On his scramble in the third quarter being his best ever if he was ranking them: "I don't rank them, but that one's number one. That was a big point in the game. I think we were trailing at the time and we obviously needed to score points on that drive. We kind of lost the momentum a little bit there. There's a time and a place to almost give yourself a chance to extend the play sometimes and that was an opportunity for it I thought."
On the offense only scoring 17 points in the game: "You can't go by that, only because we don't play the last two or three drives because we're trying to run the clock down so that takes shape a little bit. I always look at the teams who had a great offense or who are up there and usually they lead the league in turnovers (on defense) or they're near the top at least. Chicago. Who else is there? Atlanta. New York. The teams that are leading the league in defensive turnovers and take aways are going to have good records. That's just football and so when you get special teams scores it makes life a lot easier on the offense."
On what the play was supposed to be when he avoided two sacks and threw to WR Miles Austin: "The play, it was a third down, and we had a couple options. We had (TE Jason) Witten running a corner route. Miles had a little bit of an escape or an option underneath. We had some stuff backside. So I peeked backside and they were running 2 man to the 2 receiver side, the opposite of Jason and Miles, and that kind of beat our coverage. So at the snap I saw that, so I came over to Jason. He was double in and out bracketed, so I got off to Miles. I was going to throw to Miles on the play, but the guy kind of drove where if I throw it to him, he's going to get hit right at that moment because he's sitting in a soft area zone and we won't get the first down. So I thought it was in our interest to try to extend the play at that time."
On the touchdown play to Bryant: "They played an interesting coverage actually. One you don't see a ton of, but we were in an empty formation and they play 4 on 3 over the front side, Jason and Miles' side. And (WR) Cole (Beasley) and Dez were on the other. And they bracketed Cole on the inside in and out and they played corner 1 on 1 outside with Dez and that's a great match up and there wasn't a single high safety in the middle of the field to even come over. So when you recognize that after the snap, you just go through the progressions, find the single, and the guy's going to win. Dez did a good job, he slipped him inside I believe and ran a 9 route and did a good job this week by widening him slightly back so I was able to throw the ball to where the corner couldn't get on the inside shoulder and he made a phenomenonal play with the ball."
On what he feels when he sees Bryant in 1-on-1 matchups with defenders: "I think you love the 1-on-1 match-up with Dez. That's a great thing, especially when you don't have even a single high safety in there. It's a good coverage with the head, but you just have to find the single. And Dez obviously has to do a good job, which he did."
On the importance of this win: "It was big. Our backs were against the wall. We understood the importance level of this football game and our team had the right approach all week and they committed to what needed to be done to win this game."
On the team being good at eliminating outside noise: "I wouldn't know. I think we take that approach a little bit from the head coach and I learned it a while ago just from playing the position. You come back after a win, you come back after a loss, you have to be committed to doing the things that it takes to win the next week. And the noise sometimes can creep in and alter people's emotional states or some of the stuff that they do. You tell someone they're too good sometimes, and all of a sudden they'll rest a little on their morals. Or you tell them they're so bad at something, sometimes that negativity creeps in and they start believing. So if you can just wash all that aside, you recognize that it's not about what anybody says. It's about getting better, it's about maximizing your potential as an individual and as a team. When you can recognize that, you have your best chance to go out and be the best player you can be in the long run."
On being back in contention and being able to pick up two wins before the Giants play: "We don't use the word desperate. Obviously the importance of this game was at the highest of levels and I don't know that we're thinking about anything other than exactly the same feeling that we have to go get another win. We're still in the hole, we're still 4-5. We're still having to battle out and we still need to take the same approach. I don't think the approach changed much this week other than just guys knowing that we have to get this win. The little stuff, we won a game tonight, but we still have a lot of stuff that we need to correct. We still had some penalties that can really cost you, and they have cost us at different times this year. You don't want the games to come down to a field goal or a hand being out of bounds that you can win or lose. I think we need to just continue to get better at that stuff."
On whether getting a win negates the mistakes made during the game: "Yeah, all of them. It was the best game that everybody played. I think anytime you get a win it kind of makes the negative things that happened throughout the game- it minimizes them tremendously. And a lot of that's from the noise. For us, a win or a loss, you still are correcting the stuff you did wrong in the game and building on the stuff you did well, so I think you're going to hear a lot more from the outside perspective when you lose than you will when you win. We still need to correct the things we didn't do as well in this game and build off the stuff that we did. If we keep creating turnovers and special teams plays well, boy, we could be a good ball club, we really could."
On the importance of not turning the ball over two games in a row: "Yeah, but we lost, as important as it was last week. I think the ball matters, obviously, and if you turn the ball over the times that we did in Chicago and New York, you're fighting a very, very big uphill battle obviously. You can't play scared. If you just play to never turn the ball over you're not going to be as good as you could be anyway. You'll lose to the best teams just because you have to, as a quarterback and running back, you've got to be able to let it go. You've got to be able to cut when you feel and react. And you've got to trust the people around you. Defensively, though, takeaways matter. It sets up the offense, it creates momentum. It changes the game to no end, and if our defense keeps creating turnovers, then we're going to have a good opportunity to be a good ball club."
On throwing the ball differently than he did running a similar route during a play in Atlanta: "In Atlanta, we ran a similar type of a route and (CB) Asante (Samuel) came underneath and on the route this week, Dez did a good job of not angling towards the inside where a free safety or someone could be involved if you just laid it inside too much. So he did good and that's a great sign that he's continuing to do some good things. And he kept it there and I was able to throw him the ball."
On how it feels when other units on the team scores points: "They're big. It doesn't happen very often it feels like, but when I'm sitting over there on the side going over stuff and we get points, it just alters the game. It really changes the game. If there's one thing playing the game long enough I know, if we get touchdowns or we get turnovers from our defense, the game becomes exponentially better for the offense."
On spreading the ball around this game more than other games in the past: "Their defense is predicated on doing a certain couple of things and that's taking certain people out of the game, and you have to be able to adjust and go to different spots and we got them to a lot of different looks that allowed us to get some other people involved. A couple of those third downs, (FB Lawrence Vickers) did a good job. I think I rolled out one play and found him over the middle. I think that was a third down if I remember and that was a big play in the game. Just little ones like that are important for guys to be able to step up and do the things when (RB) DeMarco (Murray) or other people are out."
