Postgame Quotes: Tampa Bay Buccaneers 51, New Orleans Saints 27

SAINTS COACH DENNIS ALLEN

“Just a couple of injury deals to make you guys aware of. Chris Olave is in the concussion protocol, and Tyrann Mathieu had a forearm injury and did not return to the game. Those are the injuries that I am aware of to this point. I am thoroughly disappointed in the game. It was not acceptable. It was not good enough. It wasn’t good enough from a coaching standpoint. It wasn’t good enough from a playing standpoint. We’ve got a lot of getting better to do, and we’ve got a short time to do it. We need to get some guys healthy, but we’ve got to play better than we did today in all areas.”

“We didn’t tackle. I think that was the biggest thing. I thought our tackling was atrocious in the game. When you don’t tackle, you give up explosive plays, you give up big plays. It just kind of snowballed on us a little bit, but it was not good enough.”

“We have to tackle better. I thought that was the biggest thing in the game. We didn’t tackle in the game. Look, make no mistake about it, when it comes to the defense, that’s on me. I have to do a better job with our guys. I have to make sure we understand what we’re doing. If we have to do more tackling drills or if we have to – whatever the case may be, but it was not a good defensive performance at all. That needs to be an area that we can count on. It’s been an area that we can count on, but right now it’s not.”

On Spencer Rattler’s performance:

“Overall, I thought he did some good things. There were some encouraging things, some things he’s going to learn from, from a mistake standpoint on his part. I don’t think we did enough around him to help him. It was hard for us to be able to run the football. I thought they really won the interior part of the line of scrimmage, really probably on both sides of the ball on the line of scrimmage. I thought he did some things really well early in the game, in particular the first half. In the second half, it kind of went on. I thought they started pressuring him a little bit more. We weren’t able to be as good in protection, which made it a little more challenging for him.”

On any commonalities in the problems with the tackling:

“Part of it is angles. It’s technique. It’s wrapping up. There are a lot of fundamental things that were not good enough with tackling. I think it starts with leverage and angles. That’s where it starts, then the fundamentals of actually making a tackle. We have to do a better job of wrapping up, but that’s two weeks in a row that we haven’t done a good job of tackling. That’s probably our biggest concern. You talk about explosive plays, and a lot of those come on underneath plays that become explosive plays.”

On if the tackling can be resolved ahead of Thursday’s game against the Broncos:

“It’s something we better fix in four days.”

On if there is a reason why defense has been struggling:

“I don’t really know. You know what I mean? I don’t have that answer right now as to what that challenge is. One of the areas it starts with is being able to put yourself in a position to be able to get off the field. When you get off the field, you play less plays. I think that’s part of our issue too.”

On tackling technique vs. effort:

“I think it’s a combination of both. I think later on in the game, we could have attacked the ball carrier a little more. We will look at the tape, but it was not good enough. I have to do a better job.”

On how to refocus on Thursday night:

“You’re probably a little too early to ask me that question.”

On the mind-set of the team amid the injuries:

“It’s challenging, but we can’t sit here and sulk and moan. We have to figure out how we’re going to get better. I told the team we have to get better, and have a short period of time to do it. Everybody needs to look at themselves – coaches, players, everybody and make sure we’re doing everything we possibly can to get this thing going in the right direction because right now, it’s not where we want it to be.”

On the effort of the team:

“I’m saying we missed a lot of tackles, and need to do a better job of tackling.”

On coaching and schematic changes:

“We made a couple of changes as the game went on in terms of how we were setting up front in terms of how we were setting up front to try to deal with some of the run plays we were getting. We played poorly, and when you do that, obviously you have to look at yourself as a coach, myself, all the coordinators, position coaches. I think we all need to look at ourselves and see how we can be better. That’s what we will do this week.”

On Johnathan Abram’s attempt to call a timeout:

“The officials didn’t see it. It happened right about the time the snap was being made. I don’t think anyone really saw it in time to get the timeout called.”

On the decision to stick with the corners on the sides:

“We matched them the first game last year, and then the second game, we didn’t match. I think we have confidence in our guys. I didn’t feel like that was the challenge today. I felt the challenge was the underneath throws that became long plays and the running plays that became long plays because we didn’t do as good of a job getting them (to the) ground as we needed to.”

“There was a lot to be frustrated about. There are not a lot of areas – other than having three takeaways in the game – there weren’t a lot of areas defensively we can say were good. I want to go back to the drawing board and figure out how we can be better.”

On the team morale’s on the sideline:

“I think all the way through the first half, our guys were in it, our guys were excited (and) our guys kept battling. Even with losing guys like Chris Olave, who I think’s an important part of what we do, and Tyrann Mathieu and some of those guys, I thought our guys fought. There was a lot of energy in the building at that time. It really didn’t start to snowball until the second half.”

On his extra advice for Spencer Rattler ahead of his first start:

“Nothing other than just go out there and play. You know what I mean? Let’s don’t put too much pressure on this deal. Just go out and do what you’ve been doing since you were (points) that high (young). Then go have fun doing it. Look, I thought early on in the game, I thought he did some really good things. I think as the game went on, the score changed and things became more difficult.”

On if he will stick with starting Rattler at quarterback:

“Yeah, that’s my intention.”