QB Kevin Kolb
On how he felt about the offense in the first half: "We were a little stagnant on the first three drives there. We needed to pick the energy level up. We did it and we were better in the second quarter. We got our running game going a little bit and got a couple drives. Again, we just have to execute in the red zone. I missed a throw there in the end zone and we also had that penalty that cost us. I think we did some good things; it was a positive day, but we have to start fine-tuning those details."
On why he thinks the offense stalled on the first couple drives: "First of all they have a good defense. Our running game needs to get going a little bit earlier. We need to get into a better rhythm, I think. We just went three and out. We need to get a couple first downs and get into that rhythm. I think that's what I think will kick-start an offense a lot of times. If we had gotten a couple of five or six play drives, it would help us. We finally did it and we were able to move the ball and got into the red zone and should have had some scores there."
On whether he thinks preseason games are a good way to work out mistakes: "Yeah, and you're going to have games like this. Cincinnati has a lot of games like this, where it is a grind. We've seen it when the weather gets cold that you have to be able to grind the ball and get your points when you're down there. It's a good learning experience. It's not always going to be 45 points on the board and 500 yards. We can learn from it, we can move on, and that's why we're in the preseason."
On whether he feels like the offense is starting to come together: "What I like is that we're getting a lot of different looks. We are seeing a lot of different things, so we're learning every single day. We're learning every game. That's what you want right now, especially with a young group, including myself. We want to learn every time we're on the field. We learned a lot today and we can get better from it and it'll help us during the season."
On whether there was anything he hoped to accomplish in this game that they weren't able to do last week: "I think the biggest thing is getting a feel for a game-type atmosphere. Preparing like a game and learning from situations. We had a couple three-and-outs, let's rally the guys and get it going. That's what a game is all about. We felt that today. We all rallied up, got each other up, called up a meeting, got it together and put a few drives together. That's what you want to see and that's what you want to feel and we did that today."
S Quintin Mikell
On his interception and whether that was an example of the defense showing resiliency since it came on the drive immediately following the Bengals offensive touchdown: "Absolutely man. You're going to have good plays, you're going to have bad plays, but the mark of a good defense is a team that – no matter what – you come back on the next play. So, they had a good play. It was a good throw (by Bengals QB Carson Palmer), a good catch by T.O. (WR Terrell Owens). At the end of the day we've got to keep playing ball and we came back and did what we were supposed to do."
On CB Dimitri Patterson's interception and whether that set the tone for the defense in the beginning of the game: "Yeah, anytime you get turnovers and big plays, that's what it's about on defense. No doubt about it, man. That's a good offense, they've got some good receivers and I think we had a pretty good game. We had a couple picks and made some plays. They had one play on us but we came back. So, that's what we want to see at this point in the year."
On whether he saw what he wanted to see from the first team defense: "Well, ideally you want to hold them to zero points. But, at the end of the day we just want to see us flying around, making plays on the ball, getting turnovers and getting big plays. And that's what we're about. So we're working towards it, we're getting better and better every week. Really, this is our first time getting more than six plays. So, we saw some things we need to work on and we're just going to keep getting better every week."
On whether there were any goals that they wanted to accomplish in this game coming off of last week when the first team defense was only on the field for six plays: "We wanted to come out, we wanted to establish ourselves in terms of being physical, make plays on the ball, getting after the quarterback. And also we wanted to see how we would do if we had some bad plays. We gave up a couple big runs, more than we wanted to, then they had the big play to T.O. We just wanted to see what we could do when we made bad plays, how we would bounce back. We're still gelling and we're still bringing this whole thing together. It's been a good feeling and we're excited about it."
