Indianapolis - 16, Philadelphia - 17
JEFF SATURDAY: Tough one, right? We had everything in front of us. We didn't execute enough to get the win. Disappointing loss, obviously. Just too many mistakes. I mean, too many penalties, too many negative plays. You know, missing kicks.
You just can't play a team that good and give them that many opportunities. We just left them in the game. And ultimately they made one more play than we did.
Q. Did you think you guys were running out of chances when you kept getting field goals?
JEFF SATURDAY: No, I thought our defense was playing good. And I thought they were playing, you know, good enough to win. So I thought any good plays were good points. But, again, the negative plays that set us back into field goals. You know, those -- I mean, it takes you out of any type of mindset, right?
So you can give up a negative run, or a sack, or, you know -- man, there's no discussion at that point. So, yeah, I mean, I think that falls in line with the negative plays more than aggressive mindset. So, again, just disappointment from that perspective.
Q. Missed opportunities.
JEFF SATURDAY: Absolutely, yeah. Again, we have everything we want. You know, make a great catch down there. Like you said, time was on our side, you know, points on our side. And having to settle for a field goal is super disappointing.
And again -- but it goes back to you can't put yourself in that situation, you can't make negative plays. And just didn't do enough down there to convert and put them out.
Q. What did you think of the protection?
JEFF SATURDAY: I think that's kind of mixed bag, right? I mean, listen, they're a very good front. And when, you know, their ears were pinned back and they know what's coming it's going to be tough, it doesn't matter who it is.
And so, I thought, you know, when it's late in the game, the advantage always goes to the D-line, right? I mean, you think about that from a football perspective. But there were some where coverage was really good downfield. We were trying to buy that split second, just couldn't get it to where we wanted it to.
You know, Matt's trying to step up to find his way. So I think it was a mixed bag. I think some of that was good for him even though he had pressure. And then some of it, you know, wasn't good enough. So we'll go back and evaluate. But, you know, overall, again, I think it goes back to missed opportunities and just negative plays.
Q. Do you just have to live with Bernhard Raimann and his rookie mistakes?
JEFF SATURDAY: Yeah, young players and penalties, you know. And I told Bernie early, the holding call down the field, you know, when a guy's spinning away from a play, you know, you got to let go and push and transition.
And, again, that's just teaching. And we got to continue to teach them. Like you said, you kind of grunt and bear it with some of that, just because of the age of the players and how little they've actually played.
Again, those are just details we got to continue to fine tune and train, teach things for Fries. And, you know, staying tight in there, thinking about they're going to do -- they're going to shift lately, they're going to do things to try to get you jump or move. And you just got to settle in. But a lot going on.
I thought the guys battled and fought. I thought effort was great in all three phases. But, again, you know, I talked about it on day one. I told the guys a lot from execution is what, you know, defines this game. And that means you have to -- in the moments that matter, you got to execute and we just didn't do enough of it.
Q. Is the plan to stick with Raimann and Fries at those spots?
JEFF SATURDAY: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no change there.
Q. Was this a game you guys lost or that they won?
MATT RYAN: Yeah, that was tough. That's a tough one to swallow. You know, make no mistake, they're a good football team. They've been playing very well all year. I thought we had a good idea of what we needed to do in order to win.
We did a lot of really good things. We didn't make too many mistakes along the way. And, yeah, that one feels like, you know, we let it get away.
Q. You can't help but think back to the first-and-five near the goal line.
MATT RYAN: Yeah, no question. No question. If -- yeah, if -- you got to make plays. And when you have your opportunities to finish games against really good football teams, you have to finish them. And, unfortunately, we didn't do that.
Q. Is there a trend you can sense with these losses?
MATT RYAN: I think that's the hard part, is, you know, it's not one thing. You know, and I think throughout the course of the year, you know, we've all taken our turns.
We just have to, you know, execute. It's boring, you know, but we have to execute better than we have. And it's -- like, the devil's in the details. It's over and over and over.
When you're playing -- you know, when the margin of error is small, when you're playing against really good football teams, the margin of error is small.
And we've shown, you know, you can go toe to toe with them, but you can't make the mistakes that we made today if you expect to win.
Q. Do you think the margin of error is small with the offense?
MATT RYAN: You know, we had -- I think we've done some good things. Obviously, the first drive was awesome. Came out and just weren't able to kind of maintain that rhythm. But just little things that kind of got us off schedule.
And, you know, I think at times, I think that's statement's fair throughout the year where we haven't played as well as we would have liked. But we knew going into the game this was going to be one of the better defenses we were going to faced.
And I thought, you know, physically we stepped up to that challenge. You can't -- you know, you can't continue to, you know, put yourselves in difficult situations to overcome, particularly when we had some short field opportunities.
You know, when you have those short field opportunities, I mean, you've got to come away with points, you got to come away with touchdowns. You know, across the board, we have to make plays.
Q. What was the energy like on that first drive?
MATT RYAN: It was good. I thought it was really good. You know, Pitt created an explosive play for us on that first third down, and then, you know, back-to-back runs, I think, if I'm remembering it correctly.
But back-to-back runs kind of kept us going with JT. And that was huge and to be able to punch it in and start the game the way we wanted to start, I thought that was great. The energy was great.
Honestly, the effort and the energy were there the entire day. And I'm proud of guys for that, but we certainly have to execute better than we did.
Q. Do the coaching changes affect your mindset?
MATT RYAN: Listen, I think Jeff has done a great job. And it's not an easy situation to come into. You know, obviously, we all love Frank. And, you know, I was around him for a short amount of time, but I really -- I got a lot of respect for Frank. But I think given the circumstances, Jeff's done a great job coming in here.
I also say that the rest of the staff, you know, has stepped up and done a lot of really good things on the offensive side of the ball. Parks Frazier, again, that's a really, really difficult position to be in, and I think he's done a great job the last two weeks. Scott Milanovich, our quarterback coach, helping Parks out doing a great job. But really across the board, I think our staff has done well.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports