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Coach Dan Quinn**
Opening Statement:
"We knew that it would be a tough fight. It certainly was. Give a lot of credit to New Orleans tonight. I thought they played a terrific game. It came down to (protecting) the football, just like we thought it would. To finish minus three (in turnover margin) was hard on us. We weren't able to create any defensively. They had a blocked punt. The turnovers really told the story of the game. It was hard to overcome those mistakes. Like I said, we will give credit to New Orleans tonight. I thought that they played a terrific game."
On the blocked punt:
"It certainly did get them rolling on the blocked punt. They had a twist game inside, one that we executed a number of times, and tonight didn't. They (broke) down our technique. It resulted on the punt being blocked."
On mistakes tonight that didn't happen earlier this season:
"There were some of those mistakes that we have executed (properly) before. Why did they come up tonight? There was one that came up for us, and I was like, 'That hasn't come up for us.' We have played that technique. We have executed that call. For us to have that come up tonight was hard. I give a lot of credit to New Orleans, in terms of the effort that they played. We knew that it would be a battle. We knew that it would be a fight. We had a good week of preparation. The mistakes really cost us."
on if the buildup of the game on national TV played a factor:
"I hope not. I say that, the big reason is that you just want to treat each game as a championship game. If we placed a bigger emphasis because it was on national TV, (I don't think so). We had an earlier game (on national TV) in the opener ... and we handled that fine. I don't sense that that was the case where we had to put more pressure on ourselves to play well. In the end, it was really the mistakes that cost us. The turnovers in the red zone, the blocked punt, and, defensively, just not generating any turnovers. That's what made it hard on us. I am pleased with the fight of the guys. That part I know is there. If you are around these guys as long as we have (been), you know what they stand for. For us to play our best ball, we have to play in terms of getting the errors (corrected)."
On what the team can learn from this loss:
"Every game that we are in, we are hoping to learn. Our team is going to keep continuing to get better. It happened after the wins we had. That'll continue to be the case here. Everything that we are doing, we are striving to get better."
QB Matt Ryan
On turnovers:
"It's just ball security. I thought we moved the ball really efficiently the entire night. We had a couple of scoring chances where we ended up turning the football over. And when you do that, in this building, going up against this team, it's extremely difficult to overcome that. We've got to play better than that and take better care of the football then we did tonight. But I think that's something we can correct."
"In order to take over momentum in the game you've got to convert the third downs. And when you factor in the turnovers and not making first downs, we aren't going to win. But I think we will be better."
"We just didn't play the way we are capable of, in terms of ball security. I mean we knew it was going to be difficult coming down here – you can throw records out when you're playing in the division and when we play them (Saints) it's always physical. But when you don't protect the football and have a number of turnovers, it's just difficult to win."
"Every time he (Coach Quinn) and I talk, and in every meeting he has with the team, he always talks about ball security. And that's who we have been early in the season, but tonight we just turned the ball over too much. And we've got to be a lot better than that. It was a tough night, and we just didn't play as well we're capable of. We've got a lot of football in front of us and we are only 6 games into it. We've got some time to rest and heal and starting Monday, we have to work hard and get ready for our next game."
TE Jacob Tamme
"We were able to run and pass for a lot of yards and we moved the ball real well. But all that's for naught because when you turn it over like we did you can't win. It's just something we are going to have to learn from. When you get it down there that close you're supposed to score and not turn it over."
"There was a lot of positive things we can take from this game. But the one thing we didn't do was protect the football and that was the difference tonight. It's a real tough way to take the first loss. It was a division game, against a rival. The good thing is we will learn a lot of things from this game – one of the best things is that we haven't had to experience this (a loss) so far this year."
RB Tevin Coleman
"It's real tough the way we lost tonight. And the turnovers didn't help. Now that we have a little time before our next game, we can look at film and get better. We have to clean up all of the mistakes we made out there and come out next week rolling."
WR Roddy White
"We've got to play way better than that. I felt like we did a heck of a job the first three games taking care of the ball. But in these last two games we haven't. We turned it over last week but still found a way to win. But this week, those guys (Saints) were on their 'A' game and took advantage of our turnovers and took care of their business and made it hard for us to win.
"We left the defense out there too long tonight – we have way to many three and outs. And then we didn't start fast coming out at halftime. When you look at it, a lot of things that happened tonight wasn't us."
"I told Tevin (Coleman) just to be Tevin and don't get down on yourself. I've been in this league a very long time. When something like that happens, a player can't shy away from who he is. He's a great player and works hard and I know he'll bounce back and make a lot of plays for us. I thought he played great for us tonight. He did a heck of a job running the ball and except for the fumble, he played well."
"If we hold on to the ball we always give ourselves a chance to win. We're talented enough on offense that if we hold onto the ball and not give it away, we'll find a way to win games. But I tell people all the time – if we don't hold onto the ball, we'll get beat, and that's what you saw tonight."
DE Tyson Jackson
"What they (Saints) threw at us was what we expected. The only difference in the game was the turnover battle. We are a team that focuses on getting the ball back to our offense as much as possible, and we just did not do that."
"This is the first time I've lost here (in the Superdome) in seven tries. But the positive thing for us is that we have a long season ahead of us. So just like when we win a game, we have a 24-hour window of time when you just have to forget about it and go on and focus on the next team. And that's how we have to look at it now and just move on."
