Safety Julian Love
Q: We're making a big thing of, 'you've got to win this game,' but do you guys have to talk that amongst yourselves, or is it understood?
A: It's understood, I think for people who haven't been in this position or when stakes are this high, yeah you want to stress it. You want to stress really just the process and make sure we're fine on the details in practice. I think that's what the message was after the game, that's what the message was all week. We've got to have a clean week of practice so we can execute on Sunday.
Q: We were making a big deal about the stakes but also, it's the uniqueness of facing an opponent that you really just prepared for two weeks ago and saw for 70 minutes. As a player, as part of the gameplan do you almost get caught up in the idea of, 'Well this worked, but they're going to look at what worked and try to take it away from us and we have to counter that way.' Is that before you even get to the game, or you one of those just focus on what's coming Sunday night and then adjust in game?
A: Yeah, you've got to have an element of that. Just kind of prepare as much as you can and then they're going to throw some stuff at you that you didn't prepare for, and you've got to adjust. It comes with trust in our staff and the guys who are trying to anticipate moves. But also yeah, it's stuff that you might've gotten gassed on, to correct that. It's a few things that go into it, every coordinator, every game planner goes into it differently. For me, I just kind of take what gameplan we've got, obviously reviewing the previous game, and the previous bunch of games that they've played. We've got a feel of the players, but now it's just correcting what they try to attack us on.
Q: What did you see from your review of the last game? What stood out specifically?
A: They are a team that prides themselves on running the ball, maintaining possession, so we've got to stop the run. I think that's a premium in this game, that's how they try to play the game. Offense has their goals that they try to achieve, as a team we've got to execute and win the field position better. That's kind of the stuff we need to focus on.
Q: When you unpack and look at the Eagles, 48 points seems to be a lot. Do you sit there and go we just didn't play our game? Or how do you look at that?
A: Yeah, sometimes you don't play your best game, it's not your day. We didn't execute in anything we pride ourselves on executing on. Stuff that has led to wins and led to close games, it wasn't in our favor. That's what happens when you don't execute on the simple fundamentals.
