SAINTS COACH SEAN PAYTON
"Obviously, it was a good, hard fought win. The thing that was most pleasing is that our guys hung in there and fought back. We are up 14, get a sack-fumble, and there is some call that I'm not going to say it, but I do not have to say it. It is too big of a down. We cannot have something like that that does not happen. We can't. We are up 14, we get the turnover, and there's a flag on the field for holding. I'm proud of the way our guys fought. They hung in there in that situation; they played really good situational football at the end. I'm just proud of our guys to end up getting the win. I told them in there (locker room), sometimes you play a game that finishes 10- 7, 12-10, 14-13, and I remember Bill (Parcells) used to say, look, conventional wisdom is you did not score enough points, but Bill would think the opposite. He'd say we didn't hold them to fewer if you didn't win the game. In a game like that, that is the way that game was being played. Both offenses were going and he (Parcells) would look at that game and say 'hey you have got to score one more', and I think that is the way it unfolded. It became a close game, credit them for getting back into it, but like I said I was disappointed with how that happened though and I'll leave it at that."
On if he was anxious how team would respond after falling behind:
"Each week you learn a little something. You are progressing, you hope you are getting better and you hope you are improving. Like I told them in there (locker room), there is a little test each week and you gain from experience. You overcome some adversity and it felt a lot like the end of the Cowboys game. You drive down there and all of the sudden it is kind of taken from you a little bit and you hang in there. There were some similarities and yet, an entirely different scenario."
On what it feels like to be in a game with records being broken:
"You are not paying attention to that. You are just paying attention to the next series, trying to get a stop and making sure you are ready for the next series. But like I said, I can't get back to that play. That's troublesome."
On if he spoke to Delvin Breaux about the holding call:
"I made my peace on the field. You can't miss that. It's one thing to miss something that should be called, but you can't miss that on a play like that. During the game we talked about it and we'll leave it at that."
On if the flea flicker was specific to this game:
"Yes, they are a little bit more of a quarters team, they didn't play quarters on the play but we were fortunate. Coming off a run that we run quite a bit, the question was how close can we get before there is not enough room? We spent some time on it."
On Kai Forbath in the clutch situation:
"It was outstanding. Outstanding! It was his first kick, right! The other one I mean, Brees had seven touchdowns and we told him the game ball is going to the kicker."
On Drew Brees play feeling like no matter what he would get it done:
"It was important that we did not make it too complicated. In other words, let's keep giving him these opportunities. There were a lot of empty looks, we liked the matchups. We saw a lot of things with that defense that gave us tips. There are indicators, the one play to (Marques) Colston was in one of their bail pressures and we caught them in the right coverage."
On winning 4-of-5 now:
"Listen, it's this week's game and we'll focus on the next opponent when we get back and start up again. That was impressive, though, a lot of fight."
On Drew Brees' first half play:
"He just got in a rhythm and guys did a good job of separating. He has been practicing and playing well and when you don't see a ball hit the ground for awhile, he has played some real good games at home, especially against the team we just played. It's impressive."
On the reverse play:
"It's silly. We're running out of calls there. It was a play that was designed to get (Brandin) Cooks in space. There was a play similar that we saw on film that was effective and they played it well and minus yards and that's what it is. It goes for a big play, but we were calling plays and we weren't going to hesitate on what we were calling."
On if the thought of going for two on the end of final touchdown was ever there:
"No. We are at home here and I looked at it more like how we were playing. Again, I'm going back to up two scores, sack-fumble, our ball."
On what's going through his head on the punt return/penalty confusion:
"Well, we are waiting to get a call. We're waiting to see what the penalty is. It took them awhile and they finally marked off the penalty. We knew with the time left, we have all our timeouts and five seconds, you can still run a play. You can still throw the ball, believe it or not you can throw the ball in play, take a knee, timeout. You can throw it out of bounds; you can run a play in five seconds. You can run a play in three seconds, but once we were inside the 30 then it was there is no need, but if that ball is on the 40, 42, then we are probably going to run something and use a timeout real quick trying to get in field goal range. The key was where the penalty is taking us. Outside of that, you are really just like the rest of you guys listening to see what the ruling was. The key was making sure we fielded the punt, it didn't bounce and we got north and south with the return and Murph (Marcus Murphy) did a good job with it."
On Benjamin Watson:
"Ben (Watson) is big inside and we like the matchup, like I said, with some of those spread sets and he did a good job."
On what's going through his mind as a play caller in a game like this:
"Just mixing occasionally a run in there and mixing the personnel. With Khiry (Robinson) getting hurt, then it was Mark (Ingram) and C.J. (Spiller) and there are some switches we can get to when one of them is in and they are different when the other is in. We were in 0 (running backs)-1 (tight end) on Marques' (Colston) touchdown and some of the switches that the quarterback can get to in 0-1 are different than 11 Ingram or 11 Spiller so just paying attention to those answers depending on personnel."
On the pressure on Kai Forbath on that kick:
"Look at this track record, it's interesting, they give you statistics in college and they give you as pro and the give you pressure kicks. It always interesting so just add that to another check. I think he is 5-for-5 now in pressure kicks, end of game. Obviously it was big deal. I like his demeanor, his makeup, he's pretty calm. That's as big a kick as you can have with a new team, right?"
On Drew Brees' ability to change plays after reading defense:
"It's good. We are playing at home so you can use the cadence, you notice we didn't huddle a lot. The reason for that is you can get to the line in 20 seconds, 18, use the cadence and get back some indicators as to what we are getting. He is outstanding at that."
