DEFENSIVE TACKLE JEFFERY SIMMONS
What went most wrong today in the run defense?
"I have to watch the tape, but we were moving, and they run a lot of gap scheme. It's déjà vu all over again, just like when we played Washington. It's the same (expletive). When we turn on the tape, there is going to be guys misfit, I'm sure. I have to watch the tape, but I don't think they ran with a duo or nothing like that. When they did do it, it was like third-and-one quarterback sneak or something like that. At the end of the day, when you talk about stopping the run, it's not just on the defensive line. When they are running gap scheme, everyone on defense has to be where they are supposed to be. We have to fit correctly. That's what it is. It's not like they had exotic runs. When we look at how many rushing yards they had, the first thing people are going to say is the defensive line. Like I said, when gap changes – guys in a different gap. The linebackers have to be where they are supposed to be. DBs have to be where they are supposed to be. It takes all 11 to stop the run. At the end of the day, I think we misfit a lot of their runs. It was not like they were just knocking us off the ball. It was a lot of freaking gap scheme and quite frankly, they had three big explosive runs. Jonathan Taylor at one point had seven rushes for 112. That was two big explosive runs that he had. At the end of the day, we have to know what the team is doing and adjust and know where to be at. Especially in a situation like that when we knew they were going to run the ball and knew that their quarterback was going to run the ball, we have to be able to be where we are supposed to be."
Do you guys have problems sometimes when you are facing a team that has a running quarterback? That's what happened at Washinton and that's what happened today.
"Like I said, guys have to be where they are supposed to be. Guys have to be ready to ball bounce. We have to watch the tape. Like I said, when we watch the tape as a group, we have to see what really went wrong. It wasn't like they were knocking us off the ball. I think they had three or four explosive runs. The types of runs they were running was the same thing as Washington. Of course they had some quarterback runs. There were a lot of gap schemes. Even on the quarterback runs, everybody was pulling. So now they are getting the ball on the edges. We just have to see what went wrong and at the end of the day, it takes eleven to stop the run."
At one point they ran the ball 10 consecutive times for two touchdowns. What are you thinking knowing how much you want to stop the run, but you know it's coming, and you can't stop it?
"It's the same thing I just said. We have to be where we are supposed to be. Stopping the run is not hard. When you look at a game and see that a team has 300 rushing yards, or however many they had, it's like 'Damn the d-line is getting beat.' But like I said, it takes all eleven to stop the run. They were doing a lot of pulling and getting guys on our edges. We had DBs trying to set the edges. They had a good plan and props to them for trying to get on the edges on defense. They did a good job on their game plan runs. I feel like we just weren't fitting right."
