NYG Postgame (vs. Falcons) Transcripts: Defensive Back Logan Ryan
Q: Where do you go from here?
A: Where do we go from here? Keep on trucking. I checked my phone – I don’t get many texts after a loss. People don’t know how to talk to me after a loss, I’ll be really upset. A lot of texts after a win – but I see the Chiefs lose a game, a nail-biter, they lose a touchdown with 30 seconds left and go 1-2. I see the Ravens have to kick a 66-yard field goal to beat the Lions. That’s the nature of this game. A lot of this game is parity and it comes down to last-second plays. We obviously saw the Chiefs game a couple days ago with the forced fumble at the end. It’s going to come down to the end. We’ve got to make stops at the end to win the game or our offense has to convert there to win the game. That’s just how this league is. I understand people may feel like it’s falling right now, but at the end of the day two nail-biters and didn’t make the necessary plays to win it. But if you lose every game – every time you lose a game by a field goal or a last-second kick or don’t make the play and you go in the tank then it’s hard to succeed in this league, so I don’t think that panic is necessarily there. Just got to keep moving forward and clean up those mistakes.
Q: How do you fix that as a defense two weeks in a row you were on the field and couldn’t slam the door shut and two weeks in a row they kick the game-winning field goal? How do you guys fix that?
A: I mean, you identify what the issue is. There are different plays, different players, different schemes, different game plans and you just try to take the play for what it is. The screen to (Falcons Running Back) Cordarrelle Patterson at the end of the game was a really nice call for the defense that we had called. That’s a really good call and that’s tough. That’s a good player to get the ball in his hands and based on the defense we had called, it’s tough. In a chess game it’s a tough move, so credit to (Falcons Head Coach) Art Smith. He was a really good coordinator – I’ve obviously won some games with Art – and good coach, and that was just a good play call to get them in field goal position. The rest we’re trying to defend every inch, punch the ball out, try to do whatever we’ve got to do to make a miraculous play at the end of the game. That’s just a good call, hats off to them, but I don’t really let one loss go into the other. I don’t let one play dictate the other. To play DB, to be a captain on this team, you’ve got to take it one play at a time, one game at a time and go onto the next one.
Q: From the outside though, people see the same things happening over and over, you guys losing tight games at the end. Why do you say that they should have hope that you guys are going to get it together? What do you see that that’s going to happen?
A: Well, we’ve got to give them hope, right? We’ve got to give them hope. Nobody deserves to give us hope or anything. You’ve got to earn that. You’ve got to earn the trust and earn the hope of the fan base and everyone like that, so that’s what we’re doing. For me up here today, I don’t lose hope because I go to work regardless. I go to work every day, put the work in. You lose by a field goal, ‘Oh man, the season’s over.’ You lose by a field goal, ‘Oh man, the season’s definitely over.’ That’s just not the case. We’re going to go back to work. I think we played a lot better defense today. I think (in) the end of the game situation we didn’t play our best ball and we’ve got to figure that out. We didn’t play great two-minute defense in the second quarter. They get a turnover, we go out there and we get a turnover. That’s a good response. If we don’t respond there, you guys are going to be writing about how we can’t get a stop in two-minute. We got a stop in two-minute today, so I think we cleaned up a lot of things. I think we hit a lot of our targets. I just think unfortunately at the end of the game we didn’t get the stops we need. Listen, this is a business, it’s a production business and it’s about wins and losses, so if you don’t win the game, obviously there could be a lot of panic. I try to just bring a little poise and some experience there that you can’t lose your mind after every loss.
Q: Given what happened at the end of the game the past two weeks, is this defense overrated?
