Saints Coach Kellen Moore
Opening statement:
"Good battle today. The effort and play style were some things we talked a lot about going into this game, and I felt like our guys played with really good effort, really good play style. I thought the energy was really, really good in The Dome (Caesars Superdome). We made a couple of stops toward the end. The big field goal block put us in position to tie the game right at the end. Ultimately, the story for us and the lesson for us is you can't beat yourself. 13 penalties, a lot of mistakes in there that we have to clean up to put ourselves in a much better position to be successful. We have a lot of work to do. That's the beauty of this thing. There's a lot of work coming forward to us, and we will move the page and get ready for San Francisco here shortly."
On how Juwan Johnson was to scoring a touchdown at the end of the game: "It was close, obviously. I haven't seen the slow replay, so I don't know how close it was. It certainly looked like we had a moment there where he had it."
On commonalities with the penalties: "Certainly, a lot of it – the main stuff you have to deal with are the controllables pre-snap. The pre-snap was simply not good enough. It doesn't meet the standard in any way. We had a bunch of penalties on both sides of the football in the pre-snap world. That's all under our control."
On Spencer Rattler's play: "I thought Spencer did some good stuff and put us in position there. Obviously, there are highs and lows you go through in a game, but I loved the way that he approached it, the mindset he played with. He gave us a chance."
On opting not to take timeouts during Arizona's final offensive drive of the first half: "We were close. We talked through it—getting the ball at the start of the third quarter. They still had all three timeouts in their pocket, so we felt like we would let it play out and see if, on our possession, something popped there. If something popped, you keep it alive and put ourselves in position, but it was definitely something we talked about."
On the defensive performance: "I thought our defense gave us a chance at the end. There were a couple of big stops as the game progressed, and I thought they did some good stuff. Penalties killed big plays and some situational football came up on some third-and-longs there. They were able to convert a few third-and-longs, and that extended some drives, unfortunately."
On Alontae Taylor's blitz in the fourth quarter: "It's certainly available to us in a number of other situations, but there's a risk-reward with that. I thought Brandon (Staley) did an awesome job calling this game and putting us in a really good position with great opportunities to compete each and every down, and I thought it was a great call in that situation."
On if he would have gone for the extra point or the two-point conversion at the end of the game: "I mean, certainly we talk about that all the time. We will see whether or not it presents itself. I'm not going to go down that road."
On opting to kick a field goal on fourth down: "Once it became five (yards), if it's two (yards) and three (yards), the numbers will lead you to convert that, but once it got to fourth-and-five, it was a little bit behind us. We felt like to keep it a one-possession game, we were going to have to make a big-timestop, which our defense did and gave us a chance."
On game management: "It felt like we gave ourselves a chance. Ultimately, that's not good enough. Ultimately, we are here to win football games, and we have to compete and clean things up. While I love the effort, love the energy, love how the guys in the locker room played, we just have to play better. We just have to clean it up, and it starts with me helping to emphasize that through this entire next week."
On the injury to Taliese Fuaga: "He got banged up on a knee. We will see how it goes."
On if Chris Olave was evaluated for a concussion: "He was not."
On Chris Olave's play: "He battled each and every play. He had a couple of things come up, and he just kept getting ready. Once he was available (after chest evaluation), he hopped out there. I thought our guys, at the end of the day, they gave us a chance."
On the approach in game play for Spencer Rattler: "Certainly a combination of that. I think it's important to give him completions and move the ball downfield. They did a really good job. The few opportunities that we tried to get downfield, we had potential stuff, and I thought they did a good job. They played a lot of shell on us and forced us to play blank on the drive. We weren't able to make those explosives that we were probably hoping for."
On Rattler's composure at the end of the game: "At the end of the day, I thought our operation was really clean. We gave ourselves a chance at the end. We had essentially three opportunities to get into the end zone. That's all we can ask for under those circumstances."
On if the quarterback had an impact on the timeout decision in the first half: "At the end of the half, it's certainly something we talked about. We were really close to banging a timeout there. We just stuck with the opportunity that we had. We will start with the ball. We still had a little bit of time left to see what happens. If we were able to gain some yards there, we would play the timeout game, and we would have plenty of time to get ourselves into field goal position."
On what worked in the final offensive drives: "I think just any time you're in those situations, the tempo and the completion game that Spencer (Rattler) played with. I thought he did a good job. I thought our guys played faster as the game went on. There's certainly a lot of stuff in the first three quarters that we just have to clean up to put ourselves in a better position."
On Arizona's defensive play: "I thought they did a good job of it. We were not able to get any explosives that we were probably chasing as we went through that game. They were not presenting themselves.They did a good job there. Run game, we probably did not get it going as much in the second half. I thought they did a couple of good jobs just playing gaps sound and fitting things really well in the run game where you weren't able to squeeze anything out."
On the field goal operation: "I have not communicated with that."
On cleaning up the pre-snap penalties: "That is something that is obviously one of the most important things we have to do to narrow that down. We need to figure out a plan of action to get that better. That will be what Monday is all about. We have to clean it up. We have to play at a higher standard there. It's not something that's come up the last week, so that's a frustrating thing when it shows up on gameday and puts us in a bad position. We have to get better there."
On why the pre-snap penalties happened: "It's just a discipline thing. Obviously, when it starts, you have to make sure that guys play to our standard, and we have to play better there. We have to make sure that the guys play to our standard. Too many drives, the momentum was created, and then the momentum stopped because now we are behind the chains in too many situations on the field."
On DE Cam Jordan's performance: "I thought Cam (Jordan) was just really steady, really steady. I thought he did an excellent job. He was able to make some big-time plays for us early in the game and even down the stretch. I can't say enough good things. He did a great job."
On if he feels good about his decision to not take timeouts late in the first half: "Yeah, I mean, we can play the rewind game a lot. I get that aspect of it. We felt like we had the ball. We still had a chance before half to kind of see how that thing played out. I felt like we were in a good position; it was a onescore game. We still had plenty of football ahead."
Timeouts continued: "If we got a little more (yardage), it would have put ourselves in a better position."
On the defense in the second half: "I thought the defense did a really good job. There were some third-and-longs and some of those things that showed up early that we weren't on top of. We missed some opportunities there, but we settled in and got a number of stops down the stretch. I thought they did a really good job of getting Arizona behind the sticks in a few situations. They gave us a chance."
On third down play calls: "We will have to evaluate it, just the communication. When we are pressuring guys, we have to be really close on the pressure then, the back end has to be tied and tight together and matching people up."
On Alvin Kamara's touchdown: "I thought it was just a really good job up front. Combination blocks were really good. Alvin had some great patience, and he found the space to the right. He did a nice job with his vision, just seeing it and giving us a chance."
On the passing game in the second half: "We just weren't efficient enough in the run game. It felt like there were some opportunities on first down to maybe get some completions and not put us behind the sticks a little bit more. That led to a little more passing."