Head Coach Sean Payton
Opening Statement:
"Obviously, a hard-fought win. Two really good football teams. I felt, situationally, the game was going to be back and forth. Third-down, red zone area, I thought we did a real good job on the kicking game creating good field position. There were so many different elements to the game that were running through my mind."
On his thoughts on the missed extra point:
"You're talking about one of the top kickers, and I don't think he's ever missed an extra point—ever. So, it's funny sometimes how this game is. It was a significant play."
On quarterback Drew Brees' play today:
"I thought he played well. I thought the plan going in, he executed it very well. There was a certain element to patience, a certain element to running the ball, time of possession, how we wanted to approach third down. Defensively, I thought we handled third down well. We have to work on our last two minutes of the half and game. There's a lot of things I thought we did well on the road that I was pleased with."
On being aggressive:
"There's a plan that you want to take, and it's not with reckless abandon. It's with a confidence approach. I felt like, on the fourth down call in the red area, I felt like we had the first down on [Mark] Ingram's third and a yard run. We hadn't obviously, and, in hindsight, I would kick the field goal. My mind was prepared that we had gotten the first down, but we wanted to come in and play that way. We didn't think it would be a high-scoring game and points would be a premium and field position would be more of a premium. We wanted to play as much as we could on their half of the 50 [yard line]."
On whether there was any thought of kicking a field goal with five minutes left in the game:
"Those third-and-one-half and fourth-and-one-half-yards are tough on me to concede. That's the honest truth. It's tough for me. Drew [Brees] has been successful with that. We knew we would get a heavy front. We always remind the side judge to watch the ball, and he got a good spot, and right away, he was able to see. You're talking about six inches, but, yeah, all that runs through your mind. Even when they commit the personal foul, you're constantly thinking about more points. If you take a penalty like that, you're going from the two to the one. So, all that goes through my mind. Sometimes too much."
On what it is like watching quarterback Drew Brees from the sideline:
"The last game we played, it was so much going into it. Look, it's a significant benchmark. And yet, you're in the middle of the game, so you're not really paying attention to it. I think more importantly it's the final team that he needed to beat in his career. And we hadn't beaten them in the time that we've been here together. John [Harbaugh] has done a great job. That team has been a real salty team and a tough team, and they've been a hard team to beat. But I think he [Brees] would value that as much."
On the 20-play opening drive and not scoring:
"At that point, disappointed. Wind was a little bit of a factor at the start. But I felt time of possession was a key number for us. We talked about it. It's something they've done very well. If we look at their games, they've done a really good job of playing complimentary football. And we were able to get that this evening. I thought the third down plan of going to the line of scrimmage early would slow up some of their pressure. Ben Watson converted; there were just a lot of different plays, but, obviously there was an up and down emotion to a 20-play drive. Our final emotion would be disappointment, frustration."
On what a win like this would do:
"We've always been able to play from behind. We play well on the road. This will be one of our better road wins. And, yet, we'll watch the film tomorrow and feel that it shouldn't have come down to a missed extra point. That's just how we are, particularly as coaches. But it was a good win."
On coming into the road game:
"We weren't going to go through what we just saw last week in Tennessee. I know that was the plan. We weren't going to drop back and get sacked 11 times. We were going to be smart with the running game. You have to feel that three-and-one-half yards is a good play. Clearly, we had a lot of rushing attempts, and we won the rushing battle. I thought we ran the ball good against that front."
On whether composure is something he learned about his team:
"I think you build that throughout the course of the season. It's generally done with demonstrated achievements in series, and we begin to play the next one a little bit better. And, hopefully, we can."
On whether this was Drew Brees' most physically punishing game:
"There's an old saying, 'It doesn't have to be aesthetically pleasing to be effective.' I think he was spot on today. We had a lot of different nuances in this plan I can't tell you. Just the hours and lack of sleep. It was spot on with how we went about the execution and having to deal with mixed substitutions, a lot of different personnel groupings, and a lot of things we thought were going to be important. He got us into the right play. We had a few run looks that were tough, and he got us out of the wrong play. The tempo was good. We had one delay, but it was a really good game by him. I thought we did a good job overall in blocking. We let [Terrell] Suggs loose on a long play action. That was on me, probably. We had an early pressure, and we tried to create tempo with the passing game to offset some of that pressure."
On whether he believes they need breaks sometimes:
"The whole game of football is like 'Holy cow.' You create opportunities. I think if you came into that game and watched it and looked at the stat line, you would say 'Hey, we deserved to win that game.'" At least the one I watched."
On Drew Brees avoiding sacks:
"It was a heck of a play he made. It was an unblocked rusher. He [Brees] has exceptional feet. He's a real good foot athlete. That's something that's served him very well, and a big part of his athleticism is that adjustment and ability to slide a little bit."
On use of quarterback Taysom Hill:
"The very first wrinkle was that lead balloon—that little option play. But he made some big plays. He had a toss, and he kept the ball. Look, he does so many different things. He's a football player. When his game is over with, and it's a grass field, [his uniform] is dirty."
On inactive players:
"Listen, we can't feel sorry for ourselves. John [Harbaugh] had the same issues. He had two linemen out, and we had two out. So, no one is really interested in who these other jersey numbers are. We just have to think about what we're calling and what we're doing when they're in there. I thought those guys – Baltimore – that. And we had to do that as well. That was one of those unique games where you're looking closely at linemen six and seven. Lineman seven for us tonight wasn't on the roster four days ago."
On the Ravens' last touchdown by wide receiver John Brown:
"It was Cover-2, and we let a guy out of the hole. It was bad football."
