CB Ellis Hobbs
On how penalties affected the team throughout the game: ""When we trip ourselves up, it hurts that much more. You don't go into the game, thinking about those things. You think about the other team messing up, not yourself.""
On how penalties affected the team's momentum throughout the game: ""Any time you have homerun balls like that, any time you have a big play, a large pass or interception, and there's laundry on the field. Anytime there is a big play especially in this league, mistakes have to be minimal. It's hard to get those plays back because they don't come very often, especially a return like that.""
On what a loss like this can do to a team: ""It's tough. It's a divisional game, it's at home, and with the Eastern Division being known as a tough division to win in going into November and December, everything counts right now. Each game is going to have high stakes and higher risks. We definitely couldn't afford it tonight.""
On the play of WR Miles Austin: ""Just hearing from coaches around the league about what he used to be and the path he's come down, which I'm sure has been a difficult one; to be where he is now is praise to him. I don't care if you're making one play or a hundred plays, if you're making plays and it's the one's that count, you're going to be the guy. He deserves every accolade that he's getting right now. He's proving it every day on the field.""
LB Moise Fokou
On the penalties in the special teams: ""Aggressive mistakes. Those are the things we can clean up in practice.""
On the penalty on the kickoff return: ""I felt as if he was running me over, initially he was falling. Apparently I feel like I have all the eyes on me on special teams right now. Just have to play a lot smarter. Keep playing the aggressive play.""
On the penalty during the interception return: ""That's one of those things that I did not know the rule about that. It happened once, it won't happen again.""
On how penalties can hurt the team's momentum: ""It definitely hurts you. Especially in a tight game like this and going into this game, we knew the team who made the most mistakes would come out losing and unfortunately it was us.""
LB Will Witherspoon
On continuing to get accustomed to being on the team: ""I was fine. I took this week and I know I can do this and get familiar and execute. It's important to know where you're at.""
On whether this was a game about missed opportunities: ""Yes, it definitely was. There were some opportunities for us, we just didn't capitalize on them. That's what hurt us. I think we didn't play our best game. Defensively I know we didn't play our best game because we had too many mistakes that were costly for us.""
On being in a position to win despite all the mistakes: ""Some of the challenges were a little tough. It's a coin flip conversation there, when it comes down to it, you have to overcome those obstacles. You know exactly how to look at it and figure out how to do it better on the next play. From a defensive standpoint, it was how are we going to get the offense the ball back as soon as possible.""
On the play of Miles Austin: ""He's hard to defend. You've been covering a guy all day and the route combinations and sometimes you get that one route where you're just off and it opens just enough space to get through.""
On the inconsistent play of the team throughout the year: ""Today we were a combination. We made the mistakes we didn't need to but we're still a team that can score points do what it takes to get it done. I think we did a pretty good job running the ball, the offense did a good job, and defensively for the most part we played pretty sound. It was the little things that made the biggest difference for us.""
CB Sheldon Brown
On the touchdown reception by Dallas WR Miles Austin: ""He ran a double move. I was in the coverage. [It was] 'Cover 1'. [QB] Tony [Romo] pumped, [Austin] ran a slant, I drove the slant, [and Austin] got open deep. Anytime you do that, if a guy catches the ball, you just expect to get him on the ground and line up to play another play.""
On all the penalties contributing to the loss: ""It wasn't just the penalties. We made a lot of mistakes throughout the course of the game. And then there were some plays in there where we didn't execute, and we were able to still win the play, but we didn't execute. Anytime you have those penalties, obviously it affects the game. I think the kick return was called back on a penalty, the interception return had a penalty that brought some yardage back, so it's tough. You can't win that way.""
On the questionable officiating: ""That's the way the game goes. We play the game. You don't really want to leave it up to the officials, because that's all judgment calls on a lot of stuff. I think, overall, the officials do a great job. We should just execute better.""
On whether he would say this is a game they should have won: ""I would never say that. I give them credit. We didn't execute enough, so I'm not going to say we should have won anything. You get what you deserve, and today they played better than we did.""
