Head coach Mike Smith
On overall impression of the game:
"As you know, winning in the NFL is a week-to-week proposition. You have heard me say it many times. What happened in last week's game can have no bearing on what's going to happen in the next ball game and I thought our guys really had a hard-fought football game against a very good football team. It was an electric atmosphere for the entire 60 minutes. I like the way our team played tonight in all three phases. We made a lot of mistakes but they are all correctable and we'll get on those corrections tomorrow. But I like the effort that we had."
On defensive gameplay:
"Well, I thought that we were able to affect the quarterback. Sometimes it's not always affecting the quarterback by sacking the quarterback. But I thought we did a great job. There were some errant throws that was caused by pressure. I felt that coming in at halftime, we did not tackle well in the first half defensively. That was probably the thing that stuck out. I think schematically, what we had in place was a very solid game plan and I think, except for the one drive when we went up there in the end of the ball game and they took the ball down field methodically on us, we did a nice job on the defensive side, but we have to tackle better."
On continuing to run the ball with Michael Turner:
"Different games are going to take on different dynamics. We knew that we had to run the football. Believe it or not, even though the statistics don't show in the first half, we felt like we were very close and we knew if we could get it to the second level, our wide receivers were doing a great job of blocking down field. We weren't as efficient as we needed to be in the first half. But we knew we needed to continue to keep running the football and it paid dividends for us there in the second half."
On the team being undefeated and staying together:
"Well, it says that they played efficient football through the games that we had scheduled and it says a lot about the resolve, because there's going to be ebbs and flows, and there were a lot tonight. I felt like we did a nice job staying focused because it could have been real easy early on if we would have not held those first two scores to field goals. We did some things very well. I can't say enough about the guys and it's week to week. We'll put this one behind us and move on to the next one. We have a lot of things that we can fix between now and next week."
Quarterback Matt Ryan
Opening Statement
"To start off, good win for our football team. I think Dallas is a very good defense, and a very good football team, and they played well tonight. I'm happy for Roddy White, the milestone for him. I thick that's incredible. He has had such a great career, and to be a part of that in a small way is pretty special."
On the running game
"The second half was huge. We stuck with it. We knew coming into it that it was going to be a battle. It's a good defensive front seven and really a very good defense. Dirk [Koetter] did a great job sticking with it. I think the guys upfront battled and wore them down in the second half, and Michael [Turner] and Jaquizz [Rodgers] did a great job for us finding some holes and running through them. But I thought our offensive line battled the entire day and played really well for us."
On the receiving corps:
"We have some unbelievable players on our football team. But specifically on our wide receivers and tight ends, we have some play-makers. I'm lucky to have them around me. I have a lot of time on task with Roddy [White] with Julio [Jones], with Tony [Gonzalez] with Harry Douglas, and they certainly are fun to be around. They are hard workers and incredibly talented guys.
On his performance in tonight's game:
"I played good enough. I think at the end of the day, it's a league that's based on wins and losses, and tonight was a solid effort by our team and we did what we needed to do to come out of here with a win."
