One thing that I noticed after finding all of the quotes for this piece is that the issue of field position was continually brought up. I’m not going to say that it cost us the game, because it didn’t. You can use that as an excuse if you wish, but eventually, they have to just man up and get the job done (ie: move the damn ball). I’ll place my blame for the game on Rex continually overthrowing receivers and our vanilla pass defense.
Roll Call: Our one and only halfblindcubbiegirl took the top spot with 106. bs.uf15bosox9bears23 had 99, while thecubreporter (79), GallopingGhost (64), and Chanman25 rounded out the top 5.
Lovie on the game:
“The field position game hurt us the entire time. We played down close to our end zone most of the time. Eventually, if you don’t get field position, it’ll end up leading to points for the opponent, and that’s what happened today. You want to make a team one-dimensional. But from there you have to make some plays in the passing game and we weren’t able to do that.”
Rex on his performance:
“There were plays to be made that all of us probably wish we would have had back. I was thinking of three or four I wish we would have had back that would have helped drives go or that big play to Devin, but those weren’t made and the result is we lost. We couldn’t really get into a rhythm backed up. We needed to get a few first downs and flip field position. First downs kind of breed more first downs. You get on a roll and get to the rest of your plays. That was the big deal right there for the most part.”
Ron Turner on the Titans:
“They’re a very good defense. You’re not going to move it up and down the field like that all the time on them. We put together a good drive, made some plays in that opening drive. But we knew it was going to be a battle.”
Ron Turner on the horrible offensive field position:
“It’s only frustrating when you don’t do something about it. When you’re backed up, that’s part of football. It’s a field position game. When you get backed up like that, you have to get a couple first downs to get out of there, and we weren’t able to do that.”
Mike Brown on the defense:
“It seems like we’ve been doing a pretty good job all year long as far as stopping the run is concerned. But we’re like 30th-ranked as far as the pass is concerned, so somewhere we’ve got to find a happy medium. We really geared up for the run, but they were able to make some plays on us with the passing game. We couldn’t get off the field on third down, and I think that was the biggest issue today. It’s hard to win football games when you let teams convert the first down. They definitely won the battle of field position, and that’s a crucial element of the game. It seemed like we were always on our side of the field on defense. It’s difficult to win football games when they start on about the 50 or 40-yard line. It was just tough to win.”
Graham on the defense:
“When you lose the game, you lose the game. It doesn’t matter that we stopped the run. You’ve got to stop the pass and the run. When these guys come out and just sling the ball on us like that, it takes away how good you played against the run.”
Briggs on the field position:
“Field position was huge. We started off inside the 10 all game long. In a game like this, when you have two defenses playing well, field position is going to come into play.”
Maynard on the field position:
“Yeah, I think I was kicking from down there every single time. And I felt like there wasn't much I could do about it. I did the best I could. Mentally, it drains you.”
Kerry Collins on the Bears:
“I give the Bears a lot of credit. They put a lot of people in the box and stopped our run, and they did a great job of it.”