2024-09-27 21:20:03
BRIAN DABOLL: Tough game. Competitive game. Comes down there to the end. Missed a couple opportunities to advance the ball or keep drives going. But the quarterback (Daniel Jones) played well and made a lot of good decisions, throws. Couldn’t get our run game going, tried a variety of runs. Give them credit, they did a good job of shutting down our run game. So that was huge. The big play to #88 (Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb). But again, competitive game. Give them a lot of credit. Tough one.
Q: Were there any common denominators to not getting across the goal line or not getting down there?
BRIAN DABOLL: We were 0 for 2 when we got down there. Some of those were third down conversions where we had some opportunities to get there. I think we punted one time. Hit some fourth downs, but ultimately, we threw the ball out there to (wide receiver) Wan’Dale (Robinson) on the one and they made a good tackle on him. We had an opportunity there, on the right hand side, to keep the drive going. I thought a big difference was we controlled the game in the passing game, but we didn’t do enough in the running game. Give them credit. We knew they were going get some of it fixed, but we have to do a better job than that.
Q: Was there any thought to going for it on fourth down after the Wan’Dale (Robinson) catch that took you guys down to like a three, four yard line?
BRIAN DABOLL: No, we were going to go for points on that one.
BRIAN DABOLL: To get three points. It was a close game, so we didn’t know what we would need at the end there. But we were going to kick it.
Q: Can you elaborate on Daniel (Jones)?
BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, three games in a row, I’m proud of the young man. He’s made good decisions. He’s thrown the ball where he needs to throw the ball. The last play to (wide receiver Jalin) Hyatt, that’s a heave it down there and see if we get a DPI (defensive pass interference) or we can go up and try to make a play. But he’s, I thought, for three games he’s been locked in. He’s played well. He’s seeing the field. He’s delivered the ball where he needs to. Again, we had some opportunities to continue drives today, as well. I’m proud of how he’s performed, how he’s prepared. He’s done a nice job for us.
Q: You saw that last play was right in front of you with (wide receiver) Malik (Nabers). What did you see there? It looked close and did he get…
BRIAN DABOLL: No, I thought he (Malik Nabers) did a great job of keeping his feet in bounds. It was a perfect throw, and as he was going to the ground, the ball kind of got jarred out there. But he (Daniel Jones) put it right where he needed to put it on the scramble and it was close.
Q: Did you see how Malik (Nabers) was doing?
BRIAN DABOLL: I’m going to see him right after this. I was going to stop in, he was with the doctors right before I came in here. I’ll see him right after.
Q: DJ (Daniel Jones) obviously hit him on the deep one where he was wide open early. Otherwise the deep connections it seemed like he was underthrowing a lot. Common denominator there? Why do you think that is?
BRIAN DABOLL: No, I’d have to have to go back and look at it. The one I know they jumped offsides, and we had a chance, I think, (wide receiver Darius) Slayton over on the right-hand side and missed that one. But, I’ll go back and watch the tape.
Q: That’s kind of lacking in general. Is that a concern? That you haven’t been able to hit on those down the field throws?
BRIAN DABOLL: You’d like to hit them, you’d like to hit them.
Q: That was something he struggled with, Daniel (Jones) did, in a lot of the camp practices?
BRIAN DABOLL: We missed that one, I know that. Again, I thought the quarterback (Daniel Jones) played well. You’d like to have all completions, but certainly something we want to continue to work on.
Q: On the (Dallas Cowboys running back Rico) Dowdle screen touchdown, the refs threw two flags on that play and then picked it up. Did you get an explanation of anything? Why he picked it up?
Q: I saw you were pretty…
BRIAN DABOLL: I thought it was a different call.
Q: What was the explanation?
BRIAN DABOLL: They thought they wanted to call an illegal (man) downfield, and then he said it wasn’t. I thought they were going call something different.
Q: Okay, so downfield not…
BRIAN DABOLL: He wasn’t. Not a hold. Illegal man downfield. I thought it was a potentially different call, but…
Q: On the calls part, what about before? The opening drive, obviously, there was a penalty call that you guys committed a facemask. The replay showed it was supposed to be the other way around…
BRIAN DABOLL: That’s what they told me upstairs.
Q: What did the refs tell you about that?
BRIAN DABOLL: You’d have to ask them, but the guys saw it upstairs. That’s what they told me, same thing you said.
Q: I know we’re only four games into (wide receiver) Malik (Nabers)’s career, but just talk about his ability to change the game the way he’s playing so far.
BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, I think he’s doing some good things. Again, glad we have him. I thought Wan’Dale (Robinson) did some good things for us tonight. The guys when they got their other opportunities. Now I’m going to see him here, I hope he’s okay.
