What Matt Rhule Said Following Win Over Jets

Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule met with the media after Sunday's win.

RE: Opening Statement

Just a couple of statements before we get started. Number one, I was very proud to wear the FDNY hat today. As a native New Yorker, I had lots of friends and people that I know, care and love be in some way impacted on 9/11. To stand there and honor and remember the first responders of New York, to remember people who ran towards the fire, not away from it, to remember all the lives that were lost, all the families that had to move on, especially specific to my family, remember Father Judge, a special man who gave comfort to my wife’s family after they lost my wife’s sister Cheryl in TWA 800. That meant a great deal to me and it was great to see the way the National Football League honored not just 9/11 but 9/12 today. With regard to the game, I’m very proud of our football team. We had a really hard camp. We worked really hard. To come into this game and not have any guys cramp, to have no injuries really going into the game, you know it was a testament to our players and to the people that work downstairs – our training room, the wellness people – you know I gave them all a game ball. I thought the strength staff; the medical staff has done an excellent job. Then obviously credit to the Jets. You can tell they are going to be a really good football team. They played hard. Zach Wilson I think you saw the special things that he is going to be able to do. It certainly wasn’t perfect. We would have liked to put the game away and played better. But to get the onside kick and pop a run into a four-minute defense was gratifying for all of us. We will get better. We will get ready for next week. But that was my thoughts. But I’ll just finally say it was great to play in front of the fans. It was great to walk off the field not having to hear Ed Foley sing Sweet Caroline in the locker room but hearing the fans sing it was wonderful and special. Thank you to them for the energy they gave us today.

RE: Being back in a winning locker room

It’s what you do it for. If you do all this, you put all this work in, you take all this time to have that locker room, to have that moment together and be in the locker room and watch those guys celebrate and hug. All kinds of crazy things happen in the game but it’s that moment, that celebration that is awesome. It was fun to be in there.

RE: Sam Darnold’s performance today

I thought Sam played excellent. A dropped catch early on here, and he was wrong on a play – he threw it to the wrong place, but I thought he hung in at the pocket. We weren’t great up front tonight but he hung in there, moved around and slid around in the pocket. He found guys down the field. Made key third down throws. Made key first down throws. Protected the football. We went into this game saying we were going to play field position. We felt like our defense was going to play well early. So, we were moving the ball but not quite getting the points. But just said let’s play complimentary football. Let’s pin them down. Let’s get the ball pack, pin them and eventually we will crack through and we did. I thought Sam played well for his first game.

RE: Offense maintaining the defense’s momentum

Yeah, we thought that was what it was going to take. We figured they would come out and try to run the football and have quick easy throws early. They did that. I thought really the tale of the game was the fact that our defense was able to stop the run so well and turn it into a drop back passing game. Then like I said, had some hard decisions to make. Had the ball on the 33-yard line and punted it instead of going for the field goal. That’s a tough decision to make, I can tell you that. But it felt like the way our defense was playing I just wanted to try and pin them down. We had worked on what we felt like we would get them down inside the five, inside the 10. It didn’t quite work out that way. We had a couple drives where we were able to pin them back and just playing off the defense. The defense made some big plays for us.

RE: Circumstances surrounding Sam Darnold fumble

I have to see the tape to see if [Giovanni] Ricci was too tight. Sam has to seat that ball a little tighter. Gio has to be a little wider. I think we are going to not just get the first down but walk in for a touchdown. We had it wired. Guys made great blocks. Who exactly it was, I would have to watch the tape to see. That’s a play we run all the time and never had any issue on. Like everything else, little things here and there that have to be cleaned up to be a good team.

RE: Shaq Thompson

Shaq kind of has that rebirth in that number 7 going back to his college days. I thought he was all over the place. He sacked the quarterback, intercepted the football, went sideline to sideline in the run game. I thought he plated really well. He is a guy that can do a lot. He makes us right. He can cover backs out of the backfield. The guy splits out wide, he can cover him like a corner, which he did on the one play on the ball down the sideline he knocked away. I think Shaq played a great game.

RE: Offensive line

I have to watch the tape always with the offensive line. We had some struggles, kind of some whiffs on some pass pros. The deep play to Robby [Anderson], we whiffed up front and Christian McCaffrey blocked the defensive tackle himself. If that doesn’t happen, that might have been Christian’s best play of the day. But I think overall, we played well enough to win the game upfront. I thought especially on the fact that we were able to run the ball at the end of the game. If Christian was able to go down, that to me, is what good teams do. They run the ball at the end of the game to put games away. I feel like that group is going to get better and better and better. I think Dennis [Daley] needed to play this game and kind of get his feet underneath him. [Pat] Elflein came out of the game for a little bit. Dennis came out of the game for a little bit. Trent Scott went in and played. I’ll watch the tape and probably have a better feel on Monday in terms of where we are at. But overall, I thought they were solid.

RE: Zach Wilson

He stood in the face of a lot of heat and made the throws down the field. We showed guys tapes of him from college pump faking and getting out to the right and really feel like we should have had two or three more sacks if we could have just kept him in and not let him get out to the edge. I think he sees the field well when he gets out of the pocket. He is going to move around. He is really tough. When Derrick [Brown] hit him on that one on the 25-yard line at the end of the game, I didn’t think he was going to get up. Credit to him that he did. Happy he did. Took them down and scored a touchdown. When you have a guy like that, you sense his moxie and he is only going to get better and better and better.

