Projo Pats Blog

Hines Ward, Wide Receiver
(On the game)
We were going up and down the field, but they scored touchdowns and we didn’t. That is the biggest difference. We drove the ball fairly well and got down into the red zone but just weren’t able to put the ball in the end zone. Against a great team like that you can’t do that. Today they were a better team. They executed when they got in the red zone. Randy connected with Brady a couple times. Then the trick plays. You can’t give up trick plays like that. Maybe one, but not two in one game. The play action was deep, okay, maybe we can overcome that. But then the other one, we were playing catch-up. That is hard to do against a great team.

(On the Steelers’ offense)
You look at it and keep things in perspective. You learn from it. We drove the ball fairly well. We went to no-huddle and they seemed to have a problem with that. We went down to the red zone but didn’t punch it in. We are a good team and usually when we get down the red zone we get touchdowns instead of field goals. Today we didn’t get anything and you can’t do that. Against a team like that you have to execute every time and today we didn’t do that. That was the difference in the game.

Willie Colon, Tackle
(On the game)
We beat ourselves, to be honest. We did, for the most part, what we had to do. That wasn’t our best performance. They got away with the two gadget plays. It is what it is. They didn’t break our spirit. If we come back we are going to be ready, I know that for sure.

Larry Foote, Linebacker
(On the Patriot offense)
He knew that blitz was coming. So he was throwing into it. When we were coming free, he was throwing into the hot route. If we play them next time, and I am not even thinking about them, we are going to change some things around. You better believe that.

(On the guarantee)
The only ones that were fired up about that was the crowd. We play the game between the lines and it doesn’t matter what the guy said. The media doesn’t motivate that. It has nothing to do with guarantees or whatever you say during the week. You have to go out there and run and tackle.

(On Patriots)
They’re a good team and they had a couple of big plays. You have to make more plays than the other team and we didn’t.

(On defense giving up big plays)
One of them was a trick play and it tricked everyone on the field. The other one was a miscommunication with the coverage and we beat ourselves.

Sean Mahan, Center
(On the Steeler offense)
We know we can play with them. We just didn’t come out with a win tonight. We’ll look at the tape and see what the tape shows. We’ll be ready for next week.

Brett Keisel, Defensive End
(On Brady’s quick passes)
There is no way to get pressure on him. You have to rally to the ball and tackle him. They got a bunch of little squirmy guys who know how to break loose. Welker is very quick. He would make one guy miss then get at least seven yards. That was a great game plan by them.

Ike Taylor, Cornerback
(On the game)
Tom Brady does not make mistakes. It is just plain and simple. He is going to capitalize on your mistakes and that is what makes him so great. He pretty much can see the whole field and if he sees something, he is going for it. He is rarely wrong. They were just making plays. I have to give those guys credit. They came out to play and they played well. They won and so there it is. They have got Tom Brady out there and he does not make mistakes. When you have a guy like that and receivers like that, you just about have to play perfect. We just have to get ready for next week.

(On the long plays allowed)
If you just keep playing football things are going to happen regardless [of] whether you’re good or bad. We just have to learn from today. We made two crucial mistakes. We have got a lot of football left and we can’t keep our heads down. This is in the past. We just have to move on and we have Jacksonville next.

Anthony Smith, Safety
(On the game)
We did not come out here to lose. We just gave up some big plays and that is what it came down to. They have got a good offense, but we just beat ourselves. We didn’t play all of our right keys and gave up some deep plays. They came up with some new gadget plays that we haven’t seen and that is pretty much what it was. Besides that one play-action play that they hit for the touchdown, that is all the play-action we saw. I don’t think play-action was a big emphasis for their offense. The way our defense is run and the way we rotate, they really couldn’t target me. We will see them again.

James Farrior, Linebacker(On today’s game)
We didn’t play well today and we didn’t execute on defense as well as we should have. They made some big plays on us and you can’t win like that.

(On big touchdown plays)
That put us behind the eight ball a little bit. We were playing catch up from there, but that’s part of the game and we have to be prepared for things like that. We can’t get beat on big plays.

(On playing a team that doesn’t run the ball)
It was a little weird at first. I thought they would try to run when they had a lead on us, but they kept throwing the ball. It was a tough day. [Tom] Brady is good at reading defenses and our disguise wasn’t good enough today. I think he picked up most of our blitzes.

Tyrone Carter, Safety
(On trying to hard to be physical with receivers)
I won’t say we tried too hard, because they didn’t give us a chance to be physical. They ran a lot of trick plays; they didn’t just come out and run routes. They kept running that bubble screen, then you come up on the bubble screen and they hit you deep. You have to learn from that. Had we stayed on our keys, we would have been OK.

(On Patriots’ receivers)
They’ve got three good receivers, but my focus point is still on the quarterback. He makes this team rise. He gets them in the right plays when he sees what we were doing and he did a great job of doing that. We can’t make mistakes in the back end and we did and we lost.

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