Hey folks, here are some quotes from both locker rooms. But the way, don't forget to check out our videos from in the locker room after the game. Click on multimedai at the top of the Carolina Growl page and then click on Panthers Videos. Then, just hit play.
PANTHERS COACH JOHN FOX on the loss: “Anytime you lose, it’s a wake up. As I mention to you guys all the time, whether you lose it on the road or you lose at home, lose it in hot, lose it in cold, it still bites. It still stings when you lose. We’ll take it for what it was, it was a loss. They got after us pretty good today and we’ll just learn from it and move on.”
PANTHERS QB JAKE DELHOMME on what Tampa Bay did to stop him: “Well one, they swarmed to the football today. The running game, we just didn’t get it established. And the passing game, we tried to find things there, but they have very good cover guys and their linebackers were excellent, and there wasn’t a whole lot there. They are very sound in what they do. They do it well, they know where they belong, and that’s what makes them so tough. They are just so well-coached.”
PANTHERS DE JULIUS PEPPERS on if he’s surprised by the outcome: “No, obviously we would have wanted it to go the other way but it’s a good football team we played against. If you don’t play well and execute you’re going to get beat and that’s what happened.”
PANTHERS WR STEVE SMITH on a letdown from last week: “I don’t think last week softened up this week. I think we were playing a good team and we got down on early. When you get down early, you can’t do anything about it. You got to get off your game plan. You got to start changing up the routine that you thought you were going to have. I don’t think success softens you up. If you’re soft, you’re soft, either you win or you lose. I don’t think we are over confident. We were down. The first set of downs we open up, you look up, and it’s 7-0, or 6-0. That’s hard.”
PANTHERS RB DEANGELO WILLIAMS on the early turnovers: “Yes, it does put you behind the eight ball. I don’t know many teams in the NFL that you can give three turnovers to and expect to win the game. But, we still went with the mindset. We did not give up and we kept on fighting. We have to eliminate turnovers. We didn’t give our defense much of a shot today from an offensive standpoint. Special teams did not help us out. I think we played bad in all three phases. I got to give it to the Bucs, they did a great job of playing us today.”
BUCS HEAD COACH JON GRUDEN on using Ernest Graham at fullback: “We’re a two-back team. After we lost Byron [Storer], we ran some single-back plays and had some success. Then, we regrouped on the sidelines, got Alex Smith ready to be a fullback, which is a contingency plan every week. Earnest Graham came out of nowhere and said, ‘I can do this.’ He did a great job.”
GRUDEN on the defense’s interceptions: “We had pressure and mixed coverages. Monte [Kiffin] did a great job again with his staff. Our players played their hearts out today and we have some opportunistic guys. We let three of four interceptions get away. We could have had three or four others. You saw the game. They were impact plays. We have guys with range and tremendous ability and they hit today. I was really impressed with the way our football team hit today.”
BUCS RB WARRICK DUNN on the game: “We feel like we’re a good football team, but at the same time we haven’t put it together for 60 minutes. Today, we had an opportunity to put it together. We played well for 60 minutes, all three phases. So this was a huge game for this football team.”
BUCS C JEFF FAINE on beating a division foe: “Huge, it’s huge. You know these guys would have gone up two games on us; it’s huge for us to be able to get this win, especially at home. You know we had trouble playing them away at their home. The style that we did it, coming out there for the first series and getting pumped up for that touchdown is huge and then to keep it up the entire game.”
BUCS QB QB JEFF GARCIA on the energy he brought to the field: “I think the main thing for me as a player, I need to play with emotion, I need to play with energy, I need to have a certain excitement about myself when I step out on the field. If I don’t have that, then I am not who I need to be and I’m not who I need to be for these players, for my teammates. It wasn’t so much being away from the game for the past four weeks as much as it was realizing what I needed to do to in order to get myself back to where I can be myself on the field. I feel like my preparation and my work ethic over the past four weeks have been good and I did not want to be that guy who is going to turn it around and say ‘why me’, not be selfish in any sort of way, but be positive and supportive towards my teammates and toward Brian [Griese] when he was in the game. I had to realize that because the way this game is, that opportunity can present itself again and when it does present itself, do what you have done in the past and take advantage of the opportunity. This is just one game. We don’t know what is going to happen next, but to be out there on the field today was exciting for me. It felt great. It felt great to be at home in front of a great crowd and playing against a good football team. Now if we can just build on these things, we have a lot of good things to look forward to.”
BUCS DE KEVIN CARTER on stopping the run: “What we really want to accomplish in a game is stopping the run, putting pressure on the quarterback, getting turnovers, winning the field position battle, all those key elements. Things that you really try to do as a defense to help your team, not only your offense score and we did all those things today. We were very fortunate, they are a good team, they have a good quarterback, and they have been playing really well, and they have been playing with a lot of confidence, but today we made some good things happen. We played sound and strong against the run. We hit them and got some turnovers early and we were able to shift the momentum on our side and keep it there. Today was a good effort and we’re definitely proud of that.”