What the Steelers Said After Their Week 5 Loss

Oct 07, 2019 at 12:50 PM

Clifton Brown

BaltimoreRavens.com Staff Writer

Head Coach Mike Tomlin

Opening statement:

"Not enough play-making on our part. You also have to tip your cap to the Ravens. They made the necessary plays, particularly (Marlon) Humphrey. That is a big time play he made in overtime punching that ball out. We had our chances in the game."

On why he chose to kick off in overtime:

"Did you see their kickoff team? Every time, they put the ball on about the 2-yard line and (Justin) Tucker hung the ball at about 4.5 seconds, and we couldn't get back to the 15. Why would I sign up for that? I put the defense on the field in an effort to fight for field position and put the onus on them to get the stop. When we got the ball, we got it on the 30-something, which is dramatically different than when our kickoff return team took the field all afternoon."

On why Mason Rudolph had to stand off and walk off the field:

"Ask somebody that is in charge of that. I don't drive carts and things of that nature."

On whether he abandoned the Wildcat after the interception:

"We had no intention of utilizing it a lot anyway. Like we talked about after last week, it is gimmicky. It is something to level the playing field. It is an asset in spurts. It was what it was. I wish we didn't have the turnover in it, but it wasn't a large part of our plan anyway."

On whether it was a good play by Marlon Humphrey or JuJu Smith-Schuster did something wrong:

"Like I said, that was an excellent play by Humphrey."

WR JuJu Smith-Schuster

On getting ball punched away by Humphrey:

"I feel terrible, man. This is literally the worst feeling ever. Knowing that you have the game on the line in overtime and you have the ball. Knowing that Marlon Humphrey, that is what he does. He made a great play in a great situation and he came through for his team. My plan was being able to stiff-arm him and get upfield."

On if there's anything he could have done differently:

"Just protect the ball. Squeeze it harder."

RB Jaylen Samuels

On team's reaction to losing Rudolph:

"That was tough, our quarterback to go out like that. That's always tough, losing the leader of our team. We just tried to keep playing. I was just glad that 'Duck' (Devlin Hodges) came in and did what he had to do. Unfortunately, we lost."

QB Devlin Hodges

On what he thought when he saw Rudolph go down:

"First thing I thought was, 'Is Mason OK?' Mason is my guy. I would say he is one of my closer friends on the team. He has really taken me in. You might see me on the sideline kind of just standing there, it wasn't because I was freaking out about me going in; I was just thinking about Mason and what's up with him and is he OK. After a minute, he was just lying there, he wasn't even moving. That is just tough to look at."

On realizing he would have to play:

"As soon as you saw him lying on the ground, I knew. I threw my headset down and ran and got my helmet. I didn't know how long he was going to be down for. I was ready to go in for 10 seconds or a minute or however long it took."

RB James Conner

Were you surprised by the defense going out first in overtime?

"Not surprised at all. I like the decision. Stop them and score. Let's get out of there. You know, anything can happen. This went for a turn, but I like the decision."

S Minkah Fitzpatrick

On the overtime decision to kick the ball:

"I'm happy he did it. That's a compliment to us. He thinks we can go out there and get a stop, and we did that."

On getting stops on the Ravens offense:

"Yeah, we were putting touches on the first couple of the day. We could have played better. Stop the run a little better on first and second down. Put them in tough situations as we did as the game progressed. Put them in tougher situations and had more stops."

On changing the momentum after a slow start:

"Oh yeah, for sure. When we were making three and outs, just stopping them, getting hits on the quarterback, and putting pressure on him, the momentum was definitely turning."

On what a 1-4 start means for this team:

"It means we're 1-4. We still have 11 more games to go out there and compete, play football, and that's it. We play pretty solid football. Some unfortunate things happened. Our quarterback going down. We have some things to correct on defense, and we're not far. 1-4 doesn't really reflect where this team is at. I think we're a really good team, a really solid team, and we're just going to keep getting better week to week."