A: That’s up to you. We don’t rate ourselves, PFF rates us. We don’t rate ourselves. We go out there and play. At the end of the game, this time last year we were probably the 32nd-ranked defense and we finished somewhere better than that, so we don’t rate ourselves. We keep on trucking. If you’ve got guys on defense that worry about their ratings and their rankings and what they should be or could be, that’s not why you play defense. You scratch and claw every play and you make some stops, they make some plays on you and you go out and you play again. That’s why a lot of people can’t play defense nowadays because (with) Twitter and hot reactions, they’re afraid to get embarrassed. I got up there, I got stiff-armed today, I dropped a pick today, but guess what? Those guys on the other team, they shook my hand because they know I bring it every game. I’m going to get around the ball, I’m going to force fumbles, I’m going to make tackles. If I miss a tackle, I miss a tackle. If I miss a pick, I miss a pick, but I’ve made a lot of picks in my career. I’ve closed out a lot of games. Today, I didn’t close it out. I’ve got a shooter’s mentality, I keep on going. I’m not afraid to be out there in the big moments, I’m not afraid if I make a mistake. I go out there and that’s why I’m a leader of this team.
Q: When a team is as young as you guys are, is it any harder to keep guys up when the team is down than when you have a lot of veterans?
A: I think the league is relatively young. I think our team isn’t that young. I think we have key experienced players, we have quarterbacks who have been in the system, running backs who have been here a couple years. We’ve got offensive players (Wide Receiver Sterling Shepard) Shep and (Wide Receiver Kenny) Golladay who have made plays for years. We’ve got guys all over the defense that made plays for years, playing a lot of ball. We might be young in some areas, but I think we have plenty of veteran leadership and we have plenty of experience. I just think the league in general is a lot younger than it used to be and I’m sure Atlanta – Matt Ryan is really old, so that might help their age (laughs). I really don’t know the age difference and all that stuff, but I think everyone is dealing with some youth, but that’s just the league.
Q: (Cornerback) Adoree’ (Jackson) came in and talked about what he did when he missed his interception. You had a couple out there, as well. Can you take us through what you saw out there on your misses and also what penalty you’ll face in the DB room this week?
A: So the first one I’m rolling over to the half of the field and I’m trying to make a break on the receiver, and I see the ball is thrown high so it’s kind of coming out of a weird break and trying to make a play on the ball, contorting my body and didn’t come down with the catch. It hit my hands, I got to catch it, but it wasn’t like my man threw it right to me and I just dropped it. I was trying to contort to make the catch. The other one, something I really put a lot of work in is playing the post safety. In the offseason, we talked about that and I put in a lot of work. I think I had a great read and break out the post. I go to make a play on the ball and bang-bang, receiver hit my hands off the ball. People can sit there and say there are misses and drops, but half the safeties in this league can’t get to those balls. Listen, I want to be an upper-echelon safety, I want to make those plays in this league, that’s what they pay me to do and that’s the guy I want to be around here. Put it on me, put the loss on me, put the drops on me, that’s fine. I get on the JUGS machines – I’m here four hours early before the game catching 100 footballs if anyone’s here early. My routine is there, my confidence isn’t shaken and I’m going to come bring it and make those plays for the team and close out these games and get some wins.
Q: What happened on the pass interference?
A: We just passed (Falcons Tight End) Kyle Pitts off there and I ended up on him. Matt Ryan threw the ball to what felt like the first row, really high, and that dude is a lot taller than me, can probably jump a lot higher than me. I climbed the ladder to go make a play on the ball. I feel like I’m looking at the ball. Obviously, there’s some collision there, but if he was stiff-arming me to catch the ball, they’re not going to call nothing. I’m trying to make a play on the ball, but I’m 5’11” with a 35-inch (vertical) and he’s 6’6” with whatever he got. I’m not going to let him come down with it. I think it’s bang-bang, let us play. I’m playing the ball, we’re going to have to make a play. Like I said, that’s just the positions I’m put in on this team near the line of scrimmage, in the post, covering Pitts, got-to-have-it situations. That’s just the situation they put me in and they trust me to make those plays. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. I trust the team is going to put me in those situations again and have a different result.
Q: What happened on that first touchdown?
A: The first touchdown? I’ve got to see the film. I’m not exactly sure.
Q: Did you see the replay of (Safety) Xavier McKinney’s hit that they flagged?
A: I did. It’s hard to play defense nowadays. Physicality is not rewarded anymore for the defense, it’s mostly penalties. Unfortunately, that’s just how they call it. Hopefully he doesn’t get fined, I don’t think he deserves that. If it looks bad, they’re going to call it. I just think that’s how you teach it. I don’t know, it’s unfortunate.
