49ers 27, Rams 24 (OT)
Q. How do you process everything that happened today?
MATTHEW STAFFORD: Go back and look at the tape. Obviously there's some plays out there I want back. I thought I made some nice plays, too. Had a chance to win it. Didn't finish the way like we wanted to. Got to give them a lot of credit for finishing the way that they did, but yeah, got to look at the tape.
Q. What was different about that third quarter, though, starting the second half after such a strong series of drives in the first half? Did they change something about their pressure? Did you guys change something?
MATTHEW STAFFORD: Not really. I think Brandon Powell did a nice job setting us up with a short field on one of the scores. We had a nice drive on the other one.
Just did a better job probably on 3rd down in the first half. That was the biggest thing. We were in 3rd down quite a bit but did a nice job of converting those. Didn't do as good a job in the second half. I can obviously be better there. But again, I'm going to have to go look at it.
Q. Kind of an interesting situation, you guys lose but get your first division title. Is that something you can celebrate right now?
MATTHEW STAFFORD: Yeah, I guess it's nice, means you get a home playoff game, but obviously would have rather won the game for sure.
Q. (On what was discussed in the locker room postgame.)
MATTHEW STAFFORD: Not really. Just talking about next week and playing better and rallying and making sure that we're ready to go. I'm sure that we will be. We've got a bunch of good leaders on this team, guys that are veteran players that have played in a lot of football games, so just got to come back and play better next week.
Q. In the second half what do you need to do in order to get the team back the momentum, especially after that interception?
MATTHEW STAFFORD: You know, we took the lead late, had a chance. Obviously didn't end the game with the ball like we could have. We had a chance there at the end of the game. I thought our guys did a great job communicating. It was a tough environment for us to communicate in really the whole second half. Our guys did a nice job, and we got that lead back. Just didn't finish it the way we can on offense and could have -- had we gotten a 1st down, that game probably would have been over.
Q. Have you diagnosed that last throw?
MATTHEW STAFFORD: Yeah, I just left it short.
Q. Were you surprised how many fans they had?
MATTHEW STAFFORD: They did a nice job showing. That's for sure.
Q. Looking ahead to the playoffs, your personal success, how important is it for you to come up here and get these wins and advance?
MATTHEW STAFFORD: It's important for our team, no question. The better I play, the better chance we have. That's NFL football; when the quarterback plays good you've got a good chance. I know that. Looking forward to the opportunity to go and play in the postseason, taking it one game at a time.
Q. (On pressure he feels.)
MATTHEW STAFFORD: No, just want to go out there and play as good a football as I can and help our team win.
Q. When you have that lead and you basically needed six yards to finish the game, was there any discussion of throwing the ball on that play?
MATTHEW STAFFORD: Not to my knowledge. I think we've got a really good defense. We trust those guys. San Fran did a nice job of driving down and scoring, there's no question. They made the plays there.
But we're a team; we trust our team. I wish we could have gotten the 1st down there and kneeled it out, absolutely. As a competitor, as an offensive player, you want to have that opportunity, and there's no better play in football than taking a knee with the win.
But we didn't get that opportunity. We didn't earn that opportunity. We had to go to overtime, and then obviously what happened happened.
Q. Losing the No. 2 seed makes your potential road to the Super Bowl tougher if everyone plays out that way. What makes you think that you guys have what it takes to kind of travel that road and get back to the Super Bowl?
MATTHEW STAFFORD: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is we're a resilient bunch. We have been all year, whether we're playing at home, playing on the road, things are going our way, things aren't going our way. We continue to battle. That's what it takes to win games in the playoffs, there's no question. You've got to play good football, but you've got to be resilient, too.
Right now it's testing us. We lost the football game that we had chances to win and would have felt great winning that game and winning the division the way we wanted to win the division, but we're a resilient group, and we'll be ready to go.
DraftScripts by ASAP Sports
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports