New Orleans Saints Cornerback Ken Crawley
Conference Call with New Orleans Media
Tuesday, October 3, 2017

What stuck out when you looked at the film of the Dolphins game?
"I would say looking back at the tape we played fast. I'd say we to take advantage of some coaching points that we made during the week and we just got after them early and just didn't let up on them. We were able to make them one dimensional and stop the running game, which was one of our goals and also take (out) 14 (Jarvis Landry) and not let number 11 (DeVante Parker) get deep down the field on us and (I) feel like we did a pretty good job. We prepared well and came early to London and knew what we had to do. We had a little fun early in the week, but we knew what our overall goal was to accomplish out there and we just needed to get the W."

Are you playing with more confidence this year?
"I'd say definitely yeah, this is my second year in the defense and I feel like I'm more comfortable in it, trusting my eyes, my technique. In the offseason that was something big that I worked on and one of my goals was to make more plays and to better my situational awareness on the field and be in position on every play. I felt last year I was in (the right) position a lot, some plays it was 50-50 balls. I feel like this year I made a huge jump from last year. I'm doing what I'm coached to do and I know it's more confidence and just going out there and playing."

What's the key to getting your eyes on the ball and making a play compared to last year?
"Just trusting it and not panicking at the ball of attack and just going up to get it. Sometimes young DBs or people in general just panic at the top of the route and just playing the ball and relaxing. I would say it is something that you practice and something that we repped a lot and was one of our goals heading into camp. I feel like it's showing on Sundays."

Was the panic thing a rookie thing or are you just more comfortable?
"I'd say it was just a rookie thing. It was something that I was doing and I think I was developing bad habits and not trusting myself and knowing the ball is going to be there and just turn around and find it. Like I said earlier, it was something I repped a lot and coach AG (Aaron Glenn) got all of us better at it. It's finally showing on Sundays."

How good do you think this group can be?
"I feel like we can do great things. The first couple weeks our attitude stunk and how we went about playing ball and we actually knew that. Like I said we just had to do more and we didn't always want to depend on the offense. We wanted to be a centerpiece of this team, the team is known for (offense), we want to be known as a defensive-oriented team and I said during camp we improved that and people saw it through preseason and we made it happen (during preseason). We were at the top with the best of them of them all during preseason and I feel like we just have got sidetracked from what we we're doing and we finally got it together, even if we had to do little things just to get back to what we were doing. I feel like we're taking things more serious now and getting better each and every day."

Is competition a good thing?
"Yeah, not just me, we have a lot of guys that can play and that are capable to make those plays out there. It's a competition in the backend, guys that are not heathy, but are getting healthy or guys that we have are competing each and every day and it makes it tough, but makes it good. You want that competition in the backend to push your game up."

What is the lesson that the defense learned the first two weeks and are you surprised with the turn around?
"It is not surprising, we were always capable. During camp we set big expectations for each other and we hold each other accountable for everything and guys did not want to go through (being) the last defense in the league (like) last year. We had goals to be in the top 10 or top 20, just cracking that and I think guys got it through their head. Just doing the little things, it wasn't really big things that were killing us. It was just minor things that killed us, outside of the scheme and just doing whatever we wanted to do. We came up, played our football and I feel like we do a lot of great things on defense."

Is it hard to believe when things aren't going well?
"I think it's easy too, we just have to trust what's on tape. We go over it I don't know how many times, but it's on tape and it shows and you make that slight mistake and it becomes a big problem. That's the type of things we have to stay away from and once we trust what we see and what we've been coached to do we have a lot of success and do a lot of great things."