinger down my right side. Nothing major. Something that I think every football player goes through when they play this game.
Q. You had many of those before?
MARCUS MARIOTA: I have. I've had a few throughout my career, a couple in college, so I kind of knew what it was. It was just one of those things, like, when your arm kind of just gets tingly and numb, you just -- it would be in a bad spot to play quarterback to do that.
I understand that they have to go through the concussion protocol. I understand the player safety part of it. So at the end of the day, I just kind of follow what the protocol was and got back in the game.
Q. (Off microphone).
MARCUS MARIOTA: Unbelievable. There was moments where he broke two or three tackles in the backfield and turned it into what people might think is a four-, five-yard run, but really allows us to sustain our drives and keep it going.
I really think highly of him. I think he's such a good player and fits this scheme really well. The more that we feed him and give him volume, the more versatile we can be as an offense.
Q. Brandon Coleman got more stops. How did he help you guys?
MARCUS MARIOTA: He did great. We thought we could get in some of our big personnel groupings and run the football, and our guys did a pretty job up front, but it's never easy to come off the bench like that, especially as an offensive lineman when you're not kind of sure how the tempo of the game is going.
Credit to him. I thought he played well and created a lot of open lanes for our guys.
Q. You guys lost six in a row now. How does that change after this week and the rest of the season?
MARCUS MARIOTA: Yeah, for us I think it's a much needed reset. We'll see how DQ wants to handle the week, but at the end of the day, we have to figure out quickly how we can fix this.
We can't play good on one side of the ball and not play good on the other. We have to find ways to complement each other. Like I said, our defense played phenomenal today, held a very good offense to 16, 19 points.
We got to do better on offense to be able to convert some of our red zone opportunities, and we'll take a look at it during this week and self-scout it and see where we can get better.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports