Head Coach John Fox
On QB Peyton Manning’s three first-quarter interceptions
“Again, you have to remember that Peyton Manning is a new quarterback in our system. He is adjusting to teammates, adjusting to the things we’re doing. It’s not going to happen overnight. I’ll just leave it at that. He’s just going to get better. I think we learned a lot about our football team tonight. We realized that you can’t be minus four in the turnover ratio if you expect to win – especially against a good football team like Atlanta at their place.”
On the defense keeping the team in the game early
“I thought our guys battled. As I told them in there, it didn’t start nearly as well as we’d expect it, yet we still battled and had an opportunity to win the game – just came up a little bit short.”
On positives from the game
“I thought there were some good things in the game. I know losing is never really an easy pill to swallow – obviously, this wasn’t an easy pill – but I thought there were things that were positive. I thought our run defense was a little bit better. I thought we ran the ball pretty efficiently. We got close, even being minus four. They got their hands on balls, they caught them. We got our hands on balls, didn’t catch them. Even at the end with the fumble, we didn’t get it. Sometimes you have days like that. We can learn from it. We have to do a better job of coaching and our players will do a better job of playing.”
Quarterback Peyton Manning
On the interceptions
“Disappointing start. Any time you come on the road and throw three interceptions in the first quarter, it really puts the team in a hole. It put the defense in a hole and gave Atlanta some great field position that they took advantage of. It’s disappointing. Really a tough start. I won’t make any excuses for three poor decisions, three throws into coverage and just have to be able to eliminate those. Usually when you turn the ball over four times you don’t have a chance to even win the game. So, I thought that we did fight back and had a chance there at the end. But, in the end I put our team in too far of a hole.”
On whether he started pressing after the Broncos fell behind early
“Well, sure. Obviously I’d like to have all three of them back. Just three bad decisions and I’m sure when I see the film, I’ll see somebody open – a short, underneath on a check-down. I’d love to have all three of them back, but I’ll learn from them. I think our team will learn for them and we hope to be better for it.”
On whether he thought the team could come back
“I did. I certainly did. I felt like I got the ball back and we had a chance to go down there and score. Certainly we had a little momentum going our way and Atlanta did a good job of converting on that third down there on the end.”
Cornerback Champ Bailey
On the early turnovers
“Usually when you’re minus four in the turnover ratio, you probably don’t give yourself a chance to win. But it’s not one person. You can’t blame it all on him. He made some plays down the stretch. We have to get off the field on that third down at the end just to give our offense another chance. It is what it is. We know we can build off this and we can learn a lot from our mistakes in this game.”
On the mentality of the team
“Through all the adversity, you could still see the confidence in everybody. Everybody was still fighting, and that says a lot. But, it doesn’t matter if you don’t win. We have to win games. Our team showed some resiliency, but it wasn’t enough.”
On the comeback effort
“I never felt like we were out of it. I don’t think anybody on the sideline did. We just came up short. We fought our tails off throughout the last three quarters. If you turn the ball over like that, it doesn’t give you much of a chance, but we have to find a way to get our turnovers as well.”
Wide receiver Demaryius Thomas
On leaving with a loss
“We came here to win. We have some things to work on. Just in the first half, we weren’t clicking as a group. We picked it up in the second half. They just got to have that momentum in the first half. We just have to build off it and go from there.”
On the catch at half time
“The whole time, I was thinking, we still have a chance. We just have to stop turning the ball over. When I got the touchdown before halftime, I feel like we got momentum and we would build off that and everything would be okay. We had some chances, we just didn’t take advantage of them. The whole time, after the touchdown, I was like, we got the touchdown. We still have a chance. Still, fourth quarter, I still thought we had a chance. It was just a couple plays we could have did something different on, but it just didn’t happen.”
On coming back and what it shows
“I think we can hold up our head as a group because nobody quit. Everybody just kept playing the whole 60 minutes. I feel we can built off that. The main thing is just, we can’t turn the ball over.”
Tags: Atlanta Falcons, Quotables, Week 2
Wow what a game- nobody but a Manning puts up a fourth quarter war- Incredible 4th quarter…You know Ryan was not that good..I never doubt Peyton- its so easy for sportscasters to try and tell fans what fans just saw for themselves- I didn’t see Peyton fail; I saw the best QB in the two leagues warming up for some serious winning; and I saw one of the pop warner defense techniques used by the Falcons- hopping here and there- gosh falcons imagination exceeds their intelligence; Broncos confused? no just synchronizing; Peyton played badly- NO.
Broncos defense was superb… Hell, I rushed for more yardage than they did just trying to get to the fridge for a cold one… It’s coming along, the wins are just around the corner…