Both lines were forced to address their issues in the game.
Head Coach Dennis Allen
On the win, generally:
“Look, I said this a couple weeks ago, you guys asked me about the team. Our team is tough and gritty and that’s what I love about them and that’s exactly the way they played in this game tonight. It wasn’t perfect, there’s a ton of things we’ve got to get cleaned up. I told them all in there ‘look enjoy the win but have tough skin tomorrow,’ because we’re not going to win a lot of games playing the way that we did today. We’re going to have to play a lot better if we expect to be the type of team we think we can be. But I’m proud of the way that they fought they competed all the way to the end. We got a little something going when we got into a two-minute type of mode with the offense and got a little rhythm going. I’m happy that we won the game, a lot of things we have to get cleaned up and get back to work tomorrow and see if we can get them cleaned up.”
On Taysom Hill:
“Taysom was the offense early on. It was good to see him get back out there. We’ve had some success with him running the football against this team and obviously, the explosive run down there was huge, and then the finishing off with the sweep around the edge. I thought we blocked it pretty well on both those runs so it was good to see him.”
On the lack of a Saints pass rush:
“They do a lot of different stuff in terms of how they attack you on third down. A lot more quarterback movement-type plays and things of that nature. I don’t think I was in the best rhythm that I could be in, don’t think I gave our guys as good a chance as I would like to. I have to get better in that regard, but our guys bailed us out. A couple of key takeaways I think, especially the one that Marcus punched out down there in the red area was huge for our team.”
On the return of Michael Thomas:
“It’s great to see him back. He’s done everything we’ve asked him to do. He’s totally bought into this team and I’m excited about seeing him out there and making plays and that’s why he’s here and that’s what he did.”
On the intentional grounding call:
“Jarvis went out and caught the ball. I thought he was inbounds, and you can’t intentionally ground the ball, you can’t clock it when the clock stops. I put that back on me. There were several things late in the game that felt like I have to do a better job. It will be stuff that we look at, it will be stuff that we learn from and hopefully we’ll be better in that situation again.”
On Marshon Lattimore’s penalty:
“No. I saw it, so I wasn’t really asking for an explanation. I felt the game was over.”
QB Jameis Winston
On the two-minute drill:
“We knew we were passing the ball right so just the approach like ‘hey here we go boom, boom, boom here we go, boom, boom, boom here we go’. You get into that rhythm of knowing like hey these are where my completions are at, these are where my matchups are at and you just go. There is no game plan involved its ‘hey this is the defense that were going to get lets go in and play’.”
On the first three quarters:
“Just trying to get a feel, when you play against a division opponent obviously, they did a great job self-scouting themselves out. We had some things that we thought were going to come and they did the opposite, so we just have to continue to prepare, continue to get better and I’m just happy with the resilience that our team possessed and the continuous fight. We never gave up and we kept battling.”
On Wil Lutz lining up for the final kick:
“Oh, I knew Little Willie was going to hit it. You know the preparation he had and he had some adversity last year overcoming some injuries and bouncing back in, so I knew he was hungry for another opportunity and he executed.”
On Chris Olave:
“I just think he’s a phenomenal receiver. He acts tough, he compliments Mike so well. He got our first big third down conversion and coming out of halftime, we got him the ball and he executed and did a lot of things. He’s a dog and he’s always ready for his opportunity and I’m blessed to have him as a teammate.”
On Jarvis Landry’s catch near the end of the game:
“Big time players make big time plays in big time situations. Just a great mindset. They played a two-man under coverage and Jarvis got on top of the defender and went up there and made a heck of a catch.”
On whether he was frustrated trying to get the ball to Alvin Kamara:
“No, Alvin is selfless. We’re not worried about whose getting fed, we worry about winning and obviously we want it to start faster. I know that’s going to be a big topic of discussion when we leave tomorrow so were going to have to bite our tongues and just go in it and learn, listen and open up to everything the coaches have to present to us and get better.”
WR Chris Olave
On the two-point conversion:
“It was like a comeback route. I ran it in college. I ran it in college one time. They brought it over and put it in for Week 1 and it came in clutch and we converted.”
WR Michael Thomas
On Wil Lutz’s kick:
“I told him I needed him. I told him I needed him. We knew it was going to come down to a close game, I told him the whole day. I told him that I needed him, and he responded well and that’s the good thing when you’re surrounded by good teammates and players. If everyone does our job and contributes the sky is the limit.”
On whether he could feel the momentum shift:
“Yeah, for sure. When we came out of halftime we knew we were getting the ball back and being completely honest with ourselves, we knew we were leaving our defense out there on the field too long, too many three and outs, and we took accountability and everyone we looked each other in the eyes we knew what time it was. We knew our team needed us and we needed to respond and we needed to find a way to win this game and that’s what we did and that’s where the effort came from.”
C Erik McCoy
On issues with pass protection:
“You know, I don’t have a really good answer for it right now. I’ll watch the film. We’ll correct it. I know there was one that I identified wrong, the rest of them, like I said I’ll have to watch film before I can really see what really happened.”
DE Cam Jordan
On the lack of pass rush:
“We knew coming in we were playing running back with an arm. That’s exactly what we saw. I mean he stayed at four, five-yard drop depth, took off whenever he felt anything close to pressure. It’s the name of the game, we had to be patience with ours.”
On Jameis Winston:
“When the offense woke up, they went colossal. So, you gotta love it. If we start that off by snap one through the end of the thing, I don’t think it’s close. At the end of the day, I think that we had plenty of opportunities to take off and we didn’t do that. We didn’t capitalize in a couple turnovers, but again once we got going, gears started flowing. It was a good time to watch.”