What Frank Reich Said Following the Loss to Seattle

Opening statement

"Start out with some injury updates. [Jonathan] Mingo had a concussion. Frankie Luvu had a hip pointer, and C.J. Henderson had an ankle. A tough loss. Coming in we knew the environment would be tough. Good football team and a tough place to play. Let me say this as a general statement. First of all, what we said in there, and I mean every ounce of it, I have a very strong belief in our team and our players. I have a strong belief in our coaches, and I know we can be a good football team if we don't beat ourselves. That being said, the number of penalties that we had on offense was pathetic. That starts with me as an offensive coach. That starts with our offensive coaches getting our players ready, and that starts with our players. That's unacceptable. I mean, it's like we never played in the noise before. We knew it was coming. We practiced all week with noise. I mean, Wednesday it was so loud out there you couldn't even think, but as coaches and as players together -- and I mean that together. As coaches and as players, if you have that many self-inflicted things, it's hard to overcome those. So we've got to learn from that for sure. Defensively I felt like we held them in the first half to no touchdowns. They hit some runs on us late. Listen, I said to the defense, I know we put the defense in a hard position. We put the defense in a hard position with the slow starts on offense, and it puts a lot of pressure on the defense. Then what happens is sometimes later in the game that mounts up, and then you get a little crack, but we've got to stand strong as players and coaches on defense. We got it to one score -- we got it to two points or within a one-score game there in the fourth quarter, and then they drove down and scored, and we needed a stop right there. We needed a stop, and we didn't get it. I do know this. I do know in this locker room there's two things that are going to happen. One, there is belief; and number two, there will be no finger-pointing. That's not going to happen. We're each going to own our mistakes, man up to our mistakes. We understand that the mistakes are collective. Coaches and players together have got to get better, but we each individually have to look at our specific area and the way that we can individually get better as well. I'll open it up from there.

Ekwonu's false starts

"Yeah, that's what we have to figure out. We have to figure out -- Ickey has to look at it himself. We have to look at it like what can we do to help him in those situations? That's the process you go through. Like I said, I just had not experienced it like that before. We have to be able to change plays on the road. The quarterback has to be able to change plays. That's going to happen. So we talked about keeping our poise, and we didn't do that."

58 pass attempts for Dalton

"Yeah, you don't come into Seattle and throw it 58 times and win very many games. So that was not the formula that we wanted. The run game was nonexistent. So we've got to continue to work on that. I did think that Andy handled the pass game pretty well. I think he handled the pass game pretty well, made a lot of good throws. We made some plays in the pass game. I thought giving 58 attempts and here -- there are times the protection broke down, but it wasn't horrible. I have to look at the tape, but in many ways I thought Andy was pretty solid. I thought Andy did a lot of good things today."

Inability to run the ball

"It's surprising to me. It really is surprising to me. So we know for us to be the offense and the team we want to be, we need to have more balance in the offense, so we have to continue to work on that."

Any concern putting Bryce Young back in behind the o-line

"No, not at all."

Why the noise was such a factor

"I don't know. Wednesday -- I promise you it was louder Wednesday at practice than it was out there today, and we never really turned it down. When they were in the huddle, we had it loud. It was loud at the line of scrimmage. I don't remember us having a false start on Wednesday. Then on Thursday and Friday, we still used the noise. It wasn't quite as loud because, honestly, Andy was really hoarse after Wednesday just from screaming the whole day, so we had to manage it just a little bit so that he didn't lose his voice. So we've got to figure that one out."

On it being a close game late.

"Listen, this game, we're in the fourth quarter, and I think it's a two-point game at one point in the fourth quarter, or I don't know. It was within one score. In spite of all those penalties, we got it to a point where we make a stop -- if we make a stop and then follow up with a score, we can win that game. We're in the fourth quarter, and that game is winnable if we can put it together in all three phases just for one quarter. We're in the fourth quarter, and if we can put it together, we can win that game, and it got away from us."

Any concern about buy-in

"No, those guys are pros. I don't. Listen, we're three games into this. Everybody understands. The kind of guys we've got in there, I believe everybody takes ownership. Everybody understands it's a long season. There's no guarantees in anything. We know we can be a good team. Again, I've been 1-5 and won playoff games, and here's what I know. When you are in a situation like that where you are 0-3 or 1-5 or something like that and you are behind the 8-ball and you say, well, can you still make the playoffs, absolutely. The way you do it is not thinking about that. All you worry about is the next team. So really right now what we do is go back and look at this film and get focused on the Minnesota Vikings, and it's one week at a time and keep getting better. I do think there are some areas we got better. You know, we made some plays in the pass game. D.J. flashed making a few plays down the field. There were more positive things. Third down conversion was better. That was progress. Defense in the first half, again, no touchdowns in some pretty difficult situations that we put them in. There's still plenty of positives to build on, and I think we all know that. I don't think anybody feels like we've been outmanned in any game. We just have beat ourselves, so just have to continue to get better."

Any immediate concerns with injuries

"Kind of we have to wait and see how it all -- you know, 24 hours later-see -- with Mingo going through the protocol, just have to wait and see what that looks like. Xavier, I'm not sure the severity or degree of his hamstring. Then Frankie's hip pointer, those things, they vary in degree. So it's kind of wait and see how that and then same thing with C.J.'s ankle. I haven't heard how severe that is yet, so we'll find out in the next 24, 48 hours."

Any concern with some guys playing a lot of snaps

"That's what we're paid to do. That's what we're paid to do. These guys are paid to play football. We're paid to coach football, so let's go do it. You want me to play 80 plays? Let's go. I'll sign up and play 80 plays. You want me to do that 17 weeks in a row? Yeah, that's what we do. That's our mentality. What does it take? Hey, what can I do to help this team win? Play more plays? Okay. Now we as coaches have to manage that. Is there wear and tear? I think we do a pretty good job during the week managing, getting guys ready physically with how we practice, pulling guys out. We manage reps during the week knowing that certain guys are playing more. When a guy plays a lot of plays in the game, that next week in practice we pull back on him to allow him to recover. So we don't just count the game reps. They mean a lot, but we look at the week worth of work, and we manage that load and try to make it manageable for each of the guys."

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