Head Coach Joe Judge

Opening statement: First off, I'm happy the way the team played today. I'm proud of the way they worked. They had a good week of preparation and the way we prepare always carries into how we play and how we perform. I've seen this group make consistent improvement day in and day out which carries over week by week. It didn't necessarily show in the results we were getting but I'm proud of the way they work on a weekly basis. We put them through a lot of stuff and I'm proud that they get to receive some tangible results for their hard work. The Seahawks obviously you have to give them a lot of credit. They're a well-coached team. They play very fundamentally sound, they're an explosive team. That's one of the best quarterbacks in the world over there. We have a tremendous amount of respect for all the players we saw today. Obviously that tied into the game, we had to account for how explosive they were, how well-coached they are on defense and how explosive they are in the kicking game as well. I thought our guys received the game plan well. I thought [Defensive Coordinator Patrick Graham], [Offensive Coordinator Jason Garrett] and [Special Team Coordinator Thomas McGaughey] all did a good job throughout the week as did all of the position coaches. All of our guys came prepared to play today, mentally, physically and emotionally. It showed up in a 60 minute game. We knew it was going to go down to the wire, it always does in a place like this. You have to fight to keep yourself in a position to have a close game here and close it out in the end. Exactly what we thought was going to happen happened throughout the week of practice and it happened in the game today going down to the wire. 

(On the quality of the defense and how they were able to perform so well today…)

These guys work hard. [Defensive Coordinator Patrick Graham] has a good plan and I think there's really good position coaches on each side of the ball. They're very detailed in their approach. Our players have gotten more comfortable in our scheme and they've been able to build on the multiples. You have to have multiples to play a lot of these quarterbacks that we're playing. You've got to be able to play guys like Russell Wilson where you can go ahead and stop him in the run game. Again, that's a lot easier said than done. At the same point, you want to try and confuse them a little bit in the passing game which again is a lot easier said than done. This guys has seen a lot of different coverages over the course of his career. He's beaten pretty much everything you can throw at him defensively. I think our guys are just working hard, that level of play is raising right now. The coaches have done a good job, our players have executed and the level of play is rising. 

(On what changes were made at halftime in order for them to run the ball effectively in the second half…)

There were a couple of small adjustments in terms of some of the things we call and the way we design a run play but I don't think there was anything radical. We talked about it at halftime, but the biggest point of emphasis was to stay committed to the game plan we had coming in. And they were going to keep running the ball and that we had to keep wearing them down over time. We had to give our runners opportunities to get in space and finish the runs. Obviously those guys did that and ran well. I don't have the exact numbers right now but our guys ran for somewhere around 190 yards. So you come in here against one of the top run defenses out there, they're coached very, very well year in and year out. Part of our game plan obviously was to run the ball, it starts up front with the guys blocking. I thought they did a good job of playing hard and wearing them down over time. I thought our [running]backs ran tough and finished runs.

(On if this win validates the team with their first win against a winning team…)

I thought there was a lot of validation for the way our players executed the game plan with how they prepared. To me, that's more validation, trusting that the process will pay off on the field. These guys do a great job. They've done everything that we've asked them to do. And they've done it as well as the possibly can and you can see the results coming. We've got a special group of guys, we have a very tough group of guys who have bought in to what we've asked them to do. They've done it without questions, they've done it 100%. They're a tough group. We ask them to play a physical brand of football and that's helped us have tangible results. In terms of beating a team with a winning record, we've got a tough stretch coming up [and] we're going to have to beat teams with winning records. But we still focus on the same thing: one win at a time and one week at a time. We've got to get ready for a tough opponent going back home next week and that's the only thing that really matters, nothing before that game matters except the lessons we learned from previous games and nothing after that game exists until we get past next week's game. We keep our sights short on what we're working for and we're going to look at this game, correct mistakes, build on what we did well and then we're going to get ready for another opponent next week. 

(On what they did to take away explosive plays today…)

Well I think against a group like this, and they're such a deep threat, you have to account and make sure they snap the ball again and again and not give up those big chunk plays they can make so often. [D.K.] Metcalf and [Tyler] Lockett, those are two explosive guys, they're as good as anyone in the league. You just have to make sure that they don't walk by you, you have to stay on top in coverage. There's different variations of coverage, different ways we can play it, but ultimately, it doesn't matter what you call, you just can't let these guys run behind you because that quarterback Russell [Wilson] is really, really good at throwing deep balls. He'll go ahead and throw it as far as he needs to in order to get the ball down there. It always starts up front, you have to stop the run. If any team can run and pass, they're really playing with power. If you can stop the run, eliminate the run, it forces them to play a little bit left-handed with only throwing the ball. It gives you a little bit of an edge. That's easier said than done. But I think our guys did a really good job responding to this team in whatever situation they're put in. You look at our defense today, there was a lot of waves in the game today. There was a lot of waves from Seattle of energy and momentum and things that maybe come together. Our defense just kept responding. Every time they got put out there, they just responded. They converted and got a first down, okay, so what, now what? Okay it's first down, play the next down. And they responded and were able to get them off the field. They went down there on the first drive and got the field goal. I thought our guys did a good job in the right area to hold them to the field goal. Again, this is one of the top red zone teams in the league so to be able to do that and hold them to three [points]. We settled down a bit defensively and then I thought they finished the game really strong. 

(On an injury update for Blake Martinez…)

Nothing yet, he's with the trainers right now. We'll have more information later tonight or tomorrow. But I don't have anything to tell you right now.

(On Colt McCoy's performance today…)

I thought Colt did a really good job today during the game. He made a lot of tough throws. We extended some drives and moved down the field. He did a really good job for us. He does a lot of things that you wouldn't notice on the stat sheet in terms of managing the game and controlling the flow of the game, talking to the guys on the sidelines, relaying information in the huddle. Colt really stepped up and had a huge game for us today. He made a lot of big throws when we needed them, he made some tough plays down the stretch, he made some right decisions and some checks on the line of scrimmage to put us in the right play that led to big plays in the runs. So he did a lot of things that may not show up in the stat sheet, but he played a big time game for us. He did a hell of a job preparing this week. Our quarterbacks work tirelessly, but him and Daniel [Jones] worked hand-in-hand together the entire week. They were looking at the game plan, studying the defense together, going out the field and working and talking a lot together. Jason [Garrett] did a really good job of mixing him in and getting him reps to keep him ready as well. I thought the plan was really good and I thought our guys went out there and executed it. 

(On how Daniel Jones looked before the game…)

I thought he looked better as the week went on. This guy wanted to go out there and play today. Ultimately, I just had to protect him from himself today. I just made the decision to hold him out today in terms of I didn't want to put him in a position where I wasn't 100% certain. But he couldn't defend himself on every play. I have to make those tough decisions sometimes and this guy is a competitor, he's a tough dude. I have no doubt that he would've gone out there and fought through whatever pain he had. But that wasn't the decision I was looking to make. Obviously, we had a lot of confidence in Colt and he did a good job for us today and we came away with the result that we were looking for all week.

(On if Daniel Jones will be back next week…)

I don't have the 100% answer on that. We want to get all of our guys healthy. I couldn't give you an answer to that one way or the other right now.

(On the defense getting production from young players…)

We coach every player on our team the same. We try to develop every player on our team. I don't care how you got here or where you were before. I don't care what your role was in the beginning of the season. We're coaching everybody hard, we're coaching everybody to improve. We're evaluating everyone on a consistent basis as to the improvement that they're making. We've very honest with our guys to make sure they know exactly what they have to work on and improve on. We've seen a lot of these young guys make improvement throughout the season. There's a lot of young guys on defense, there's a lot of young guys on offense as well that we ask to do a lot of jobs and they keep getting better. They give us confidence because of the way they prepare and the way they demonstrate the execution in practice. Overall, we're a young team, but we really don't care about that. I told you guys a long time ago, I love the fact that we're a young team. I really do. It means there's a lot of guys to develop, a lot of guys to work with and grow. I've seen guys, I don't care if they were on the practice squad two weeks ago or they're a veteran in this league, all of our guys are improving and all of our guys are helping us have results.

(On how Leonard Williams played today…)

That guy is a man. That dude is a man. There's things about Leo that you may not know by not being in the locker room with him. First off, this guy is a pleasure to be around. This guy smiles all the time. He's a great teammate, he's very coachable. You give him something to work on, he's going to work as hard as he can to master it. He gives us a lot of versatility on the defense because of his skillset. And this dude is just a guy that when you see him in your locker room before the game, he makes you feel a little bit better. Obviously there's statistics on the field that you see, what you don't see is what kind of guy he is to coach, what kind of teammate he is away from it. That's as important if not more important than all the statistics you see on the sheets. This guy helps everyone else raise their level of preparation and play.

(On the biggest difference in this team from early in the season until now…)

We talked about it earlier in the year with the same questions I got then, it's all about you want to win those game that are close at the end and it really comes down to what did you do for the entire 60 minutes. It's not just those final two minutes. It's what did you do the entire game to put yourself in a position and capitalize on it. What plays were you able to make earlier in the game that you had to go ahead and execute down the stretch as well. I think our team executing a lot better down the stretch, they've made a lot of improvement. A lot of that is from comfort of being around these coaches for a length of time. Holding on to the multiples that we have in the game plan on a weekly basis, the adjustments we can make on the sidelines going into the locker room. Guys just making plays. These guys prepare hard and they play well.

(On what gave him confidence to play Colt McCoy in this game…)

Confidence comes from practice execution. He's a guy that we see on a daily basis make plays in practice. Whether it's with our offense or whether it's against our defense, he does a tremendous job just making plays. He's as competitive as anyone in this league. You put this guy against our defense, you put him in a two-minute drill, he gives you headache after headache. This guy comes to work every day and this guy is a ballplayer. He grew up on the ballfield with his dad coaching. He's got a lot of experience. He's not a guy who's out of his comfort zone stepping into a huddle. That's really where he's meant to be. You put him in the huddle right there and that's not something that he's not prepared to do. He's done that his entire life. 

(On guys who weren't on the original roster contributing now and what that says about the personnel department and the GM…)

I think they do a great job. We talk a lot of times about digging and finding. Really what I'm most interested in is just find us guys that we can develop. Find us a guy that has the skillset, toolset and the right mental make up and attitude that we can work with. It's important for us to be able to build a team that's got that smart, tough, fundamentally sound scope that we're looking to build with. We want to find guys who you can coach and you can do more than one thing. We want to find guys who are mentally and physically tough. I think they've done a good job of going out there and really digging and finding. We've got a lot of guys that maybe someone else may have thought was under the radar, but for us, they were right on our scope. We're fortunate enough to bring these guys into our program, we're fortunate enough to work with them on a daily basis. And I'm just proud of the way they work and improve on a daily basis.

Quarterback Colt McCoy

(On the feeling of doing his job today and being successful…)

Yeah I am just so proud to be part of this team. We had zero points at halftime and the defense was playing lights-out and we rallied together and they helped me out, they calmed me down. I felt like I played a little better as the game went on. I was seeing a lot of things early. They pressured a lot and I wasn't confused on a whole lot of looks, I just was kind of seeing it too quick. I just needed to calm down, take a breath and once we started to run the football I felt a lot better. That's a really good football team, but to me the offensive line and the defense deserve all the credit for this one – they played outstanding.

(On how much they threw the ball downfield and what was in the game plan for the balance…)

It's just kind of how it unfolded. They have a really good front. We felt like we liked out matchups outside. They were heating us up early in the game and to have that much time to push the ball down the field is tough, unless you use play-action. We had a nice second drive of the game and I turned it over down in the red zone. That took away points, that was a tough one. But, as the game went on we just kind of played to how it was going. We definitely we had a plan to attach but you get into a game you never know how they're going to respond and what we need to do.

(On when he knew he would be getting the start this week…)

DJ (Jones) communicated with me pretty well all week long and he kind of knew it was going to be a long-shot for him. So, I got to take a bunch or reps this week and felt good with them. Again, I have to tip my hat to our coaches and to the guys on my side of the ball because I just told them that I don't want to change much. You guys are on a three-game win streak and you're playing well and you're playing a high level and playing with a lot of confidence. So, I just studied all week to pick up where we left of in Cincinnati. Fortunately, our run-game was outstanding and that really calmed me down in the second half and was able to finish it out.

(On if he feels like he did a good job with line-of-scrimmage adjustments…)

That's a big part of it. Just communicating up front, you know, we did everything on the ball and the Seahawks pose a lot of problems. They show a lot of looks and 33 (Adams) can ruin a game. So, always understanding where he is, making the right checks and getting us into the right protections, I felt like for most of the game we did a good job of that, especially in the second half. Those guys up front really dominated and helped us come up with this win, for sure.

(On how personally gratifying it was for him to get a win today…)

It's very gratifying. I talked to the guys, Coach Judge let me break down the team at the end and I just told them how proud I was to be a part of this, to be with this group of guys, and that's special to me. I love the game of football. I've been playing for eleven years and I'm fortunate to still be playing. I count my blessings every day. To come in here on the road and figure out a way to help our team get a win… Obviously there's things I can do better, one hundred percent. I played so far from perfect, but I think I did a good job in the second half settling down and seeing things and taking a breath. I felt like in the first half I just was ahead of the play a lot, which, I hadn't done it in a while. Again, I love the game, I love being able to play, and playing with this group is pretty special and I am really appreciate of it.

(On the defense's performance…)

I play against those guys every week. Our defense is great, especially up front and in the secondary. They work so hard. I can't tell you how focuses and determined they are every week to be great. There's a lot of leaders on the defense and those guys are playing at a really high level. They did it again today and came up big for us. You don't win a lot of games when you have zero points at halftime. So, our defense kept us in it and we came out and made some plays in the second half and put together a nice team win.

(On who helped him the most to prepare for his start today…)

Lots of people. I want to say something in particular: Daniel Jones is phenomenal guy, he is a great quarterback, he's the leader of this football team. He doesn't miss a beat in meetings. He knew he wasn't going to play and from the things he helped me with on the sidelines, to during the week, we have a great relationship. The Giants are lucky to have him, one hundred percent. He was a big help, Jason (Garrett) was a big help, I thought Jason called a really good game. He calmed me down there when things weren't going great. He knew I was seeing it, I just needed to take a few breathes. Again, playing on the road like this against this defense, they pose a lot of problems in your protections. They come after you, I think they were like 81% pressure coming into this game over the last three of four weeks. So as a quarterback when you're not playing a lot you feel that and you prepare for that and DJ just helped me calm down, see it all week long. Obviously I can be a lot better, let's get that straight, but to come out on top today, hats-off to our defense and to the offensive line, our running backs ran well, receivers caught the ball, and it's fun to be a part of it, for sure.

Defensive Lineman Leonard Williams

(On how the defense has come together the last 3-4 games…)

Overall, this game was a tough game. It clearly came down to the last minute so that feeling coming into the locker room and celebrating with the guys is on the positive side of it. Winning, coming all the way out here to the west coast and going back home with the win, that felt amazing. Even on top of that, it felt better to help our team get to that win. Like you said, the defense played lights out, the offense was running the ball and I felt like we played some hard-nosed football today.

(On contributions from younger players the past few games…)

I was actually talking about that to Carter [Coughlin] on the sideline. I was giving props to [Defensive Coordinator Patrick Graham] about how good he's been doing with the guys that he has. We have such young guys on defense like Carter and Cam [Brown]. We have some undrafted guys and I feel like they've been stepping up big time. Once again, Niko [Lalos] had another turnover on his side. He's like two for two now, two games and two takeaways. Tae [Crowder] came back and got a sack, he's been doing great. And Carter and Cam have been doing great on special teams and on defense. I feel like a lot of these young guys have been stepping up big for us. 

(On losing close games early in the season and what they've learned from that…)

Honestly, I think then more than now is when I realized how good of a team we have. Just because even though we were losing, this team never broke apart, this team came even closer together after those losses and we worked hard as crap. We were coming into work with a chip on our shoulder every day and we still are. I think it's showing in the way we play, it's showing in our togetherness. I think in the beginning of the season when we were losing is when I was almost more proud of these guys than now. I think it shows because of how locked in we all are. 

(On what they did on defense to confuse Russell Wilson today…)

Honestly, I don't know. I think we just have a great secondary. I think schematically, we did a good job making him feel pressure and making him uncomfortable. He felt like he had a guy on his side and had to hold the ball. I felt like we were coming at him from a lot of angles and it made him a little bit confused sometimes. Overall, he's the head of the offense being the quarterback and making him uncomfortable is what we needed to do. I think we did a good job of that.

(On what it means to him to be sitting on top of the NFC East with a chance to get to the playoffs for the first time in his career…)

I think it means a lot. This has been a fun season and I think the beginning of the season is when the team and the guys and the coaches prove to each other what type of team we really have. It's easier to be happy and see the good things when you guys are winning, but I feel like we all see the good things in each other and what we have, even when we were losing. That just helped continue to build our confidence in each other and build on what we have working here. Eventually, it turns into a snowball and it keeps building up. I feel like we have a real culture here now and I love the way this team is going.

(On what the turning point was for this defense and how they can get better from here…)

I can't really find a definite turning point but I felt like we were a young, new defense and we were all still getting to know each other, the coordinator and the coordinator is still getting to know the players and who he has. I felt like we were really good in certain areas in the beginning of the season and then we would not be as good in certain areas and I felt like eventually, we just finally started putting it all together. That just comes from growth and knowing each other.

Running Back Wayne Gallman

(On what changed at halftime to turn the running game around…)

One thing that changed is we knew we needed to come out and hit them first. Really, that was it. We knew we couldn't play around anymore. Just being short with ourselves, really just believing in ourselves going into that second half. Really just executing. That was our biggest thing.

(On what his 60-yard run looked like from his perspective…)

The [offensive] line did their job. Everybody sealed, I pulled the linebackers in as much as I could and I just hit it. The [offensive] line has been doing a great job. I credit the coaches. During the week, every week I say we try to get 1% better and we've really done that. Big credit to the offensive line today.

(On if they were specifically attacking the edges in the second half…)

A lot of their looks in the first half didn't have us confused, but they were moving in different ways. Some of our reads were wrong sometimes, but that's what adjustments are for. That's why in the second half, we were able to come out and we just did what we needed to do to win this game.

(On the vibe of the team now that they've strung some wins together…)

Not saying that we didn't have a team before in the past, but this team, everyone wants it. From our coaches, to our owners, to the players. We really want it. We know what we have and we just have to keep on going every week. We can't take any week for granted. We just have to put that work in for the next four weeks that we have and see what happens.

Safety Jabrill Peppers

(On the walking off the field with a win this afternoon…)

It felt good man, it felt good. We know we have to keep stacking them. That was a great team we just played but we know we have another great team coming in next week. We're going to enjoy the win tonight, get this tape corrected, cleaned up and shift our focus to Arizona

(On the final pass play that fell to the turf for Seattle…)

Just keep everything in front of us. We knew Russ (Wilson) likes to make plays with his legs, getting outside the pocket so he can see the whole field. We just wanted to make things difficult on him. Make him throw into tight windows, make those guys make contested catches, and keep everything in front of us. That last play, it was fourth and long. We knew they had a while to get the first down and we just backed our coverage up and forced them to make a play. It rolled in our favor.

(On his mind set watching that final pass go up into the air…)

Just don't let him catch it! We know Russ (Wilson) is a hell of a deep-ball thrower, one of the best in the business. We just wanted to surround the ball with as many defenders and we can and make sure either we catch it, or nobody catches it.

(On anything different they did in preparation for today's game that made a difference…)

We walked in here confident, I'm not going to lie. Team had a different swagger about them, team had a different juice about them today because we knew if we played our brand of football we knew we could shock a lot of people. The ball rolled in our favor. I'm proud of the way guys fought. The offense sticking with the game plan, sticking with the run, playing hard-nosed football. Us just doing what we do on defense. We don't care when we get caught, we just go out there and we're just going to respond.

(On what their brand of defensive football is…)

Just tough, hard-nosed, physical, disciplined football, man. We know those guys get paid too. We know they're going to make plays, but just keep making them snap the ball, keep playing hard-nosed physical, be great tacklers and good things will happen for you.

(On the corner they have turned and how they can keep their momentum going…)

I just think guys are gelling better. I think we're figuring out what each other is good at, how to play off one another. I think the coaches are doing a great job with the game plan and putting guys in position to excel. As the season goes on teams either decend or ascend and we wanted to make sure we were one of the those ascending teams who keep getting better week in and week out. Trusting the process, trusting the game plan, really buying into what the coaches want from us, what the coaches expect from us. We expect things too as players. There's a certain style, a certain brand that we expect each and every one of us to play with. I think we've been doing a good job of bringing that out.

(On the job their defensive coaching has done to build confidence in their guys…)

Like I said, he's (DC Graham) done a hell of a job as the year went on he started to get to know his guys a little better, what we're good at, what our best attributes are, and putting us in the best possible positions to make plays. We just want to go out there and play hard and make those plays for them.

(On starting the season 1-7 and now sitting 5-7…)

Just trusting the process. We just really ignored the outside noise and keep working. We know we have a great group of guys, we've got a damn good team here we just had to execute and buy-in to the most minute details. When you really look at it, those losses were a play here, or a play there. If we eliminated those mental errors and play our brand of football, then we felt pretty good about the rest of this season.

(On why this defense has been able to play at a high level despite plenty of new faces in the lineup…)

It's a standard. Like I said, coaches expect big things from us and we as players have a standard that we expect people to play by. We don't care who is out there, that's the standard and if you're not going to play up to the standard then guys aren't going to be out there. We just keep playing our brand of football. We don't care when we're called to go out there, we know we have a job to do when we go out there and that is to execute.

Running Back Alfred Morris

(On what it was like experience a long down time in his career and if he doubted he would make it back to a performance like today's…)

I'm going to be honest, most days I didn't doubt, but there was a couple days I doubted like, 'Man, why am I training, why am I doing this? It looks bleak…' but I was always reminded why I kept going and an opportunity presented itself so I am super thankful. It's been a while since I got into the end zone, so that felt really good today to get in there not once, but twice. Shout out to Wayne (Gallman Jr.) for setting both of those up!

(On the running attack today and how they were able to create success…)

One of the things we do really well is communicate, me and Wayne (Gallman Jr.), Dion (Lewis) Eli (Penny), as well as the coach. We were talking that they can't keep this up the entire game, there's no way. They basically came out and played us like the Bengals did, they wanted to stack the box, they wanted to shoot every gap. They wanted to basically make us one-dimensional. We knew that we had to keep the run game going so we had to continue to run hard. Wayne has done an amazing job with that. He lights a fire up in all of us, so I wanted to do my part. We knew it was going to pop and we came out, we kept stacking, and were able to get out on the edge and just a perfect block, Wayne read it perfectly and was able to go down the sideline, so that definitely lit a fire up in not just the running backs but also the O-line. Once you get that going it's a steamroll effect and you just want to keep going, keep going and we were able to do that.

(On his touchdown catch and if he almost dropped it…)

Oh no, I definitely double-caught it! I was just so wide-open I just assumed somebody was going to be there. I think they were planning for us to run a gap run again, which I think that drew them in and normally I don't do those type of plays. So I think it just made it work that much more and I was able to just creep out into the flat and I was so open that's why I kind of double-caught it. That was actually my first receiving touchdown, so that was huge and felt really good to get into the end zone.

(On his fill-in quarterback's performance today…)

I've spent quite a bit of time with Colt (McCoy), as well back in Washington. For me it was easy, it was comfortable. I think he's very poised. I think he handled what was given to him very well. He threw the ball really well. When he had to he was a magician, he escaped some things. He was able to get out and use his legs. It was as great team-win. We all really rallied around him and rallied around each other and were able to move the ball down the field when it really mattered. Slow to start, but we finished strong and that's what really matters.

(On joining the team at 0-3 and what he saw in the group at that time…)

I felt like it was a very talented team. It was young in some regards but it had like veteran talent, but I felt like it was something missing. Not really sure what that was but I think we are figuring it out and guys are realizing just how good we can be and how good we are becoming.