Wile_E_Coyote
10-25-2004, 11:04 AM
http://www.atlantafalcons.com/ if you can get it to play
Jim Mora Press Conference - Monday, October 25, 2004:
Jim Mora: It’s tough to know what to say after a day like yesterday. It wasn’t the best of days, obviously, but like my dad reminded me when I picked up my cell phone last night, he said: ‘Hey Jimbo, it doesn’t matter if it’s by 50 or by one, it’s still a loss and it’s only one loss; you’ve just got to carry on.’ And fortunately, we have the type of team, the type of players, the type of organization, the type of coaches who will get over this as quick as possible without just minimizing the effects, which…it was drastic, it was ugly, it was awful. I don’t know if I’ve ever been involved in one that’s worse. They’re all bad. I mean, all losses are awful, but that one…it was…[Falcons vice president of football communications] Reggie [Roberts] just said, ‘Was there anything good?’ And I said, ‘Well, no.’ So obviously [Allen] Rossum’s return was good, but it just got buried in the fact that we just didn’t do many thing the way we’re capable of doing them and they played extremely well, Kansas City did. It was a tough day, but I’ve been involved in a couple of those before. We as a staff have been involved with them. I’m sure some of our players have had games like that before and you just have to bounce back and believe in what you’re doing. We’re in there evaluating the film right now, our coaches are. And I’ve had to take all sharp objects out of the meeting rooms, but we’re going to be okay.
Q: You mentioned Rossum’s return…just how important has special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis been to this staff?
Mora: He’s a great coach. And we were fortunate to keep him when there was a change made. Our special teams have been very, very good all year. Our kick cover teams – punt and kickoffs – have been the best in the league. Yesterday they did a nice job again against a great returner, Dante Hall. Our punt return team has been outstanding. You know, we still want to get our kickoff return amped up a little bit. Chris Mohr has kicked the ball well, Jay Feely is perfect on field goals. Hey, that’s a bright spot.
Q: Do you approach this team differently – a team who’s franchise hasn’t had all that much success – than you would a team with the tradition of, say, San Francisco?
Mora: That’s a tough question because I don’t really know because I’m still learning about this team. My gut feeling is that we’ve got a group of guys in that locker room who are passionate about winning, they care about winning and have a winner’s mentality. And I think that, and I said it two weeks ago, we have the right people on the bus and my gut feeling is that they’ll handle the right way: they won’t get down, they won’t get into a pattern where they think ‘woe is me’ and ‘how are we ever going to recover?’ I kind of started to feel that on the plane, actually, yesterday going home and I walked back in the back and it wasn’t jovial by any means, but guys were talking about Denver and getting back to work and what they can do better and things like that. I think we’re going to be okay along those lines, but you’re right. San Francisco, and I mentioned this yesterday for those who didn’t hear, in 1997 we opened the season, we lost to Tampa, Steve Young gets hurt, Jerry Rice blows out his knee then we go on, we win 11 straight and we go into Kansas City to Arrowhead [and lose] 44-9. We go into Arrowhead, we’ve won 11 in a row and they just put one on us, much like yesterday. And we came back, we made it to the NFC championship game where we lost to Green Bay. Denver beat them that year in the Super Bowl because we had to beat Denver on a Monday night and that was the last game Denver had lost before they went on that big steak.
So we’ve been involved in these things. Our coaches are experienced; we know how to handle it. And the score, the score looked so ugly yesterday. What was it, 56-10? That’s an ugly score. There were some things that might have made that score different, had I chosen to maybe kick some field goals or chosen to punt instead of go for it on fourth down. But at the point in the game where those things became significant, I felt it was more important to establish an attitude as an organization of, hey, yeah, we’re down 35 points or we’re down 38 points or whatever it is and we could punt, we could concede, we could not go for it on fourth down or we could kick a field goal and get three and get the score a little closer and make the score look a little bit more respectable, but that’s not who we are and that’s not who we want to be. We’re going to try and go for it on fourth down. We’re going to try to score touchdowns because what’s three? What’s three? It’s nothing in a game like that. And at the end of the day, whether you lose by 46 or you lose by one, it’s still just a loss – I shouldn’t say just a loss – it’s still an ugly loss. But the score doesn’t matter. So our players on the sideline, I’ll give them credit for this…remember the fourth down on about the 45-yard line? And I was about to sent the punt team out there and I just decided, ‘No, heck with it. Let’s go for it.’ And about four or five guys came up and said, ‘That’s right. We go for it.’ And I like that. I appreciate that. And I think they appreciate the fact that, as a staff, we’re going to keep attacking. It doesn’t always work out the way you want it to, but I think that’s the mindset for this organization as long as I’m here.
