Opening Statement: "OK. Darren Sharper got knocked out there. He had a high ankle sprain and was unable to return. He tried to come in here and get it loosened up. He was all set to go in the second half and it wouldn't for him at the level that he would've liked to have it work. Tyrell (Johnson) did a nice job coming in there.
"I think the big thing from my standpoint, just whoever the 32,000 people were who bought up those tickets, that was a loud environment. That was people that were geeked up to be in the building. You could tell from pre-game warm-ups on. That's as loud a place, that's as loud as it gets in Seattle and to me, that's the loudest place. The Rams is very loud. But that was deafening. The best environment yet, I think, that I've seen here. I appreciate that because it makes it a difficult spot to play.
"Kind of a tale of two halves. I thought we had some things going in the right direction, in terms of converting third downs in the first half. To start the third quarter, had a couple of explosive plays in there to Kleinsasser. (We) were able to change the field position and back them up. I think they converted a third-and-eleven coming the other way and punted the ball back to us and backed us up. We knew it was going to be a field position game. Obviously, they got seven points off a turnover. They got three points off a punt return. Playoff football with a nine-point difference, that ends up being it.
"The finality is they're staring it right in the face. It ends fast. But they want to hang their hat on the good things and just appreciate this team and the way they went about their business this year. I told you guys, it was a fun team to coach. I thought that they played with great resolve. They didn't lose sight of the big picture. But at the same time, I thought from early on that they came back on and focused on that one-game-at-a-time mentality. Again, they were listening. I think their best thing is they honored each other in terms of coming to work today and preparing to win games on the field, competing during the games and then, as importantly as anything, they honored each other off the field just in the way they did business there. There weren't any distractions from that standpoint. (It's a) good place to move forward from.
What changed in the second half with Tarvaris? "I don't know where that exactly occurred. He hit a couple plays early in that third quarter. I just think the game changed there with that long screen pass and now you're more into a throw type of mentality. And they were bringing it every down because they really knew what had to have occur there. Obviously not happy with the way we finished the football game. We have to get better in that area when it's a must-throw situation."
Now that this season is over, do you see it as a success? "You know, I don't know. You guys characterize it any way you want. I think to win the division is a starting point. Obviously, you start the season and you want to win the Super Bowl. I know that there are a lot of predictions that get made, whether you were picking the Green Bay Packers to win the division or the Dallas Cowboys to go to the Super Bowl, or the Minnesota Vikings. That's why you play the games. At the end, to win 10 in the regular season and win the division, was a start. Obviously you don't like the fact the post season finished in a game for us."
Were you kicking yourself at all for not taking the penalty and letting Philadelphia kick a field goal?"Are you talking about the end of the game?"
No. Earlier, when there was a penalty and you had them at third-and-18? "I talked to our special teams guy and he said, ""He'll make it from there. He'll make it from back here, too."" So, rather than give them another swing at that down, we kind of have an idea where he can knock it in from. It's a sterile environment from the standpoint that there is no wind and he has a strong leg. I kick myself for not quarterback sneaking and punting to DeSean Jackson and then having him bring it right back to the spot where it would have been had we gotten stopped on fourth down."
What is your assessment of Tarvaris Jackson after this season? "You know, some good things. Obviously, what always sticks with you, as we talked about last night, you know, this game sticks with you. You hate to serve up seven points. You have to take that out of your repertoire."
Has your opinion of Tarvaris changed from before the game to now and is he your guy heading into next year? "We sure don't make any of those kind of pronouncements after the game but those are the kind of things we go through here this whole week. We pull apart the roster and look and see where we're at."
What did you think of Donovan's performance? "I obviously haven't seen any numbers yet but he's a hard guy to get on the ground. He's a 248-, 250-pound guy and unless you wrap him up you're going to bounce off him. We did a good job of putting him on his back a few times but he did a good job of getting himself out of trouble which he has the ability to do."
Can you talk about the Samuel pick? "Without having the ability to replay that, that play was a short comeback on the boundary and I think Tarvaris threw a little early which you want him to throw early as opposed to throwing it hard. I don't know if it got away from the inside, I know the corner was visual on the quarterback all the way from where he was playing, he could see the ball come out soft and off and I think he (Tarvaris) wanted it on the boundary on the backside and I'm not sure exactly how Sidney ran the route."
They had a big third-down conversion in the second half after you had them backup that seemed to swing the momentum? "From where I was standing the pocket was closing in on him. He was in the end zone if I'm not mistaken and we squeezed it down on him and he stepped into it and banged it out."
Cedric made that nice interception on the sideline and you guys ran it on first down was there any thought to try to push the ball up the field and try to get a field goal or were you just trying to get it into halftime. "We were deep in our own territory and we had one timeout if I'm not mistaken so what you want to do is you want to try and hit a play if you can and then things get different if you can get it in or around the midfield stripe or minus the 40 yard line. At the same time we wanted to see how they were going to play with their timeouts. If you want to run out the clock you run it three times in a row."
You didn't take the penalty in the first half which would have potentially given them a longer field goal attempt. "The point is they would have played the down again. You're basically giving something to get something and nothing says that you're going to stop them for zero yards and it's going to be a 52-yard attempt. It's glass half-full glass half-empty. I'm not sure where that drive started but they were moving the football and we just wanted to get the ball out of their hands and get their offense off the field."
Where you surprised Jimmy Johnson didn't put more pressure on you? "He threw some people downhill at the center and guard area. They weren't all-out blitzes. We had them off balance a little bit from the standpoint of running for a couple of those third downs. He probably blitzed them a little less just like when we played them last year he blitzed less than I would have anticipated. He did blitz a lot towards the end of the game."
Can you talk about Westbrook's screen pass that led to a long touchdown? "The view from where I was at was that either Kevin Williams or Brian Robison had a free lane as he came around the corner on his twist to the quarterback and all of a sudden he tripped and fell and it would have been different if there would have at least been a body coming in on him (McNabb). What it was was when he went down there was a lane that Donovan didn't have to put any air under the ball. I don't know how he tripped but I thought were going to have a guy there that would have made that play a little tougher for them."