RE: Sam Darnold

It’s a good first step. It’s a good first game. I think for him this was probably a real step forward. He was in the moment the whole game. I didn’t have a lot of concerns. I was just anxious to see how he would be playing the Jets and that moment. He looked like he had fun the whole day. There was not a moment where I was like, ‘hey, calm down, hang in there.’ He was great. Coming into the game, I think I talked to Scott and I felt like he was the least of my concerns. I wasn’t worried about Sam. He was locked in this whole week. I think he has played that well. I think people will just have to wait and see how he plays as we move forward. My job is to help him play well. Not to see if he plays well right, so we will come back on Monday and Tuesday and continue to work with him. As I said before, he is the kind of guy you want to succeed. When you have those types of guys in the building things are good.

RE: Sam Darnold’s reaction to playing the Jets

I didn’t speak too much about it. My way sometimes is kind of teasing like, ‘Hey, are you going to be all emotional before the game.’ He was making fun of me before the game. He said you’re saying hi to more people than I am because of a couple guys I knew. I think Sam is resilient. I really, honestly, this whole week he has been so locked in. I didn’t have a question. I think he was ready to go all week. Played like it and just kind of hung in there. I we are that kind of team right now. We just kind of hang in there until we make a big play. I think we will just have to build off of it with him. But I like his demeanor.

RE: Linebacker jersey number changes

I think those guys came to me Monday or last week and Shaq was like, ‘hey, I’m serious about this, I want to change my number.’ I told them both I’m good with it. If you change your number there is sometimes some financial things that the guys have to take care of. So, I said talk to [equipment manager] Donnie [Toner]. There is just a process you have to go through with the league. I think one got approved on Wednesday and the other got approved on Friday. There is no rule about when you tell that so I didn’t see a reason to go announce it ahead of time. It wasn’t like it happened two weeks ago or something. It was kind of late in the process so just announce it at the inactives. I figured pretty quickly they would figure out that Shaq was in 7 and Jermaine [Carter Jr.] was in 4. I was happy for Shaq. We put up some of his highlights of him in college in the building. Him, number 7 playing tailback. I think he is a guy who is going to have a great season. He has played a long time but he is feeling good about where he is and I’m anxious to see him take off.

RE: Strategy to facing a rookie quarterback

We tried to disguise everything. They did a good job. I don’t think we fooled them. I think we were able to get there. I think we covered well. I think [defensive coordinator] Phil [Snow] made a decision early on that he was going to bring pressure. We blitzed. But then we got hung with some four-man rushes. They started to max pro so we lifted some four- man rushes and tried to cover. We trust our defensive ends to get there. At the end a couple times, like I said, we canned. [Jeremy] Chin came free on that last big play. Zach [Wilson] stood in there and made that huge throw. When you live by the blitz, there is always that risk/reward. But we got there enough but again, credit to the quarterback, he just kept coming back.

RE: Feelings heading into the first regular season

I was nervous but good nervous. Nervous in the terms of, I shouldn’t say nervous, I was anxious. I love these guys on this team. They have worked so hard and I wanted to make sure I gave them all that I could. You know what I mean? I felt like we are a good team, we were going to play well. I just wanted to make sure I did my job and I gave them the best chance to succeed. I have to be honest with you, there were some ups, there were some downs but I really enjoyed being on the sideline with that team. They celebrated together. They hung in there together. I tell the guys all the time to embrace those feelings. That’s why we do this. That’s what makes us feel alive. That’s why we are not going to sleep the next three days to get ready for our next game. We want to have that feeling of hey this matters on Sundays. I woke up today, I was up at 4. My eyes were wide awake. I was like, it’s game day, finally. After this you kind of get in the rhythm of the season but this first one, you go through that whole long process to get here. But I’ll say, I really like this team and I like the guys on this team and I wanted them to have success today.

RE: Christian McCaffrey

I think he did great. I don’t know how many carries he had. I know he had some catches out of the backfield and finally that last run. We tell them first down, get down but just how unselfish he is. He just gets down right away. He gets the first down, he gets down and we win the game. I thought he looked great out there. We will continue to build off of what he did schematically and continue to improve. I think Christian is ready to have a great year.

RE: Ryan Santoso

Obviously, he missed the first extra point which was disappointing. I have to go back and look. The first thing I try to do is check the hold, check everything, make sure we didn’t miss it. See why he missed that kick. But after that, I thought he made the kick that matter to go to a two-score game there. We will have to continue to evaluate, continue to improve, continue to work with him. I had no doubts about going back to him. I knew he would make the kick at the end that we needed.

RE: Having family in the stands for the first time

They were able to come last year. I’m looking at my wife, thinking please don’t say the wrong thing. They were able to be here. The only thing is my daughters were not able to come down on the field. My daughters usually come on the field before the game and yell at me to do my job. Now they send me a video since they can’t come down on the field. But more importantly, our players all had their families here and we had the fans here. I walked down from the JW Marriott today and it was cool to see fans and just see people excited about the game. Hopefully we delivered an exciting game. Now we will celebrate tonight and wake up tomorrow and get ready for New Orleans. 

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