Q: Do you coach more psychology or psyche today than you normally do and if you do, come Wednesday, is it back to normal?
Mora: I think both. I think you have to set the attitude again. They have to come into the meeting at one o’clock and I have to stand up in front of them and set the agenda, the mindset for the coming week. And so that does deal with psyche. I have a term that I’ve always used for when you get in a situation like this and it’s just, ‘Go Home to Momma.’ We’re going home to momma. When things aren’t going good, is there any better place in the world to be than your mom’s house? And she’s cooking up a little stew and your bed’s made, it’s the room you slept in when you were a little kid. It’s a comforting feeling. That’s a psyche thing, but also it’s an X’s and O’s thing. Because going home to momma means…we win with our football, which means you win by blocking people, by getting off blocks, by tackling, by breaking tackles, by catching the ball, by knocking the ball down…it’s not always about scheme, it’s about fundamentals. And I’ve always said that. I’ve said: ‘Hey guys, it’s time to go home to momma.’ We don’t feel good. We don’t like where we are. Let’s go back to basics. And so I’ll give them that one today. I don’t know if they’ll laugh or think I’m corny. They’ll probably do a little bit of both. But it’s just a term I’ve always used. And I saw you guys smile. Hey, mom’s house is a good place to be, isn’t it? When things aren’t going good, you go back to mom. She’ll nuzzle you.
Q: How soon do you expect your injured players back?
Mora: I don’t believe that we lost any yesterday. That’s one of the positives that came out of yesterday is that we came out pretty healthy. Travis Hall was able to play with the shoulder. He made it through the game, which was a positive. Chris Draft was not able to play, but before the game he was close. It was really close. So we should be able to get him back. It was great to have DeAngelo back. We got him some action, he made a couple plays. I don’t know where Cory Hall is going to be. I thought that there’d be a really good chance that he’d play and he actually regressed as the week went on, so I don’t know where he’s going to be. Eric Beverly, I think there’s a chance for Eric. I think we’ll have to see on Wednesday or Thursday and if he gets any contact in. [Aaron] Beas[ley] tried to practice on Friday and he just couldn’t quite push off, so it’ll be interesting to see where he is on Wednesday or Thursday. And then Rod [Coleman]’s still a couple weeks away. But we’re going to get some guys back and after this week and we have the bye and – knock on wood – nothing happens to anyone this week, we should be close to full strength going into the second half of the season, which is where we want to be. And I don’t think the bye could come at any better time for us. When you looked at it early in the season, you said, ‘Boy, bye at mid-season? Perfect.’ And I still feel that way.
Q: What do you say to your defense, with the way they’d played the run the first six games of the season, after yesterday?
Mora: You’ve got to give credit to Kansas City. They’ve got a great offensive line, they’ve got arguably the best back in football. There are a lot of great backs and he’s certainly one of them. But that isn’t what you do. You don’t say, ‘Oh, they just out-played us.’ You’ve got to go look at the film. You’ve got to figure out why they were able to gain the yards they gained. Were we out of our gap? Were we trying to do too much? Were we popping gaps? Were we missing tackles? Were we not aware of formations and motions and plays they were running? And I think all of those things were a factor. So we’ve just got to take a hard look at it. We’ll look at the film today. The way I want our players to look at it…I don’t really want them to look at it as a game; I just want them to look at it as a series of plays. You know, ‘What could I have done better on this play? What did I not do correctly on this play? Why did they have success on this play?’ You know, we don’t need to relive the butt kicking we took yesterday. We don’t need to relive that. We had enough of that yesterday. But we do need to go in there and find out why it happened. And I think that’s how our coaches will approach it. But like I said, it’s fundamentals. It’s fundamentals. And they’re a very good football team and they were desperate to win and they came out and they got after us. They played extremely well.
