Carolina Panthers 36, Arizona Cardinals 30
JONATHAN GANNON: Okay. On the injury front, James Conner had a knee, couldn't return. Jonah had a knee, couldn't return. Joey Blount had ribs, didn't return, and then Baron I think had a neck of some sort, maybe a stinger, a neck, didn't return.
What I told him in there, give credit to Carolina. They played a good game. Made more plays than us, all three phases, that's what it came down to. I'm proud of their resiliency, being down 17 there, got it back, you know. In the second half, the last drive I thought was good to get it to overtime there and just couldn't sustain it and they scored and won the game, so we got a short week and we got to be ready to play versus LA. What do we got?
Q. What are the emotions being eliminated from the playoffs?
JONATHAN GANNON: Well, you know, that's kind of an external factor to me. The emotion will be we got to make sure we put our big boy pads on on on Tuesday and rebound and do enough to try to win the game next week, you know what I mean? So, I know they're down. I know that's real, Cam, you know, ultimately when you reflect on it, we haven't done enough, you know what I mean? And it starts with me, so that's, you know. We win together, we lose together, everyone had their hand in how this season has went and why we are where we are and it starts with me.
Q. How hard is it to swallow not feeling like you have done enough?
JONATHAN GANNON: It's hard, you know? It's a learning process, you know what I mean, and you know, we got to take good, hard looks in the mirror and improve and get better.
Q. How do you think your offense did with guys shuffling around the offensive line and James --
JONATHAN GANNON: Yeah, I thought a lot of guys stepped up and played well. Jackson, on the one touchdown to run it, I thought that block by Kyler, I thought the block by Jackson Barker coming in, just getting elevated was awesome. He was ready to play. Mike Carter had some good plays in there. When James went down obviously he was up, because, you know, Trey was hurt. DeeJay Dallas stepped up, you know what I mean? Guys love to play football on this team. They're competitive. They're team-first guys, so it was good to see that, you know what I mean? They battled.
Q. With all the penalties in the first half, did you feel like your team was ready to play?
JONATHAN GANNON: Yeah, I always feel like we're ready to play.
Q. Given what we saw --
JONATHAN GANNON: Week of practice.
Q. What happened when Kyler ran, 22 seconds left on the clock -- get 6.2-ish seconds left (inaudible) two seconds, what happened between?
JONATHAN GANNON: Yeah just the little, you know, a lot going on right there with the play, with the spot, was he out of bounds? Was it a first down? Is the clock stopped? Just, you know, little miscommunication I think by everybody involved which can happen on those bang-bang plays. Alternately, though, I like what we did. Chad, credit to him, bangs it through from a long one to get us into overtime, just didn't get it done in overtime.
Q. Is this reason for that -- it looked like he went out of bounds there.
JONATHAN GANNON: Yeah.
Q. Were you surprised at all that they were able to run the ball like they were?
JONATHAN GANNON: I was. Well, I mean, no, that's a good running team. You look at the last two months here and that's what they've been doing to people. I thought that was a component of the game that we didn't handle well enough on defense, the run game, the line of scrimmage and the component of the game, early in the game, more so early than later was the quarterback extension. He made some explosives in there, running, the third down, I think the first third down he scrambled and hats off to him. He's a good player. That's what he does, but when you got things that you need to make sure that you handle to give yourself a chance to win, I don't think we handled them well enough today.
Q. Did you guys make an adjustment there to -- kind of the scrambles off the middle?
JONATHAN GANNON: Yeah, we called some different calls and ultimately, coach and play better, you know what I mean? So I thought we did a better job of it, but early in the game, we let some points get scored because of that component of the game.
Q. (Inaudible) go for it in overtime. What was the decision behind that?
JONATHAN GANNON: Yeah, I wanted to win the ball. I wanted to win the game. I thought the best -- I know if you don't get it there, the game's over, but I felt good about the play. I felt good about what we were doing and I really thought if we converted that, we could go down, kick a field goal and win the game. Decision-making, I try to take everything into account and try to win the game. Didn't work out:
Q. What happened on the delay of game on the sequence?
JONATHAN GANNON: Just operation.
Q. (Inaudible) quarterback played today?
JONATHAN GANNON: I thought he battled, yeah. I thought he battled. I mean, some of those -- the two-minute drive there, you know, the touchdown play was good. I know the last interception, he's trying to make a play this there. I don't fault that at all. He's just like all those guys. He battled and gave us a chance to be in position to have a chance to win the game.
Q. How do you balance that to the, like, the style of play you guys -- (inaudible) mistakes, too, where you can't make -- .
JONATHAN GANNON: Yeah, everybody makes mistakes. I made a bunch today, you know what I mean? So you learn from it and move on, but that dude's competitive, he's a warrior. He gives us a chance to win, so I'm never going to fault his decision-making.
Q. When you say operational on that play, what should have happened there?
JONATHAN GANNON: Just operation.
Q. Should have been a time-out called?
JONATHAN GANNON: I didn't have any left.
MODERATOR: Coach, thank you.
JONATHAN GANNON: Okay. Thank you, guys.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports