Head Coach Rex Ryan
(opening statement) "Obviously, it was a hard-fought game, and we knew it would be. It's tough any time you come in here. It's a tough team, and they made a few more plays than we did. We made some mistakes and had a couple of penalties that hurt us. Then the field goal; when you need the ball back, you can't afford to give them that. Even though they went three-and-out after that, it just takes up time. It's not smart. Jerry [Hughes] gets that one where he hit the quarterback. I know the rule is you can't hit the quarterback below the waist, we all understand that, but the quarterback was running away from him. He [Hughes] thinks he's [Flacco] running with the football, and we get a 15-yard penalty. So, we had a couple of big ones like that that hurt us. We made one mistake. That was my fault. That's on me. We should have doubled on the receiver that caught the touchdown. Instead, we doubled somebody else. Other than that, our guys did well on defense. We had a chance to make a big play. Unfortunately, we didn't and that's really the story of this game."
(on the offense) "Number one, I think that's a pretty darn good defense over there. Just by looking at yourself, sometimes that isn't it. I'm probably one of the only coaches that will give credit to the opponent, and that defense played extremely well. They're well-coached, and they got after us. I thought we would make a few more plays than we did."
(on the fact that they appeared to be conservative in the passing game) "We did lead the league in passes last year. We're trying to do that, but you have to have protection. Quite honestly, they got after us pretty good in those situations."
(onTyrod Taylor) "We've been telling Tyrod to believe in your protection, let it hold up, and then make them pay. We had big drops. An uncharacteristic drop by Sammy [Watkins] on one. That's what we're trying to do. Trying to get him to throw it downfield, hold the protection, so that he's not taking off down the field all the time. He did make a couple of good runs, and he made some good throws. We just weren't consistent."
(on a report prior to the game that Sammy Watkins wasn't 100 percent) "I don't know where that comes from. I guess you'll have to ask Sammy."
(on injuries) "I don't know the severity of either one. But Cordy Glenn with an ankle, and Jerel Worthy with a knee."
(on the safety position) "We need Aaron [Williams] for the long haul. There is no question he has missed a ton of time. All minicamp and training camp. All that type of stuff we felt better with. With Duke [Williams] and [Jonathan] Meeks rotating, we're going to play our whole roster. We said that. We're breaking them in, and I did that with Ed Reed before coming off an injury. If I can do that with Ed Reed, I can do that with Aaron as well. Obviously, there's a big play, and, if he's to point fingers it's my responsibility, it's my mistake. In that situation they had three wides. The inside receiver happened to be Mike Wallace and he made a big play."
(on how gratifying it was to see his defense) "[I'm] not very [gratified] to be honest with you. We're down here, we lose a game. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of the improvements we've made, primarily with our coverage. We've tightened a lot of things up. And I love the effort of our guys, but we have to start making some plays. [Ronald] Darby had that one in his hands that could have really changed the game. We're just missing a little bit. You can't take away that play because they earned it. Yeah, we're playing better, but we'll improve it through the course of the year. I've been adamant about us improving, and we will improve."
(onTyrod needing to complete fourth quarter comebacks) "It starts and ends with protection. We have the ability on outside, but it's tough though. When your best player's not in there, you have to step up. At times, the pass protection held pretty well. At other times, I thought they had an outstanding push against us."
(on still dealing with costly penalties) "Some of them you can excuse. The one that [Jerel] Worthy got, he's trying to make a tackle, and he got the back of the helmet. So, that one, I understand. Jerry [Hughes] trying to make a play on the quarterback, he thinks [Flacco]'s running with the football. I can live with that penalty because they're going full speed. That's what we're trying to do. But there's some that I just can't live with. Like the field goal. You have to be smart there. We know the rules. And there's other ones that are just frustrating."
(on the Hughes penalty) "In my opinion, [Flacco] was still in the pocket. What happened is, my guy is closing from the back side. He is running with the ball and stepping up in the pocket. Hughes thinks that he's running. So my guy is trying to get him on the ground, and what happened is, he made forcible contact. I don't argue the call. I'm just saying that the intent of the call…My guy is trying to make the tackle on the play, and maybe that's something we need to look at. I get it, and I'm all for protecting the players. I'm 100 percent about protecting the players, but, in that case, he's trying to make a tackle on the guy. In any case, we have to know that he is stepping up in the pocket. I'm OK with it as long as my quarterback is protected the same way."
(on the Carpenter missed field goal) "It's a long kick. That's no easy kick, but we sure could have used it. Dan has had an excellent camp, and we'll fire again on Thursday."
(onTyrod getting hit) "I'm concerned. We need to keep him upright. He gives us our best chance in winning. No slight to E.J. [Manuel], but we need Tyrod."
(on McCoy running today) "We had a great week of practice, and I felt we were going to be able to punch some holes in them. But, to their credit, they were stout."
(on playing on 9/11) "We're very respectful of the men and women who serve our country, and I think that's an opportunity for us as we've talked about many times."
(on Reggie Bush as a back-up runner) "We expect more production when he's in there. We were very disappointed. We're usually able to run the ball much better. I tip my hat to Baltimore and [Terrell] Suggs and company. They did an outstanding job. We knew they were going to stack the box and play us hard in the run. And they did a great job of it."
LB Preston Brown
(on the defense) "It's important to keep getting better each week. When we go out there and hold them to 13 points, that's a good job, but we had to outplay them on defense, and that's what we didn't do today. The Ravens had a better defense today, and that's why they got the win."
(on the penalties) "It's something that we have to take care of. Some of those mistakes just can't happen. Guys are learning; guys are getting better. We have to eliminate those penalties. We can't win games if we can't do that."
(on the first game) "Part of the first game is guys reach, grab, do silly things, get angry quicker. You've got to get used to it. Hopefully, guys will settle down and understand that we have to play the right way."
(on playing on the road) "It wasn't a terrible day, but when we look at the film, we'll be like, 'We could have held them to six, maybe three.' Those big plays are why they got down the field, so if we hold them to six points today, we outplay their defense."
S Corey Graham
(on the loss) "It's on all of us. You're never going to get the ideal situation. As a defense, you have to do something. As defensive backs, we have to put ourselves in better situations."
(on the penalties) "I don't know how many penalties we had, but we had too many. We had some critical ones. I know that, especially personal fouls, and they got the ball back. We've just got to be smarter. We've got to find ways to avoid those penalties, because when it all boils down, good teams don't kill themselves like that."
FB Glenn Gronkowski
(on his first game) "It was obviously challenging, but it's fun to be out there. It's good to get it out of the way. I'll be more comfortable next time. I was obviously a little nervous for the first game."
(on his expectations) "Definitely awesome. It was an awesome crowd here in Baltimore, so to play in front of them for the first game was pretty crazy."
(on the Bills' offense) "Baltimore has a really good defense. [We've] efinitely got to give credit to them. They played tough. They definitely did better than us today, so we just have to go out there and move on and get ready for the Jets next week."
QB Tyrod Taylor
(on what he thought of the season opener) "What's disappointing is that 14 points would have won this game. We should be better in a number of phases of the game. On offense, we just couldn't get anything going."
(on the Bills' running game) "The Ravens did a good job containing our running game. We just have to get better and we know we are better than this."
(on the pressure that he faced against the Ravens) "They came after us. They showed us things we hadn't seen before, on third down especially. They brought a lot of pressure and they were very effective."
(on the lack of deep throws) "It was hard. The safeties were playing very deep and they were giving us everything underneath. Basically, we were taking what they were giving us throughout the game."
(on his lack of scrambling in the game) "It wasn't a conscious effort on my part not to scramble. I did run around when I had to, but it didn't always work out for us."
(on his return to Baltimore) "I was excited. It was a great chance to come back and play against the organization that I started with."
RB LeSean McCoy
(on the offensive play) "It was a bad day for us. We just couldn't get any rhythm going. We had only one long drive during the game, and that's not good enough to win. There were plays where I could have done better. Everybody could have played better. We practiced hard and I was confident we'd play well today."
(on losing on the road) "It really sucks. We played hard and we were in the game. However, it's just our first game. Our goal wasn't to go undefeated, our goal is to win the division. We have no excuses, we just need to come back, figure it out and win next week."
(on the Ravens' defense) "They did really well shutting us down on third down plays. They had a number of third down packages that surprised us, and they were structured very well."
(on his comfort level in his second year with the Bills) "I feel very comfortable with this team, I just didn't have one of my better days. We need to find out how to get yards in bigger chunks. We have confidence and will get better, but it's always frustrating when you can't get going on offense."
P Colton Schmidt
(on punting today) "Rex [Ryan] and the other coaches put a lot of pressure on me to help them control the game with my punting. I was definitely trying to kick it out of bounds. It was hard to cut through the wind, so I didn't really worry about hang time. Our goal was to keep it out of Devin Hester's hands. It's always a good idea to keep the ball away from him."
(on the loss) "It was definitely a low-scoring defensive battle today. A punter can make a huge difference in a game like this. Of course, it's upsetting to lose, but we did a lot of good things today. We have plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the rest of the season."
WR Robert Woods
(on the Ravens defense) "They were definitely aggressive on the run. As a unit, we just didn't put up the points."
(on the defense taking away the middle of the field) "Pressure always takes away some things. When the quarterback has time and is able to scan the whole field, plays would be there. [Tyrod Taylor] hit Charles [Clay] over the middle, but that's only one play. We could definitely have a lot more of those, a lot of executable plays."
(on WR Sammy Watkins' health) "I don't know. I know he was out there."
(on the loss) "It's going to hurt for me personally. I felt like we had a lot of time to prepare, and just to come out and put seven points up as an offense doesn't really look good."
LB Jerry Hughes
(on the Ravens offense) "We went out there and battled our heads off. You've got to tip your hats to them. They were very resilient. They played four strong quarters of football. We came out on the short end of the stick."
(on the play of the Bills defense) "The secondary did a tremendous job of making [Joe Flacco] work. Any time a quarterback is going through his reads like that, it's a perfect opportunity for a pass rusher like me. The secondary was doing fantastic. [The defensive line] has got to get back there more times, help [the secondary] out and take some of the workload off of them."
(on the fourth-and-one stop at midfield) "I had the running back man-to-man, so I knew I had to take him. I didn't really think he was going to go into the flat. I was playing run. He went out into the flat, so I had to do my best to corral him, keep him from gaining that extra yard, so I know it was a good play."
(on his personal foul penalty) "The referees had come to our training camp and told us that once the quarterback establishes himself as a runner, you can go for their feet. You're making any last effort to get the quarterback down. I thought he was running. The referee saw differently. I've got to be a smarter football player."
(on the Bills' pass defense) "Our secondary was after their receivers. They did a tremendous job of locking down that first guy and forcing [Joe Flacco] to go to those second and third reads. You've got to tip your hat to them because they really worked their butts off to hone in on that pass coverage."
(on giving a sufficient effort in a losing game) "We played good. I've got to make that third-down stop. I've got to be a better football player. I kind of shot up the field because I knew [the play] was coming. I just have to stay on my feet, break down and make that tackle. We go over tackling and for me to fall apart like that, on that drive where they go back and challenge it. They get the first down. My technique just has to be better. That would have set up our offense with a second chance to go do what they do."
LB Lorenzo Alexander
(on the fireman's helmet he wore during pre-game) "One of my good friends, Kevin Schaefer, is a firefighter locally, down in the Manassas [Virginia] station. When I was here, in Washington, D.C., we built a great relationship over the seven years I was here. He asked me to wear it today out of respect for the guys who showed up as first responders at the pentagon. I wanted to do that for him to honor those guys."