Jim Mora Press Conference - Monday, October 25, 2004:
Jim Mora: It’s tough to know what to say after a day like yesterday. It wasn’t the best of days, obviously, but like my dad reminded me when I picked up my cell phone last night, he said: ‘Hey Jimbo, it doesn’t matter if it’s by 50 or by one, it’s still a loss and it’s only one loss; you’ve just got to carry on.’ And fortunately, we have the type of team, the type of players, the type of organization, the type of coaches who will get over this as quick as possible without just minimizing the effects, which…it was drastic, it was ugly, it was awful. I don’t know if I’ve ever been involved in one that’s worse. They’re all bad. I mean, all losses are awful, but that one…it was…[Falcons vice president of football communications] Reggie [Roberts] just said, ‘Was there anything good?’ And I said, ‘Well, no.’ So obviously [Allen] Rossum’s return was good, but it just got buried in the fact that we just didn’t do many thing the way we’re capable of doing them and they played extremely well, Kansas City did. It was a tough day, but I’ve been involved in a couple of those before. We as a staff have been involved with them. I’m sure some of our players have had games like that before and you just have to bounce back and believe in what you’re doing. We’re in there evaluating the film right now, our coaches are. And I’ve had to take all sharp objects out of the meeting rooms, but we’re going to be okay.
Q: You mentioned Rossum’s return…just how important has special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis been to this staff?
Mora: He’s a great coach. And we were fortunate to keep him when there was a change made. Our special teams have been very, very good all year. Our kick cover teams – punt and kickoffs – have been the best in the league. Yesterday they did a nice job again against a great returner, Dante Hall. Our punt return team has been outstanding. You know, we still want to get our kickoff return amped up a little bit. Chris Mohr has kicked the ball well, Jay Feely is perfect on field goals. Hey, that’s a bright spot.
Q: Do you approach this team differently – a team who’s franchise hasn’t had all that much success – than you would a team with the tradition of, say, San Francisco?
Mora: That’s a tough question because I don’t really know because I’m still learning about this team. My gut feeling is that we’ve got a group of guys in that locker room who are passionate about winning, they care about winning and have a winner’s mentality. And I think that, and I said it two weeks ago, we have the right people on the bus and my gut feeling is that they’ll handle the right way: they won’t get down, they won’t get into a pattern where they think ‘woe is me’ and ‘how are we ever going to recover?’ I kind of started to feel that on the plane, actually, yesterday going home and I walked back in the back and it wasn’t jovial by any means, but guys were talking about Denver and getting back to work and what they can do better and things like that. I think we’re going to be okay along those lines, but you’re right. San Francisco, and I mentioned this yesterday for those who didn’t hear, in 1997 we opened the season, we lost to Tampa, Steve Young gets hurt, Jerry Rice blows out his knee then we go on, we win 11 straight and we go into Kansas City to Arrowhead [and lose] 44-9. We go into Arrowhead, we’ve won 11 in a row and they just put one on us, much like yesterday. And we came back, we made it to the NFC championship game where we lost to Green Bay. Denver beat them that year in the Super Bowl because we had to beat Denver on a Monday night and that was the last game Denver had lost before they went on that big steak.
So we’ve been involved in these things. Our coaches are experienced; we know how to handle it. And the score, the score looked so ugly yesterday. What was it, 56-10? That’s an ugly score. There were some things that might have made that score different, had I chosen to maybe kick some field goals or chosen to punt instead of go for it on fourth down. But at the point in the game where those things became significant, I felt it was more important to establish an attitude as an organization of, hey, yeah, we’re down 35 points or we’re down 38 points or whatever it is and we could punt, we could concede, we could not go for it on fourth down or we could kick a field goal and get three and get the score a little closer and make the score look a little bit more respectable, but that’s not who we are and that’s not who we want to be. We’re going to try and go for it on fourth down. We’re going to try to score touchdowns because what’s three? What’s three? It’s nothing in a game like that. And at the end of the day, whether you lose by 46 or you lose by one, it’s still just a loss – I shouldn’t say just a loss – it’s still an ugly loss. But the score doesn’t matter. So our players on the sideline, I’ll give them credit for this…remember the fourth down on about the 45-yard line? And I was about to sent the punt team out there and I just decided, ‘No, heck with it. Let’s go for it.’ And about four or five guys came up and said, ‘That’s right. We go for it.’ And I like that. I appreciate that. And I think they appreciate the fact that, as a staff, we’re going to keep attacking. It doesn’t always work out the way you want it to, but I think that’s the mindset for this organization as long as I’m here.
