QB BRODIE CROYLE
What led to the fake punt on fourth and eight and what happened: “He (Coach Todd Haley) saw something earlier in the week that we could exploit. It was our fake punt for the week and it was just a shame that it didn’t work out because we had somebody wide open if I could have just gotten it over that guy.”

On the offense and defensive play today: “It wasn’t good; it wasn’t good at all. Any time you lose it obviously isn’t good enough but losing the way we did obviously is not good enough.”

On the opportunity to play today: “It felt alright, but there are some plays I want back. But I just have to play and let it go.”

RB JAMAAL CHARLES
You came out of the game for a short amount of time. What happened? “My shoulder came out of place. It always happens like that [even when] I was in high school so I just put it back in and kept going back into the game. It wasn’t that serious. I’m going to get bruises and I just have to fight through it.”

How comfortable are you feeling, especially starting the ball game? “I’m feeling real good. We started off the game real good but somebody has to step up, help out and make plays.”

What happened on the fumble? “I never had control of the ball. Once I had the ball, the defender was right there and he hit the ball.”

On the 3rd quarter when nothing seemed to be going right: “It was just another day that the X’s [defense] were on us and it hurt us. This shouldn’t be allowed around here.”

How do you keep your head up when you have back-to-back games that aren’t close? “We all have to come through as a family, stick together. You’re going to have bad days, you’re going to have good days. This was one of the bad days we had and we’re just going to have to pull through next week; put this in the past and look toward the future.”

Did the team quit today? “No, we didn’t quit. We just made some bad decisions and they really hurt us. When you turn the ball over like that, the game goes by fast and that’s what happened today.”

You guys played great against Pittsburgh, how do you explain what happened today? “I don’t know. It’s hard to say what happened today.”

Were there missed opportunities on offense? “Yeah, there were missed opportunities trying to convert on third downs and it was hurting us. I think we just couldn’t do anything today.”

LB MIKE VRABEL
Things are snowballing on you; turnovers become 20 third-quarter points. How do you keep it in perspective? “It’s tough because you put a lot into this and we only had so many opportunities to go out there and perform. We’re not making the most of our opportunities; we’re not making the most of the 12 games that we’ve played so far. At times, it looks like something, at other times it doesn’t. We just have to do a better job and we have to know that we only get one opportunity a week, so all that work we put in and the recognition that we’re trying to have during the game, you only get 60-70 snaps and you’re only going to get one game a week. You can’t say, ‘well if we play them again,’ which we do play them again, but they can’t be real concerned about playing us again after what we did out there today.”

You seemed frustrated after the fourth-and-one TD run. Was that frustration with the defense? “Just frustrated with everything. We’ve got to do a better job. They can call whatever they want to run; they can go for it on fourth down every single time if they want. We just have to stop them. I’ve been on the other side, when things are good, it’s good, it’s great, and being on this side, isn’t so good.”

Did your emotions get the best of you today? “We play, we walk around and we play. I don’t know, just frustrated, frustrated by the game. You don’t envision it going the way that it goes and we’ve got good players. It’s sad that we couldn’t win for a guy like LB Tamba (Hali) who played his a— off, so we just need to try and play up to what Tamba and guys like him are doing. If we win, it’s a great story. Instead, we’re all just frustrated and upset.”

DE GLENN DORSEY
What happened out there today? “We came out, played hard, but it just didn’t go our way. They played a good game. We just have to go to work this week and try to correct it. We’ll see them again.”

You couldn’t stop the run today even though you knew they were going to run. Why was that? “I really do not know. We’ve got to go watch film, but they were the better team today, plain and simple, in all aspects of the game. I don’t know, you’ve got to stop the run, and we didn’t do it today, so we’ve got to come out next week and try to.”

Did guys quit? “No. I’ve never seen that. We go to work every day, we work too hard to quit. I’ve never seen anybody quit.”