Patriots Players

Hunter Henry, TE

(On emotions after the game)

“Very frustrated. Everybody is in the locker room. I feel like I’ve been saying every week, we put a lot of work in, so it’s frustrating. It hurts. Yeah, it’s tough.”

(On the current attitude in the locker room)

“Yeah, I mean, obviously after a game like that, it’s tough. You’re a competitor. You want to win that football game. You pour a lot into it, so it hurts immediately. It’s going to take some time, and you move on. You learn from it, and we’re going to have to continue to do that. We’ve had too many of those this year, unfortunately, and another one today, but we’ve just got to keep grinding and keep going.”

(On time of possession differential)

“Early, most of the game, we were going pretty fast, so that could be skewed in a way, a little bit. But we just weren’t efficient enough, especially at midfield. We just weren’t efficient enough in a lot of areas. We’ve got to definitely look at the film, but time of possession, we definitely need to hold on to the ball a little bit more. But I think going no-huddle, getting on the ball and going a little bit faster, I think that stat can probably be skewed a little bit.”

(On lack of efficiency)

“It’s hard for me to say, immediately off the field, until I watch the film. But obviously, turnovers are the biggest issue we keep running into every game, especially in crucial situations. Just not great in situational football, on third down, certain areas we need to be better at.”

David Andrews, C

(On his thoughts on the game)

“Look, I sit up here and say it, and I believe it. That’s why I say it. It’s on us. We had opportunities; not just in the two-minute, but opportunities to make a play, make an impact, whatever, and we just didn’t really do that. You’ve got to look in the mirror and go back to work. It’s not going to break my spirit. It’s not going to break our spirit. We’re going to come back, take tonight, come back to work tomorrow, see what we can do to correct it and get ready to go to Germany to play Indy [Indianapolis].”

(On what needs to change about the team’s process)

“I don’t know. Look, it takes 11 guys, as people say it. It takes 11 guys each play to be successful, and if you don’t have that, it’s hard to be successful. So, I don’t know. I don’t know. We’ll try to figure that out. Keep trying, keep working. Like I said, that’s all I know to do. We’ll keep trying, we’ll keep working, keep trying different things, figuring it out. We’ve just got to try to get better. Raise each week.”

(On the advantages of going no-huddle)

“I think just trying to get in a rhythm, get the first, first down, keep it moving. You can keep guys on the field who do different things, but if you’re going fast and not having positive plays, it really doesn’t matter. So, it all starts with positive plays, just trying to get in a rhythm, get moving. We had some success, moved the ball a few times there. We’ve really just got to finish drives, work to finish drives and have positive plays each play.”

(On Rhamondre Stevenson’s 64-yard touchdown)

“They were in an even-wide front. Really, when teams do that, really not all pass-rush down, you can kind of expect something coming inside. They kind of brought a blitz, we did a good job picking it up. Give these backs space, they can do a really good job. Rhamondre did a great job reading it. It was a good play. You’ve just got to build on it. There were other good plays, you’ve just got to try to build on that each week, and that’s what we’ll do this week.”

Deatrich Wise Jr., DL

(On maintaining positivity despite the seventh loss in nine games)

“Because we know where we’re messing up, and we know that we’re beating ourselves. In most of the games that we play, there’s a lot of things that we’re doing wrong. We’re not capitalizing on opportunities that we have. Our goal is to not beat ourselves, and that’s what pushes us.”

(On if it’s frustrating when the same problems reoccur)

“It’s a learning process. What’s mostly frustrating is us losing. That’s really the main thing. But, at the same time, we have a glimmer of motivation because we know that if we just eliminate certain plays, we’ll be able to turn games around.”

(On which areas they are beating themselves)

“I’ll only speak for me and my game. I feel like I can continue to, I guess, keep the quarterback in the pocket. There were a few times in this game when he got out, and I put that on myself. In other games like that, just kind of be able to, I guess, I would probably say be a little bit more productive, in a sense. Like this game right here, I take ownership of that quarterback running out. Whatever it was, I put that on me, and I’ll continue to be a better leader for this team.”

