WR Sammy Watkins
In the first half, they threw the ball in some tight spots and you were able to make a play, despite the changes in coverage, shouldn't they have thrown it to you more in the second half so that you could make a play? "Most definitely, but they were giving us different looks. Those guys get paid too. He didn't want to have another turnover by trying to force the ball to me. I think for the most part the wide receivers and the tight ends were making plays in the first half, we all were. In the second half, if we would have had more sense of urgency and were more alive, we would have gotten the win."
Where's the team at mentally now?"We have great leaders. We all rallied up in the locker room and talked it out. We don't need negativity. We don't need anybody bringing us down. From here on out, we need to focus on Bills football and keep our heads up. We have five more games to finish out the season. You never know who's going to lose two games in a row or who is going to lose to who. This is the NFL. We just have to be positive."
QB Tyrod Taylor
After the first half that you had, how frustrating is it to not finish that one off? "Definitely frustrating every time you lose. I'm disappointed that we didn't get the W, but we played a great team and they capitalized on our mistakes and we just weren't able to finish it. Time of possession was a little different in the second half, and every drive counts and we needed to score every time we got a chance to."
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Why was it so tough to get the ball to Sammy in the second half?** "Like I said the time of possession definitely changed, we only had the ball 11 minutes. So we didn't have a bunch of opportunities to take those shots unlike the first half. It was something we had to work for, take shots when we could, and get the ball into some of the guys' hands."
You said something to Jerry [Hughes] on the sideline, just to kind of get him to pick his head up. Can you assess why you felt that was necessary number one, and just the mindset you feel this team has not just looking up at other AFC clubs but looking up at the wild card race here. "Just to keep everybody focused. Of course we made it tough on ourselves with the loss today, but everything is still manageable. Just have to take it week by week and day by day, maintain a hungry attitude and continue to keep coming to work with a positive mindset. This needs to be our outlook moving forward and its just something I invest in leaders and being more vocal as far as the leadership goes, and its something I can pass down so they can forward it to their respective positions."
WR Chris Hogan
On the pass thrown to you on the last drive which was ruled incomplete, did you ask Rex (Ryan) to challenge? "No, I didn't know the situation we were in. We were limited in challenges and timeouts. It was an up-in-the-air call, and I understand why we didn't challenge because we didn't want to lose a challenge or timeout."
How frustrating is it for you not knowing, from week to week, what is and what is not a catch? "It is frustrating. I thought I caught the ball and made a couple of steps. Obviously, he made a good hit on the ball but it's not my call."
S Corey Graham
On the performance of the Bills defense: "It was very disappointing. As a defense, we didn't do well enough to win the game. Especially us DBs, we didn't make the plays we were supposed to make. When it's all said and done we have to hold ourselves accountable to get the job done and we didn't do it today. We didn't keep the ball in front of us. We didn't make enough plays."
On this game being a key game for getting into the playoffs: "We knew the magnitude of this game. We knew how important it was. We didn't come out flat. We knew what it was about. We knew what we needed to do. We just didn't make enough plays. As a defense we have to be better, we have to make plays. The offense made enough plays, we as a defense didn't make enough. We let the ball get over our heads. We didn't create turnovers. You just can't do that."
DE Jerry Hughes
On the team's attitude after this game:"It's like Tyrod (Taylor) said, when he pulled me aside after the game, 'We've got to pull the guys back into it. The season is not over with.'" He said it best. We just had a quick little one on one. He told me to pull the guys aside. He saw my head down because he knew how badly I wanted to win this. For him to do that and tell me to pick my head up, and let's pull the guys up so we can finish the season up strong, that speaks tremendous volumes to the character we have leading this team. We are going to do that. We are going to rally behind each other and we just have to come out fighting, game after game."
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RB LeSean McCoy**
Will you pull some of the guys aside and try to keep everybody on task? "We had a little talk but that's kind of private. That's between us and the team. I don't want to talk about that too much."
How much does this loss hurt? "It hurts a lot because we had that game, man. Penalties and turnovers killed us and not executing late in the game."
What was the difference in the second half? You guys moved the ball at will in the first half, what changed? "I felt like we moved the ball awesome in the second half. We just didn't capitalize when we needed to. I don't know there was a difference. We got the runs we wanted. We took a lot of shots down field that we looked forward to doing. I don't know."
Head coach Rex Ryan
OPENING STATEMENT: "Tough loss, to say the least. But give Kansas City credit, at the end of the day, they made more plays than we did. They were able to run the football effectively when we knew they were going to run it, so you have to give them credit."
What does this mean for the playoff race, in your eyes? "We're out of mulligans, let's put it that way. We have to take care of our business, we have to win this game coming up. Until we start focusing there, we have to start focusing on this game and learn from what the mistakes were we made and we have to get them fixed. If not, you're going to see them again. And that's the first thing that we have to do. And then obviously we have to get ready for Houston."
Why did Sammy Watkins disappear in the second half? "Well, they started playing the safety deep over there on top. And he had more range on Sammy over there, but that was the biggest difference that I saw."
But isn't Sammy Watkins a guy you can just throw the ball up to? "Yeah, I think you guys saw it, we were throwing it to him a bunch and he was making plays but we had some chances with some other guys as well. I think what hurt us is we couldn't get off the field. That was killing us – they converted some great plays and Alex Smith made some big runs on us and converted some third downs there. They had a couple screens where they walked us down the field and made a couple of plays. So I think we would have had more targets if we had more plays."
