We know the NFL is full of characters and one-liners. So each week, we’re going to scout the post-game press conferences to find the best reactions for your reading pleasure. Check out the best NFL Playoff quotes below…
“Whatever you guys did today, do it again times 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. They say to get something that you never got, you have to do something you’ve never done. For us, we’ve never had that vibe in the streets of Charlotte, and I expect nothing less than what we saw today.” – Panthers QB Cam Newton, exhorting the fans to take it to another level for next week’s NFC Championship game.
“Clete had it on heads, he was showing heads, so I called tails, and it didn’t flip. It just tossed up in the air and did not turn over at all. It landed on the ground. So we obviously thought that was not right. He picked the coin up and flipped it to tails, and then he flipped it without giving me a chance to make a recall there. It was confusing. I think he was trying to avoid the embarrassment of what just happened. He flipped it quickly.” Packers QB Aaron Rodgers trying to explain the confusion surrounding the coin flip at the end of regulation of the Packers-Cardinals game.
“We know Ben. He wants you to think he’s more hurt than he is. We were prepared for that. He let us know early his arm was fine. He made some plays, and we had breakdowns in coverage.” – Broncos S T.J.Ward, indicating Denver’s familiarity with Ben Roethlisberger’s practice of playing “possum” before a big game.
“Peyton’s the ultimate play-caller. We got to the point in the game where we had to take some calculated risks and that is, I’m sure, why they started him, because he’s capable of not only doing things in the passing game, but things in the running game. He got us with some good checks, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t compliment him in terms of what they were able to do in the run game.” – Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, crediting Peyton Manning for what might commonly be referred to as his “intangibles.”
“I saw him block the guy trying to down the ball. It’s hard to tell from the coaching film where the block occurred, but it was a legal play. We’re allowed to block him. He didn’t give a fair catch signal, so he’s allowed to block.” – Patriots coach Bill Belichick, taking issue with an unnecessary roughness call against Danny Amendola.
“Of course he knows he stuck me and everything and the crowd knows it, but there’s nothing I can do about it. We have one of the best pooch-area punt teams, of course, and I find the ball very good. Of course that was calculated. That wasn’t no fluke play. Everybody knows that, your own fans know that. So that’s how you know it’s bad.” – Chiefs ST Jamell Fleming, the victim of the illegal hit, defending the call against Amendola.
“We were saving it for about 18 weeks. It was finally the right time to use it.” – Cardinals coach Bruce Arians, describing the shovel pass play to Larry Fitzgerald that resulted in a game-winning overtime touchdown.
“That was a microcosm for our season. We started slow and then came on strong in the second half.” – Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, on his team’s getting down big early and then early coming all the way back to win.
“I thought the situation we were in, I thought we were handling it the right way. We had the plays. We knew what we wanted. The bottom line is we scored. And we had time to score again and not give them the ball back. At 2:20, we had an opportunity to get a play in, to run a play. We thought it was a good play and an opportunity to possibly score. Now you’re sitting at the 2 minute warning with a touchdown and opportunity for an onside kick. We work those situations all the time, so we wanted to maintain our timeouts the best we could. But that play with 2:20 left, we didn’t get it run. We needed to get that done. There are things to go into that, we had run 89 plays, 83 official plays, and we were a bit tired at that point, so I put the big fellows in, and we didn’t get that play off. When you’re at the plus 5 you want to score. It’s easy to say, ‘Why not have another play called?’ We had another play, but you want to give it your best plays down there. Not necessarily a two minute play but the best play you have in the game plan. You have anywhere from a minute on, after an onside kick, you have time to tie the game. When it was all said and done, we gave it our best shot, we were able to score, we still had plenty of time on the clock. So I thought that part was handled right.” – Chiefs coach Andy Reid, offering a truly tortured explanation about a clock management strategy that used up nearly the entire last six minutes of the game to get one score when the Chiefs were down two scores.
Featured image via SB Nation NFL
