Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo was at a loss for words after Sunday's loss to the Falcons
Opening statement:
"That was a good football team we played. I give a lot of credit to (Atlanta Head Coach) Mike Smith and his staff and his players. They did a good job. Injury-wise, for us, mostly it was cramps. (S) O.J. (Atogwe) cramped. (CB Ron) Bartell, (CB Justin) King, they should be OK. (OT) Rodger Saffold is probably the one concern. He kind of dinged his shoulder there. He'll have an MRI today sometime and we'll find out what that is. Disappointed, but we'll move on to next week by 3 p.m. tomorrow, so I'll open it up."
On the defense being on the field a lot:
"I don't know what to tell you."
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On losing members of the secondary to injury:**
"We were scrambling. We were scrambling. You're over there trying to figure out who's repped what, and there were some things we couldn't call. Then there was one thing we called we hadn't worked at with somebody in the wrong spot. It's all happening at once. It makes it hard. It was a challenge. For the most part, we did OK with that."
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On what he saw on the shovel pass at the end of the game:**
"From where I was standing, it looked like they pressured him. I don't know that. You guys probably could see it better than I did. I just need to find the view I had. I saw the ball and I saw it go right into a white jersey's hand. Usually that doesn't happen on that particular play. I thought it was a good call. I thought we really had something there, but…"
On if they pressured TE Michael Hoomanawanui on the shovel pass:
"I think they blitzed, period, and so you had a lot going on in there. But I don't really know until I see it. I'm just talking from the naked eye. I don't think it was a clean, four-man rush. I think it was some kind of pressure."
On not seeing shovel passes intercepted very often:
"No, it's usually a touchdown or incompletion or stop, and then you kick the field goal. It's a pretty safe play in my opinion. We would have never thought that, but…"
On the limited amount of touches for RB Steven Jackson and if that was a result of the defense:
"You call the game the way…some of those, what you've got to understand – and I like the way we do things — there are run/pass calls in there. When they take away the run, sometimes we throw. There's more run plays called than you think, I guess is what I'm saying."
On Atlanta controlling the time of possession:
"Time of possession is a combination of two things: our defense not getting off the field and our offense not staying on it. It's not one…that's a team thing. It's not one side of the ball. On both sides of the ball, we didn't do a good job with time of possession."
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On Atlanta converting a string of third-down conversions:**
"I don't know what to tell you until I see the film. I don't know what they played."
On the defense having difficulty stopping the pass:
"It's usually a combination of things. You're not getting pressure on the quarterback, somebody gets open, the quarterback's got the ball too long. This particular quarterback got the ball out pretty quick. I'm going to give him a lot of credit. After I watch the film, I'll have a better idea of what all the breakdowns were. That's the best answer I can give you."
On if QB Sam Bradford has the option to make decisions on run/pass calls:
"I'm not going to go into the whole detail of the game plan, but I think it…it's easy. You can come out and call two runs. You can come out and call a pass and a run. You can call a run and a pass. My point is, is sometimes runs are called that don't get played because they give us something better and we take it. And that's what you do, so what I could say is some runs were called, but we completed a 6, 7, 8-yard pass completion. Pretty good offense."
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On Atlanta QB Matt Ryan handling the Rams' blitzes:**
"There were times we kept coming at him. He did, and we knew that. One of the things we did talk about was somewhere in there we had to have a couple, three, when he got it out, we knocked it down because we knew he was going to release it quick. But I don't know that we…I don't know if we knocked one down from the interior. Does anyone remember a batted ball? We were hoping a blitzer could come free, which a couple of them did, and we could knock a ball down. That's a good quarterback. He really is good. He's really good."
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On how important the field position battle was:**
"That one drive, I think they…didn't they have the kickoff return for long? Then we had a penalty on defense didn't we? I mean, bang bang right there. They're tough enough to stop with out giving them yardage. I'm not sure what the breakdown was on the kickoff team, I'll have to look at it, but that's hard when you give a team like that that kind of field position and then help them within the drive with a penalty."
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On what messed up the timing on the shovel pass:**
"I don't know that. I'll have to look at it again. I think they pressured. I think they usually get an end coming up field and you get it underneath them."
On the Atlanta safety being right there in the shovel pass:
"Maybe they were in man. Maybe they played Mike man. I'm not really sure."
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On Atlanta's team:**
"They do everything really well. They're really solid, they're well coached, they've got a great system, they've got really good players. Yeah, they're good."
On the next three games being on the road:
"We're just going to worry about this game coming up. Well, I'm going to worry about today right now
and how we played, and then probably still be on that tomorrow after we get through the film, and
then we'll worry about Denver, wherever we play them."
