What Frank Reich Said Following the Loss to New Orleans

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

RE: Opening Statement

"Start out with an injury report. Shaq [Thompson] did have a significant ankle injury. Probably is going to miss some extended time but we need further evaluation with the doctors tomorrow. We will give you the information when we have a full evaluation. Tough loss. We just have to own every bit of it. We have to learn and got to get better. Obviously, I thought the defense really played well. Kept us in the game for a really long time. I was encouraged. 6-3 at halftime. It felt like we were struggling, I know. Like we were behind the sticks all the time. Just couldn’t get into rhythm. Couldn’t get momentum on offense. Some penalties and miscues had us behind the sticks. Defense kept us in. Made plays, got some turnovers. That was good. I thought special teams played well. I was talking in there for a little bit, not with the team, just talking with a couple guys. I’ve seen this before. It’s not that far away. It looks bad but, really, I don’t believe that it’s that far away. We make a couple plays here or there and next thing you know you have 28, 30 points. I know that’s true. I know we have the players and the coaches to do it. I have zero doubt about that. It’s just we have to execute better on offense. I’ll open it up from there."

RE: Whether there are a couple plays that back up what you just said about being close on offense… 

"Fair question. Let me look at the film. Again, I don’t like to single plays or players out. But I just know in the course of the game there were a couple opportunities here and there that we just have to be better on and have a chance."

RE: Bryce Young handling pressure

"I think Bryce is handling the pressure well. Listen, he is a quarterback. Head coach, quarterback, we are going to take the heat. That just comes with the territory. You own that. You understand that when you are in that position. Bryce understands that for the position he is in. I can tell you this. It is certainly - our struggle on offense, it’s not one person. Again, we will look at the film but I thought Bryce did some really positive things, made some plays with his feet, made some good decisions, made good throws, showed plenty of things that we want to see. So, I was encouraged by that. I know how hard it is to play that position. I’ve been around it a long time. I know how dependent it is on everything. We all have to get better. Everybody has to get better - coaches and players. That’s the way we work through it."

RE: Receivers

"I thought the receivers ran good routes. I thought there were some things that looked good out there at times. So again, I have to take a closer look at the film, but, I am confident in our group of receivers. Yeah, I’m confident in our group of receivers."

RE: Whether there are any plans to have Thomas Brown call plays during regular season and whether that would that be a decision made in-game

"That is not a change I would make in game. Listen, I mentioned this before, the way that we call plays, I’m calling the plays but it is very collaborative. I’m talking to those guys on the sidelines but I’m the one that calls them. I’m always going to do what I think is best for the team. Right now, I think it’s best for the team that I’m calling the plays. I’m confident in the play calling. We all have to get better but I’m not ready to do anything there. Thomas is a great coach. One day I want him to call it. When that will be, I don’t know. Right now, I know it’s a lot of things. It’s not the play-calling. I can be better. All the coaches can be better. All the players can be better. I’m not saying it’s perfect but I’m confident we have the coaches and the players and the play caller to be better on offense."

RE: Whether you want to enhance the physicality of the running game

"I thought last week we ran the ball well. We didn’t get to the run game early. We were behind the sticks. I just felt like we were behind and in long yardage situations. I have to go back and look at it. It just felt to me like I wanted to call more runs. We had that one nice run on the second play of the game. I said, ‘Ohh, that’s a good sign.’ Downhill run. We busted up there for plus 10. But just had a hard time getting back to some of the runs when we were behind the sticks."

RE: Whether the decision to insert Calvin Throckmorton at right guard was injury related… 

"We had talked about giving him a few plays in the game so that was kind of planned out."

RE: How big a blow was the fumble after the defense forced the turnover

"You know, every turnover hurts, every turnover hurts. That’s one of those unfortunate ones. He made several plays with his feet today, just when a guy comes behind him, you know gets the ball out. It was a tough break, but we have to try to minimize turnovers."

RE: Whether he has a sounding board on the sideline that he relies on for play-calling

"Oh yeah, believe me, I’m talking to everybody, I’m talking to everybody all the time. I’m primarily talking to Thomas (Brown), I’m talking to Parks Frazier who is our pass game coordinator and I’m talking to (James) Campen our o-line coach. Those are the main guys. We are all collaborating, so everybody else feeds their information through those three guys and then I’m talking to those two games about finding out, hey what’s our next move? We collaborate on that together in between series, sometimes in between plays, sometimes thinking out two plays in advance. I’ll be calling a play on first down and I’ll say hey Thomas and Parks let’s just look at the third down options, so we can talk about it when we get there. So, kind of in that mode."

RE: Scattered boos when the offense was on the field

"Yeah, I don’t think that’s Bryce. That’s on me, that’s on our team. That’s part of it. I don’t like it. Believe me, we want to give the fans wins and an exciting brand of football. That’s what we are going to do. That’s what we are planning on doing. It’s a process. We are two games into a 17-game season. Things haven’t gone the way we want it. But nobody is throwing in the towel, I mean it’s a long year. We have another game coming up here Sunday. It will be up on us real quick. So, we have to learn from this one and get better for next week."

RE: On limited carries for Chubba Hubbard

"I just think it was more like we couldn’t get the run game going. Just not as many plays. We had 79 plays last week. We had 79 offensive plays. That was I think might have been the most in the NFL last week or right up there. So naturally everybody was going to get more plays on offense. Tonight, I don’t know what we had, but I know it wasn’t anywhere close. Like you said, I just felt like we were struggling a lit bit behind the sticks. I felt like we were going to snap out of it. I felt like we hit a couple of plays, there were a couple things that look good, and I thought we were going to snap out of it and we just couldn’t seem to do that. So, we’ll keep working."

RE: On message to the team after a slow start…

"This is a week-to-week league. All that matters is the next week. We started 1-5 and made the playoffs one year. I’m not saying that is easy to do, we don’t want to do that, we don’t want to start off poorly, but every year it happens. We can’t play all the hypothetical scenarios in this league as coaches. I understand that everybody else has to do that. If I was a fan or if I was a journalist, I would be thinking all those things. For coaches and players, we are thinking about Seattle. We’re thinking about, hey let’s watch this tape. Let’s see how each one of us can get better. And stay in the present. Forget everything else. All that matters is Seattle. This one there is nothing we can do about it except learn from our mistakes. So, we will learn from our mistakes and get ready for Seattle."

RE: Whether there is fear that Shaq’s ankle is broken

"I don’t know yet. I don’t want to say. So, I don’t have that information yet." 

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