(On the current state of the locker room, the players in it and keeping spirits up…)

“Like I told the gentleman here, I told him, we know where we’re messing up at, and we have the capability to change it. A lot of guys on this team are hungry. Our spirits aren’t broken all because we have a loss. These guys are always trying to prove themselves week after week. We know it’s us versus us, which means we always want to be better than who we were yesterday. So, we continue to say the same things, but it’s different things that we’re seeing on the inside.”

(On the defensive breakdowns on third down)

“I don’t know, honestly. I don’t know the whole play situation, but if any team completes a third down, then that’s on us to get them off the field. So, I don’t really know what play that was. If there’s a first down on a third down, our goal is the stop the quarterback from scrambling, sack him, make him throw the ball out of bounds and that’s it.”

JuJu Smith-Schuster, WR

(On the team’s final offensive play that resulted an interception)

“It’s all on me. [Mac Jones] put the ball in a good position. I just have to make the catch, secure it, and now we’re in field goal range. Obviously, I didn’t do that, and we fell short.”

(On offensive struggles)

“It takes all 11 of us to make a play happen. We just have to fix those things, here and there. But, you know, we’re moving the ball very well, and we just have to finish our drives.”

(On mentally processing the loss)

“Yeah, that’s tough, that’s tough. I think the biggest thing in that is to just keep believing, keep having faith. You know, don’t lose that. The hard part is we know what we’re capable of doing, and not be able to go out there and do it.”

(On postgame message)

“Slate [Matthew Slater] always has great words to say in moments like this. You know, just keep believing, have faith, stay positive.”

Matthew Slater, WR

(On the time remaining in the season)

“Well, if you live life without faith, in my opinion, you lost. If our football team wants to be lost for the rest of the year, then we leave our faith outside. But if we bring our faith in, then we have a chance to play for the things that matter. Your pride, the way you respect the game, the way you respect your teammates, the way you respect the process – all of that matters, regardless of the circumstances, so I hope our group will continue to do that.”

(On the penalties and miscues on special teams)

“It’s disappointing. Some tough calls out there, obviously, but that’s the way the game goes. It’s just too sloppy today, with penalties and things like that. We have to take a look at it and hopefully get it right.”

(On traveling to Germany next week)

“It’s a great opportunity for a lot of us. Again, nobody should be feeling sorry for us. We’re blessed to be playing this game. We’re blessed to have an opportunity to go there. We should enjoy it, and we should go out there and play to win.”

Jabrill Peppers, DB

(On Deatrich Wise Jr. calling the results of the game ‘self-inflicted wounds’ and if that’s the outlook of the team right now)

“Like I said man, it’s hard to win in this league. But it’s definitely hard to win when you’re shooting yourselves in the foot and you don’t go out there and execute, things that we went over all week. Tip our hat to Washington, you know they came and executed. We didn’t do a good job of doing that.”

(On how the team moves forward after this game)

“It’s the same thing, you know. Like I said, it’s hard to win in this league but it’s definitely harder to win when you’re shooting yourselves in the foot. We just got to go out there and execute. We trust the game plan, trust within the scheme and go out and execute. Simple as that.”

Demario Douglas, WR

(On how he stepped up amidst all the injuries in the locker room)

“Playing my role, just coming in and doing what I have to do. Whatever that is, I’m going to do it to my full potential.”

(On losing yardage on the punt return)

“On that play, I just need to go forwards, get the little five yards. I was just trying to make a big play. Every play can’t be a big play. That’s all I’ve got to get.”

(On having the support of his teammates as a young player after tough moments)

“Definitely. Like I said, the support from the teammates is great because we’ve still got an offensive drive to go. I believe with that support, you just rise up and play the next play.”

Transcripts are provided by the Patriots media relations department as a courtesy to the media and are edited for readability. All press conferences are posted and archived in their entirety on patriots.com. The duplication or posting of this transcript in its entirety as original content is prohibited. Media are encouraged to link to the complete transcript on patriots.com when sharing full quotes with their audiences.

–PATRIOTS–

Download the Word Doc here: PatriotsPlayers110523