Wide Receiver Darius Slayton
Q. How surprising, for lack of a better word, was it to see the offense and the way it performed against the Cowboys?
A: Very. I mean, I think we all expected to go out there and execute it better. We all expected to play better, but we didn't.
Q. As a team leader and someone whose been around a while, what is the next step for you and your teammates?
A: Going to work on Wednesday. The only thing you can do coming out of a game like we just had, the situation that we're in right now is go to work and do the things that we know how to do to rectify it.
Q. You've been part of season here where it didn't get rectified and it spiraled out of control, long losing streaks. I understand you go back to work is the same approach. Is it anything that you learned from those season that didn't work that you can try to do in this season? If it's just the same approach as always, how do you get different results?
A: I'd say probably the biggest difference now is that we're older. When you're young, you kind of just think that, 'Oh, we'll work hard and we'll get a different result,' but, at the end of the day as you grow in this league you experience things, you understand. Also, last year, the little success that we did have we got on the other side of that fence so now we know what it takes to win these games and we know what we need to do to fix it. Whereas in my first three years we were 4-12, 6-10, 4-12. We knew nothing about winning, so I would say that's the biggest difference about now is that we know what it takes to win, and we know what to do to get there.
Q. When you went back and watched the tape, what did you see that you thought was the biggest problem? Why do you think it didn't work yesterday?
A: I think the first thing when you're watching film when you watch plays individually it's easy to look at this play and be like, 'This guy didn't do that or this guy didn't do this or I didn't do this or that,' and kind of the overarching thing that you come to is that we all had one too many 'my bads.' Ultimately when you're trying to win a football game you can't have everybody having multiple 'my bads' or, 'I would've done this different, I would've done that different,' so, I'd probably say that was just the main thing. We had too much of that.
Q. Why do you think it happened against that team? Does that concern you that it was that team? Because them and the Eagles are the ones that you're trying to catch up to.
A: To be honest, the way the game went the opponent really wouldn't have mattered much. A lot of the stuff that we did was self-inflicted, or it was mistakes that we made that were technique based or assignment based. So, it wouldn't have mattered if it was them or Teaneck High School. There are just things we did that you just can't do and expect to win football games in this league.
Q. What was the conversation like with your position group and the offensive group? Did you get together individually?
A: Yeah, we had our big offensive meeting and kind of what I said, we went over – in every game, no matter how bad it goes, which that was about as bad as it could go, there are still good plays. There are plays that we did execute the way that we want to and obviously, you cover those but obviously in this scenario the majority of it is covering the bad and what we can improve. In our receiver room meeting, I think that a lot of time in football, the people who are at the forefront, which is like the head coach and the quarterback, it's really easy to be like, 'well, if (quarterback) Daniel (Jones) just plays better, we win.' Well, we receivers, there are plays we didn't make, there are route decisions I made that I could've made differently that would've allowed him to get the ball out quicker. We had fumbles, we had drops. I think in our room as receivers your job is to do your best to help the quarterback be successful. I think that was kind of just what I took away from it personally is that it's never, 'Oh, well (Head Coach Brian Daboll) Dabs or (Offensive Coordinator Mike Kafka) Kaf called a bad game or DJ didn't play a good game,' or whatever. At the end of the day, we're all in this together and as the o-line, receivers, running backs and all that it's our job to help make this thing go just as much as it is the quarterback.