Q: Do you coach more psychology or psyche today than you normally do and if you do, come Wednesday, is it back to normal?
Mora: I think both. I think you have to set the attitude again. They have to come into the meeting at one o’clock and I have to stand up in front of them and set the agenda, the mindset for the coming week. And so that does deal with psyche. I have a term that I’ve always used for when you get in a situation like this and it’s just, ‘Go Home to Momma.’ We’re going home to momma. When things aren’t going good, is there any better place in the world to be than your mom’s house? And she’s cooking up a little stew and your bed’s made, it’s the room you slept in when you were a little kid. It’s a comforting feeling. That’s a psyche thing, but also it’s an X’s and O’s thing. Because going home to momma means…we win with our football, which means you win by blocking people, by getting off blocks, by tackling, by breaking tackles, by catching the ball, by knocking the ball down…it’s not always about scheme, it’s about fundamentals. And I’ve always said that. I’ve said: ‘Hey guys, it’s time to go home to momma.’ We don’t feel good. We don’t like where we are. Let’s go back to basics. And so I’ll give them that one today. I don’t know if they’ll laugh or think I’m corny. They’ll probably do a little bit of both. But it’s just a term I’ve always used. And I saw you guys smile. Hey, mom’s house is a good place to be, isn’t it? When things aren’t going good, you go back to mom. She’ll nuzzle you.
Q: How soon do you expect your injured players back?
Mora: I don’t believe that we lost any yesterday. That’s one of the positives that came out of yesterday is that we came out pretty healthy. Travis Hall was able to play with the shoulder. He made it through the game, which was a positive. Chris Draft was not able to play, but before the game he was close. It was really close. So we should be able to get him back. It was great to have DeAngelo back. We got him some action, he made a couple plays. I don’t know where Cory Hall is going to be. I thought that there’d be a really good chance that he’d play and he actually regressed as the week went on, so I don’t know where he’s going to be. Eric Beverly, I think there’s a chance for Eric. I think we’ll have to see on Wednesday or Thursday and if he gets any contact in. [Aaron] Beas[ley] tried to practice on Friday and he just couldn’t quite push off, so it’ll be interesting to see where he is on Wednesday or Thursday. And then Rod [Coleman]’s still a couple weeks away. But we’re going to get some guys back and after this week and we have the bye and – knock on wood – nothing happens to anyone this week, we should be close to full strength going into the second half of the season, which is where we want to be. And I don’t think the bye could come at any better time for us. When you looked at it early in the season, you said, ‘Boy, bye at mid-season? Perfect.’ And I still feel that way.
Q: What do you say to your defense, with the way they’d played the run the first six games of the season, after yesterday?
Mora: You’ve got to give credit to Kansas City. They’ve got a great offensive line, they’ve got arguably the best back in football. There are a lot of great backs and he’s certainly one of them. But that isn’t what you do. You don’t say, ‘Oh, they just out-played us.’ You’ve got to go look at the film. You’ve got to figure out why they were able to gain the yards they gained. Were we out of our gap? Were we trying to do too much? Were we popping gaps? Were we missing tackles? Were we not aware of formations and motions and plays they were running? And I think all of those things were a factor. So we’ve just got to take a hard look at it. We’ll look at the film today. The way I want our players to look at it…I don’t really want them to look at it as a game; I just want them to look at it as a series of plays. You know, ‘What could I have done better on this play? What did I not do correctly on this play? Why did they have success on this play?’ You know, we don’t need to relive the butt kicking we took yesterday. We don’t need to relive that. We had enough of that yesterday. But we do need to go in there and find out why it happened. And I think that’s how our coaches will approach it. But like I said, it’s fundamentals. It’s fundamentals. And they’re a very good football team and they were desperate to win and they came out and they got after us. They played extremely well.