Head Coach Mike Smith
Opening Remarks:
“As I stated yesterday, whew, that was a game now. What a finish. I thought our guys in all three phases contributed. To win in this league, I think that it is important that you are operating in all three areas. I think that was definitely evident yesterday. It’s nice to go into the bye week and have an opportunity to evaluate the first six weeks of the season to see where we are. Our coaches are, as we speak, spending time with each other going over our self scout.”
Q: How many strides did Matt (Ryan) make yesterday?
A: “I think the biggest thing for Matt was that he had his first 300-yard game. I thought he spread the ball around very efficiently. Roddy (White) had a big game. Harry (Douglas) had 96 yards and four catches. Brian Finneran had some big catches on third down. We were able to get the ball in a number of our receiver’s hands. There at the end of the game, to make that throw, it was a timing route and we knew that was our only chance that we were going to have. Even though we had a timeout left, we had to throw the ball to the sideline to make it a route that they have thrown a number of times. Matt made the throw before Michael (Jenkins) was out of his break. Michael made a great catch and gave us the opportunity to kick the field goal with one second left.”
Q: How are you health-wise going into the bye week?
A: “We still have the two guys that weren’t able to play this week with Laurent Robinson and Jason Jefferson. We are anticipating that they will be back for the Philadelphia game. Laurent has been running full speed and making cuts. Jason has been doing some weight bearing things on his high ankle sprain. These two guys will probably be back for the Philadelphia game. We came out of the game with the normal bumps and bruises. Brent Grimes bruised his knee late in the fourth quarter with contact with the turf. For the most part, we came out of it relatively healthy.”
Q: Could you talk about the play of (Curtis) Lofton, (Harry) Douglas, (Chevis) Jackson and some of your rookies?
A: “As I mentioned, Harry had a big catch against their coverage zero in the all out blitz for an explosive play. He had a catch over the middle in the red zone. Curtis continues to progress in the first six games in our base defense as our middle linebacker. He has done an outstanding job running to the football. He’s a stuff and shed linebacker that makes a lot of plays in the run game. Chevis continues to progress as a nickel back. That is one of the most difficult positions because things happen so fast in the slot where he lines up. I think he is progressing well. Every game I see things that are very encouraging and I think he is going to progress as a nickel.”
Q: Is Sam (Baker) up to speed?
A: “Sam is back up to speed. When you don’t talk about your left tackle in this league, things are going well. He has quietly played outstanding football. I believe he has been credited for half a sack by the official stats by Elias. I felt Sam, yesterday, did some things that made him look like he has been in this league for a long time. Not only our rookie quarterback but our rookie left tackle, our rookie middle linebacker, our rookie slot receiver and our rookie nickel back—all these guys have made huge contributions to this football team in the first six games.”
Q: How is (Kroy) Biermann playing?
A: “Kroy had about 20 snaps in the game yesterday. He plays somewhere between 12 and 20 snaps depending on the situations in terms of what offensive personnel groupings are presented to us. I think he is progressing well. He has gotten some quarterback pressures and I think he is learning quite a bit through these first six games about the intricacies of playing defensive line in the National Football League.”
Q: What were some of the key points that you had to stress to get so many of the rookies playing so fast?
A: “The first point was that we were going to play our best players. I think it is important to tell guys from the very beginning that the depth chart is not necessarily going to be based on seniority but how you perform and practice and out there on the game field. Our guys have done an outstanding job in learning our system and what we are trying to get done. I think it talks strongly about our coaching staff to get that many rookies prepared to start in game one of the National Football League season. I think that we have been able to identify what our players can and cannot do. We tried to emphasize the strengths of our players and not necessarily the weaknesses and try to design our schemes around that.”
Q: Has the play of the rookies been the biggest surprise this season?
A: “It’s been a pleasant surprise but probably not the biggest. What has been the biggest is how this team has come together, not only on the field execution-wise, but what they have been able to do off the field. This is a group of men who enjoy coming to work, enjoy playing the game of football and enjoy being around each other. I think when you have that type of atmosphere it bodes well for success.”
Q: When you look at the kickoff that Chicago obviously did not want to kick to Jerious (Norwood), Harry (Douglas) got a hold of it and got great field position in a short amount of time. Harry’s play seems to get overlooked in my mind. Do you feel that way?
A: “I think it did. I thought the first thing that happened on that play was that Coach Armstrong put our special group out there. We had our squib kick unit in and we were ready for the squib kick. Instead of having big blockers, we had guys who could receive that ball off the ground. I think that was the first thing that was overlooked. Then, Harry did a very good job of getting as many yards as he could and then getting down on the ground as quickly as possible. It is something that we work on every Saturday. We make it a big emphasis point of getting our squib team out there taking about the different situations, especially at the end of the game. For him to get down and allow us to have enough time to throw that timing route with six seconds to go, it was a very big play, especially for a rookie.”
Q: What are some of the things that you think may come up in the self evaluation?
A: “I think there will be a number of things that will come up and be evident. We are going to have to look at all aspects of our football team. Offensively, a thing that we know we need to do better is work on our red zone efficiency. Defensively, we know we need to be better on third down. We have to sustain our level of play that we have had in the first quarter in most of our games. Especially in our four wins, we have played outstanding defense in the first quarter. Actually, our offense and defense have played outstanding in the first quarter in our four wins. We want to look at what we have to do to sustain that throughout four quarters of a football game. We want to also take a good hard look at our return units. I think we are improving and have over the last couple of weeks. Jerious Norwood had two explosive returns that I think were overlooked for the field position that was critical in both football games. I think we want to look at our punt return unit and see how we can be more efficient there. It’s really going to be an overall look. Our coordinators have laid out the plan for our assistant coaches to go into this self scout analysis and by the end of the week we will have a good idea of what we have done well and what we haven’t done well.”
MORE FROM THE FALCONS-BEARS GAME:
- GAMEDAY LIVE: Complete game coverage from AF.com
- GAME RECAP: Late field goal lifts Falcons to victory
- GAME CENTER: Stats and more from the NFL.com Game Center
- GAME BLOG: Follow the action in the live game blog
- J. MIKE'S BLOG: News and more from the Managing Editor
- GAME NOTES: Official game notes from the Georgia Dome press box
- TRANSCRIPTS: Head Coach Mike Smith | Falcons | Bears
- CNN VOTE: CNN polls Falcons fans on presidential race in game
- HIGHLIGHTS: Game highlights from NFL Network
- PRESS CONFERENCE: Head Coach Mike Smith | Ryan | Elam
- FROM THE LOCKER ROOM: Milloy | Anderson | Jenkins | White | Abraham | Norwood
- TAILGATES: Falcon Al checks out new features at Touchdown Tailgate | Blog