Q: You’re relying so much on him a lot, right? 13, 14 targets a game. Are you…
BRIAN DABOLL: How many did Wan’Dale (Robinson) have?
Q: He had over 10 also. But are you content with… Do you need more from the other guys, right?
BRIAN DABOLL: How many did Wan’Dale (Robinson) have? 10?
BRIAN DABOLL: Eleven catches. So, there’s two guys right there. You’re not going to be able to throw the ball to five guys ten times a game. Those are two of our really good players. And I think that’s what you try to do. When you’re devising games is to try to get your best guys involved and supplement them with… I got a lot of confidence in the other guys. If they do stuff to take them away, sure. But we were doing a lot of different things, too,to try not to let them do that. If you saw some different types of shifts and things like that to put the defense on edge. To have two guys that have however many, ten and whatever. I don’t even have the numbers. But that’s what you try to do is get your best guys involved and then supplement them with the other guys in the pass game.
Q: I’m talking almost more like explosive plays because it’s almost like if he’s not getting the explosive play, where else are you getting it from right now?
BRIAN DABOLL: Look, I thought the quarterback (Daniel Jones) threw the ball where he needed to throw it to the guys that he needed to throw it to today.
Q: When you’re facing those third down situations, it looked like you guys really like throwing to Wan’Dale (Robinson) and to Malik (Nabers) in space. Letting them, they’re catching them, it seems like before the sticks. Is that playing to your personnel? Is that philosophical? Is that the way the Cowboys are playing you? It seemed like a couple of those plays were short of the sticks.
BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, some of them were, with stuff behind it as well. So you make one guy miss, which I have a lot of confidence in the two players that you mentioned in making people miss in space, and I would count on them to do that.
Q: What adjustments did they make from (Dallas Cowboys cornerback Andrew) Booth when they went to (Dallas Cowboys cornerback Amani) Oruwariye? Was there an adjustment that they made that kind of changed your approach out there?
Q: Did you feel like the way you played tonight showed progress on how you’re playing in this rivalry?
BRIAN DABOLL: Again, the result stinks. But I thought there was improvement. I think there’s been continual improvement of the results. Again, last week we got the result we wanted, this week we didn’t. Which is hurtful. It hurts, it’s painful, you work your butt off. We had a good short week. But, we played the game the way we needed to play it. Just missed out on a couple things. I would say we’ve got to do a better job in the run game, and that starts with me. But we tried a variety of things, we couldn’t really get much going. That’s why the passing game, I thought that was the right way to go with it. But just not fully go into passing every play. Be able to stay on track a little bit, and we went backwards on a couple of these runs. They made some nice plays. Did a nice job at the line of scrimmage, and we went inside, went outside with the quarterback run. It just wasn’t our night in the run game.
Q: What did you think about (outside linebacker) Kayvon (Thibodeaux)?
BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, I’ll go back and look at it.
Q: Were they selling out at all trying to stop the run?
BRIAN DABOLL: They did a couple things when we were in certain personnel groups where they brought a weak safety and stuff like that. But I wouldn’t say… I thought they did a good job of either defeating blocks or slipping blocks and making tackles. We were coming into the game and we wanted to try to establish the run game. Something that we wanted to do and we just kept sticking them in. I think that’s important to do, but we didn’t get much out of it.
Q: Obviously, coming in, (CeeDee) Lamb is their number one. First half, he gets loose. What do you think about the plan and the execution that allowed…
BRIAN DABOLL: I thought the plan was good. It was some short pass. The long one to Tae (cornerback Deonte Banks) was a man to man play. He (CeeDee Lamb) won man to man and then he ran away from it. So that was the big one that he hit. The smaller ones, they’re going to have those with good players. But the big one, he made a nice play. He’s a heck of a player.
Q: Do you think it’s too much to have Tae (Deonte Banks) travel with these number one receivers…
BRIAN DABOLL: But there’s different things that we do relative to the safety and the calls. I think (Defensive Coordinator) Shane (Bowen) does a good job of mixing it up.
Q: Do you feel like, especially the last two years, they’ve really taken it to you guys up front on both sides of the ball. Do you feel like tonight maybe you guys stabilized there and that will allow you to move forward here?
BRIAN DABOLL: I think we did some good things. Obviously, not good enough. You didn’t get the result we want, but I was proud of the way we competed. I think we gave up one sack, only got one sack. They had three and a half yards rushing, was that it? We had, I don’t know, less than one, probably. The turnover at the end, I’m not concerned about that. Got to get the ball, got to finish in the red zone, which we’ve done the last couple weeks. We just came up short a little bit. Again, I thought the guys competed the right way and did what they needed to do during the week. We just came up a little bit short.
