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HEAD COACH SEAN PAYTON

(Opening statement)

“First the obvious – we’re fortunate to get a win. I was proud of the fact that they didn’t quit. There are a lot of things that we need to clean up just from a standpoint of red zone opportunities – I thought defensively we certainly played well enough and did a good job against that running back [Doug Martin]. What was very important at the very end was just getting the stop, where they couldn’t take a knee and win the game. For me, I take for granted that there are a lot of familiar guys on that roster, but yet there’s lot of different guys. We’re just talking about hanging in, fighting, kind of staying together, body language. We’ve been in a number of games like this and we made a few plays at the end when we needed it. We’ll clean up and have to clean up a lot of things to improve. But it’s hard to win on the road and especially in a division. Hats off to Tampa, I thought that they played outstanding on defense. And yet we were fortunate and excited to get the win on the road.”

(On whether Tampa Bay’s decision to kick a field goal on its final possession was the right choice)

“No. It was the right thing to do. It’s the difference between a touchdown and a field goal. I think that’s the right thing. It had plenty of distance, didn’t it?”

(On quarterback Drew Brees’ performance)

“There were some big throws there. He got a couple single safety-man looks. He found [tight end] Jimmy [Graham], he found [wide receiver] Marques [Colston] – those are big plays.”

(On handling the early weather delay)

“They gave us kind of an initial timeframe – somewhere about a half an hour to 45 minutes. We kind of sat everybody down and waited for that 10-minute warning. We started to stretch inside and then we stretched as a team inside. Then we came out and I think both teams knew we were 15 minutes out, 10 minutes out. It was really just try to stay off your feet, stay hydrated and then it was just a matter of getting into kind of a miniature pregame.”

(On struggling in the red zone late in the second quarter)

“Yeah, I take the blame for that. There’s a sequence that took place and on the fourth down play we end up running a play for goal line defense. [Tampa Bay] are in one of their base defenses. I think just with 10 [players] on the field, I can’t be certain of it. But anyway, it wasn’t a very good sequence. The first play was a play-action pass, we had trouble getting Jimmy [Graham] out and sometimes it just gets congested where they kind of grab and reroute guys like him down there, but we’ll be better there. It was just really the toss play, which was a minus play, and they played it pretty well. Look I’ll be a lot better in that situation – I need to be.”

(On tight end Jimmy Graham)

“Those were some big plays. We’ll see on film. [Tampa Bay’s defense] did a good job of covering him and [running back] Darren [Sproles] too. So we kind of went back and forth. We got a lot of different looks. They played hard in the back end and made it real difficult. They hit the quarterback a few times. That became challenging, but he had a number of big plays. He got right up after he got hit in the head and it was good to see.”

(On his team handling ‘crunch time’)

“A guy like [Drew Brees] in the two-minute drill is very confident. It’s one of the things we talked about in the locker room just with our players. Body language on the sidelines is important. This is a different team than any of the teams in years past. It’s hard to win in this league, on the road in the division. Sometimes you don’t know how the game is going to unfold and in this case it came down to one possession. The defense made the stop and if they were able to get the first down, you know they’re [going to take] a knee. Then we made a few plays there and got out of our end.”

QUARTERBACK DREW BREES

(On the significance of this win)

“I don’t know about that, I mean we’re still pretty early in the season. Labels like that belong in the playoffs. It was significant. It was a divisional game on the road. There were opportunities to be had on both sides throughout the course of the game. I felt like we continue to fight, fight, fight and just fight, and taking the lead and then kind of seizing the momentum there for a while in the fourth quarter. For us just have to have a chance at the end where we take three consecutive plays and put ourselves in field goal range and kick that field goal as time goes off the clock, we win. That change of events just flipped completely around and that’s football. That’s why we love it and that’s why we never give up, because we always have a chance.”

(On how vital today’s win was)

“I think wins like this are vital, because no matter what you’ve done in the past you’ve got to kind of prove it to yourself that this team can overcome those types of odds and circumstances to get a win on the road, in the division. This just becomes so meaningful. Our team got better today. There’s still a lot we have to work on, there’s still a lot we have to improve upon, but when you can find a way to win with everything that happened today, especially there at the end, that’s just significant.”

(On his thoughts before the last drive)

“We’re going to go win the game. Right when they line up for the field goal you just visualized it happening in your mind. This happened back in 2009 against Washington. They line up for a field goal and you just visualize that they’re going to miss it, and we have this amount of time and these are the plays we’re going to run and we’re going to go down and score and win this game. It was the same scenario there. You just believed it would happen. Again, for those of us that we’re a part of that team, which there’s not many – there’s only 11 of us – we can draw a lot of experience. With everybody there, the fact of the matter is we worked so hard and we conditioned ourselves to take advantage of these opportunities and you just visualize success. You visualize yourself making plays and, so really, I considered there was no doubt amongst our team.”

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homerj07

I will take a win no matter how ugly.