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What They Said: Falcons at Packers

Falcons head coach Mike Smith evaluated Monday night's game: "I thought it was two halves of a football game. The first half, we didn't play nearly as consistently as we needed to. I thought we did a good job in the second half of the ball game to come back from the deficit that we had."

Smith on Julio Jones' 259-receiving-yard performance: "When Julio is healthy and when he and Matt (Ryan) are in tune with one another, they are as good as any in the NFL. He is as good as anyone in the NFL. He is hard to cover, he has great speed, and he has great hands. He is an elite wide receiver. He is one of the best, if not the best in the NFL."

Falcons QB Matt Ryan on rallying back after trailing 31-7: "I thought that everybody battled. We were playing against a really good football team in Green Bay, where they play extremely well. We had no quit, but we put ourselves too far behind early on. When you make mistakes going against a team like that, it is tough to overcome. Unfortunately, we just weren't able to make enough plays to overcome what we did in the first half."

Ryan on Julio Jones' effort: "Julio played really really well. He competed really really hard. He showcased on the national stage the kind of player that he is. That kind of production is huge for our football team."

Falcons WR Julio Jones on his record-setting 259 receiving yards in Week 14: "They (teammates) just leaned on me, and I just tried to make the plays. Everything they kind of threw at me, I tried my best to get every play, one play at a time."

Jones on the keys to his success in Monday's game: "The offensive line giving me time to go down and make plays, Matt (Ryan) having the faith in me to throw the ball up to me and the offensive coordinator (Dirk Koetter) just drawing them (the plays) up." 

Falcons WR Harry Douglas was asked about 'hanging with Green Bay': "We don't want to hang with anybody, that's moral-victory talk. We want to win every game we play, and I think if you have that mindset you can do great things and I think when you have the mindset of 'we hung in there,' bad things tend to happen and that's not our mindset."

Falcons rookie tackle Jake Matthews on playing against his cousin Clay Matthews: "It was fun. I knew he was a really good player, and I knew it was going to be a tough matchup. Every week is a tough matchup. I think that's one of the biggest things I've learned in my first year, but I just keep going back to wishing we could have won that game. I really wanted to win it, and it's just frustrating."

Falcons DT Paul Soliai evaluated Monday night's game: "We started off slow and finished strong, but we have to come out fast and finish strong. All the credit to Green Bay (as) they came out and did their job. We just have to finish."

Falcons CB Desmond Trufant described the club's defensive effort: "We definitely played better in the second half, but it was nowhere near good enough. If we're going to make a (playoff) run, you can't perform like that, defensively."

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