DL Cullen Jenkins
Postgame vs. Jets, December 6, 2015
Q: Defense obviously had a chance in the fourth quarter to put the game away. You gave up a couple long drives. Were you wearing down at that point or breakdowns? What happened?
A: Everything. Obviously everything. We had a 10-point lead and we just couldn’t get off the field, we couldn’t get the stops we needed.
Q: They seemed to run a lot of screens. Is that what you guys saw and anticipated that they would run against you?
A: Yeah, we had studied that, we had talked about that. We knew coming in that that was going to happen. Some of them we played well, there were a couple of them that they got on us.
Q: It’s happened before, obviously. Can you put your finger on why you guys can’t get those fourth quarter stops?
A: If I could figure it out, then we would be standing here in a different tone and a lot better mood, but just can’t figure it out.
Q: Is there a fine line between the mistakes, the uncharacteristic, undisciplined errors? Are those the fine line between wins and losses?
A: Yeah. You can’t have that many mistakes, you can’t have that many missed opportunities, you can’t have the same thing every week. We come in and we get in position, we make mistakes, missed assignments, missed opportunities, all of it. It’s just something that I don’t understand, it has to become more of a priority to us. It’s got to be something that we get solved, it can’t be something that we try to fix. It’s something that you either fix or you go on. We just aren’t fixing it. It’s frustrating.
Q: You get the 20-10 lead and as a defense you stopped them for most of the game. Did you feel pretty good at that point or were you at all worried about things that have happened in the past?
A: Not necessarily worrying about it, but you’re saying, ‘Okay, this is where we have to get over this hump. This is where we have to finish. This is where we have to close it out.’ And we come in and we say it to each other at halftime, talk about it on the sidelines, ‘Let’s go out and finish, let’s go out and do this,’ and we don’t.
Q: Were you surprised coach went for it, the touchdown, or at least the first down, on fourth and two, instead of the easy field goal?
A: No, I wasn’t surprised. He was showing faith in us and that’s what you want. As a player, you should want to have that opportunity to put the game away. You should want the coach to have faith in you to be able to go out there and get the job done. And coach showed faith in us and he gave us an opportunity and that’s got to be something we cash in on. We score a touchdown there and you’re up three possessions.
Q: So much talk going into this game was there wasn’t a rivalry. Why did it feel like there was that much more emotion out there on the field?
A: Well, it’s December, you’ve got two teams fighting for the right to continue to play into January. We’re both right there on the edge, and it’s a game that both teams needed to win.
Q: You’ve got Josh Brown out there kicking that field goal and he hasn’t missed all year. Did it pretty much feel like you were going to get that one?
A: Yeah, we were getting ready, as a defense, to go out and continue to play. Josh has been kicking great all year. He missed one today, we can’t put that on Josh because he’s been kicking his tail off this whole year. That’s a game that shouldn’t even come down to that, we should have put that game away earlier, we had all second half to put that game away. It shouldn’t even come down to that. I feel bad for him right now because people remember stuff like that, but it shouldn’t even come down to that. He’s been kicking his tail off all year.
