DAVIS MILLS: Big win, obviously. It was a close game, and felt like we did what we needed to do late in the game in the fourth quarter to finish it out and get the win. Thought all three phases played really well today. DP ran extremely hard behind the offensive line, who I thought blocked really well, and we didn't turn the ball over, so we did what we needed.
Q. The Pierce run there, what was your initial reaction to seeing that run?
DAVIS MILLS: He wants to win the game. I think I probably counted at least six broken tackles that run. I looked at LT after the play and I was like, this guy is the real deal. He's trying to win games and he's helping us out a lot and we're moving the ball down the field behind him, and we finished that drive with points, and that's all we wanted to do.
Q. How would you describe his impact on the offense?
DAVIS MILLS: Just the energy he brings day in and day out, it rubs off on everybody on the team, and we want to rally behind that, and we want to fight for him. I know the offensive line does especially, and the defense, they stayed on the sideline, see how hard we're fighting and playing out there, and they want to do the same and try to get the ball back to us so we can continue driving the ball down the field and get points.
Q. It seemed like a lot of your plays today came out of play actions when people expected runs, runs when they might have expected passes. How do you feel you were keeping them off guard today?
DAVIS MILLS: Yeah, we've just got to continue to mix it up throughout the season. If you show something one game, you've got to come back and potentially run it the next game and try to execute, and if you don't want to run that, show something else to keep the defenses guessing. I think we kind of found our identity today, being a run-first football team downhill, and we did that efficiently, and then we had to make some plays in the passing game when we needed to, and our guys stepped up and made some plays on the edge. Defense did, as well. It was a good team win.
Q. You talked with Nico on the sideline there. What is it like to see him make plays like that?
DAVIS MILLS: It's great. We kind of felt that at the end of last year when he was stepping up and making some big-time plays, and really this year we've really emphasized find a way to get 12 the ball because he's going to make a play for you, and he showed that today. He's going to go up and win those 50/50 balls. I don't think they're 50/50 balls when you throw it to Nico. That's big for him, and I mean, he converted those big-time 3rd downs when we needed him to.
Q. Do you think the 3rd and 10 play to Jordan that you saw there -- how important was that for you at this point of the season, finally getting over that hump?
DAVIS MILLS: Yeah, that was huge. That was one of the plays where we go up to the line without anything truly called out of the huddle. We tried to send an indicator out with the running back to the edge. They ended up showing man, and then we ended up calling a time-out and we ended up calling a time-out, and then we ended up going back to the same play. They showed man again, but ended up falling out in the cover two.
The way we teach that route that he ran, obviously it's a man route where we're trying to set picks for him and have him run to the sideline away from the guy who's covering him, but they fell off into cover two, and we teach get width away from the defense before you start building your depth, and he did that, and I gave him a chance to get the ball before the corner got to it, and he ended up converting the 1st down, and it was a huge play.
Q. An important play in that drive I think was the same drive when Travon Walker kind of beat him down. Were you surprised that that happened there at that moment? What was your reaction?
DAVIS MILLS: I mean, I wasn't too surprised. Obviously didn't really have much time to react to it. They jumped offsides, and then he ended up throwing me down after the play. Probably a little frustrated. We'd been running the ball well all game.
I mean, it's a divisional opponent. There's always a little bit of chippiness throughout the game. I guess his kind of temper broke. That was a big play for us because it allowed us to get back ahead of the chains, got another 1st down from it. But I mean, that kind of set off that drive and allowed us to go down and score.
Q. You mentioned finding your identity today. Five games in, you spent the off-season really trying to get together as a team. How do you describe pushing through finally and entering the bye week with this? What's the feeling?
DAVIS MILLS: It's a great feeling all around. We've been close every game up to this point. We feel like we could have more wins than we do right now, but really got to find the momentum that we had when we strained and fought through the finish of this game to get the win and carry that momentum into the rest of the season.
It takes a little bit, but the full-out team needs to find ways to win the game, and we did that today, and hopefully we can do that moving forward this year.
DraftScripts by ASAP Sports
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports