What Frank Reich Said Following the Loss to Chicago

Carolina Panthers head coach Frank Reich met with the media following Thursday night's game.

Opening statement

"No injuries to report. Tough loss. Credit to the Bears. Hard fought game. We knew it would be. Defense continues to play great football. Special teams played great. Offensively we were poor. Today was not a question of beating ourselves. We just didn't execute as well as we needed to execute to win a football game. So we got to own that and keep working at it. I believe we have the players and coaches to get that done. You know, players have a long weekend, then we'll come back in here next week and get ready to go.

Why it seems like there is no solution in place

"Yeah, no, all I would say is we're not -- we're not scoring points on offense. We got to be better. I believe we will be better. Yeah, I mean, that's how I feel. Listen, when we say -- I don't think we have any unrealistic expectations. It's not like we're saying -- we've talked about it before. Scoring is down. We've got to figure out a way to play well enough to win football games. That's what I'm concerned about, winning. I'm not worried about how many yards or what the stats are. I'm concerned about playing winning football. I don't want to get caught up in the stats. I want to get caught up in winning. We've had too many close games where if we play a little to focus on how many yards or what the run/pass ratio is. Those are all fair questions. Ask away. For us right now it's just making plays to win football games."

Taking the timeout on 3rd down and kicking a 59-yard field goal on 4th

"Yeah, we broke the huddle had a call we liked, but we also talked about another call. As we broke huddle, just said, you know -- we just together decided, let's go with this other call. Is it worth taking the timeout? Just thought it was important enough because it's third and ten. You know, it's a tough conversion. But we're at like the 40 yard line, so if we get five yards we're in easy field goal range. Not easy, but in legit field goal range. Felt like the two plays that we're talking about, the second call maybe gave us more options if we didn't have our conversion play, that we could still get five yards. That's why we did it. You know, honestly, as far as percentages, I felt like the percentages, you know, I listened to what everybody -- you know, listened to the analyst guys, talked to Coach Tabor. You know, there was mixed opinions about what we should do. That's my call. I've seen us make 60-yarders in practice. Felt like there was a little bit of a breeze at our back. If you just look at the pure percentages, I think the pure percentage play is to kick it. You know, fourth and ten conversion is probably 30% conversion, and 60-yard field goal is higher than that. Do I second guess myself over it? Yeah. After we missed it, yeah, I did. You know what I mean? The one reason why maybe you go for it there, even though the percentage play is to kick it, if you're just going pure percentages is to kick it, is because if we make it we still have a chance to win the game and not just tie. There was still time left. So yeah, that thought did go through my mind."

Bryce Young's performance

"I got to look at the film. I thought in the last drive -- that was the other reason. He made a couple key fourth down conversions, made some good plays in the clutch to kind of keep us in it and give us a chance at the end. That's another reason why I thought, hey, after the kick thing, just put it in his hand. Even though the numbers aren't great, let him do it. Let's just go with it. But I thought he did some good things. I thought he did some good things today. I really did. You know, we have to be better. It's so easy to put it all on the quarterback and it's just not the case. We all have to be better."

Offensive line struggles

"I don't think there is any one thing. Obviously the protection has to be better. I think there is multiple things that go into that. We're always evaluating all those. First of all, evaluate each individual one, how we're picking up games and stunts. You evaluate the situations we're in, the teams we're playing. You always evaluate every aspect of it." 

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