POSTGAME QUOTES GREEN BAY PACKERS vs. HOUSTON TEXANS, Dec. 4, 2016, at Green Bay, Wis. HEAD COACH BILL O BRIEN (on giving up big plays on third down) There were a couple of third-down conversions, you know, our guys played hard, they always play hard. It just wasn t enough. We re not finishing drives. We re not finishing games. Very hard fought game, great job by them. Give a lot of credit to Green Bay, they just did a little bit more than we did. (on not being able to finish on offense) I think we moved the ball at times, I just think we didn t finish at times. We finished the one drive and then the drive there at the end, but we didn t do it enough. I think this time of the year we just got to figure out a way to finish drives. These last four games are all playoff games, that s how we have to view them. Three of the four are divisional games, they re all AFC games. I think that these guys know that they fought hard and they know that it s going to be a quick turn around here tomorrow to start getting ready for Indy. (on going for it twice on fourth down) I think the first one I felt that it was less than a yard. We just didn t get it done. We. Capital W, capital E. And then on the other one, same thing, I just felt like it was time to go in there and score and we did on that one. (on defensive struggles late in the game) Look, it s a team sport. Everybody is in this thing together. Obviously we are at the tough stretch right now, three in a row. We played okay at times, but obviously not good enough to win. So now we re headed into, like I said, these are games where we have to figure it out. If we don t, we re not gonna be where we want to be. If we do, we ll have a shot. (on Osweiler s play) Look, I thought he battled, it was a tough environment as far as weather and things like that. I thought he got us into the right play. I thought he scrambled a few times. He was pressured a few times. He hung in there and played tough. I thought he battled all day. (on Savage s elbow injury/infection) I don t know. I don t know. I have to check. I don t even know how that stuff gets out there. I really don t. I mean, I think it s incredible how fast information travels. I guess I just have to do a better job of getting ahold of that. I have no idea. You guys know more about it than I do, how s that sound? That s really good, when you know more about it than the coach does. That s awesome. (on Aaron Rodgers performance) He s a great player. I thought we got after him some, sacked him a couple times. Pressured him. He s a great player, he s going to make his share of plays. I thought we battled him hard, though. I think he would probably say the same thing. Again, give credit to them, they made a few more plays than we did, but he s a great player. QUARTERBACK BROCK OSWEILER (on playing a lot of close games) Without even watching the tape, I already know of a couple plays where it s this close to having a big play downfield, having a touchdown, an explosive gain. We re tired of being close. We really are as a team, we re all able to see it on the film. We see it on the film every single week that we re so close to turning that corner and, shoot, if you guys think you re tired of seeing it, we re tired of living it. The thing I will say about our football team is nobody ever tucks their head, we always go in on Monday, we watch the film, we re honest with each other, and we strive to get better throughout the week. That s all you can ask of a football team, is to play extremely hard on Sunday, to leave everything on the football field and then go back to work and correct the tape and be honest with yourself. (on the weather conditions) It s classic Lambeau - snow, cold, a little bit of wind. It was expected. We expected it to be poor weather today. I view weather as one of those things that, it s irrelevant. You can t control it, so why would you worry about it? But certainly, footing was a little bit different. There was times when the football was wet and there s nothing I could do about that. You try to make the most accurate throw that you can. I thought the receivers did a great job of catching the ball. The tight ends did a tremendous job of catching the ball and so did the backs. Elements are something, like I said, you can t control. You make the most of your situation.
(on offensive struggles to score points) It s very frustrating. Obviously my job as the quarterback of this team is to lead this offense to protect the football and to score points, score more points than the opposing team. Today we weren t able to do that. Like I said, I feel like we re very close to exploding as an offense, and I ve been saying that all season long. But it s true, we are three, four plays away from changing multiple football games. Because of that, I don t think we can get discouraged. You can t. There s no time to get discouraged. All we can do is show up on Monday, be honest with ourselves when we watch the film, and then when we hit that practice field Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, go out there and treat those like games and strive to get better. Moving forward, every game is a playoff game, starting next week in Indianapolis. We know how important every single week is. SAFETY COREY MOORE: (on the defense) "I think we played well together. We stopped the run, but in the fourth quarter, they made some big plays. That was basically it. I think our defensive line did a great job. We put pressure on (Aaron) Rodgers and made him scramble. Those guys did their job. We just need to regroup." (on Jordy Nelson's touchdown) "I was in my deep-third coverage and I couldn't see Aaron Rodgers because he was scrambling around. I kind of saw Jordy Nelson running free and I was like oh man, I got to get over there. That is basically what I saw. He threw the ball and it was a touchdown." CORNERBACK A.J. BOUYE: (on the weather conditions) "It was tough because between every play you had ice in your shoes and I had to make sure I had to scrape that off so I wouldn't slip." (on not having teammate Jadeveon Clowney for the game) "It was very tough because he has been going through a lot. I just told him to work hard in the training room and come back. I have a lot of respect for Clowney because he has been going through a lot this year with his body. He has sacrificed a lot for us and that is a big deal. We need him back out there, but at the end of day, it is the next guy up and I feel like we played a good game. We just didn't finish." TIGHT END RYAN GRIFFIN: (on his first half fumble) "I was just trying to make a play to get the first down. They went low on me and put a hat on the ball and it was slick out there. I can't do that. We can't start out a game like that." (on his touchdown catch) "Brock (Osweiler) did a great job. He just threw it up for me and I went up and got it. I was really the only option on the play, so luckily it worked out." (on the weather conditions) "I can't speak for everyone, but for me personally, I had to change my cleats at halftime and I changed my gloves after that fumble. We should have been more prepared for the elements. We knew it was going to be snowing." WIDE RECEIVER DeANDRE HOPKINS: (on having lost three games in a row) "We know the type of team that we have in this locker room. We know our goals are still in front of us and we haven't accomplished our goals, so we have to put these three losses behind us and move forward." (on the struggles of the offense) "I can't pinpoint it. I am just out there doing my job and trying to help this team however I can." (on the final four upcoming games) "We know the situation that we are in. We know that we are in first place, but we also know that we need to handle our business to stay in first place." HEAD COACH MIKE McCARTHY: (opening statement) Well, that was a good, bad-weather win. A lot of fun to play in a tough atmosphere at Lambeau Field. In a lot of ways that s the way it s supposed to be. Good victory for us. Obviously we know where we are in our season, the importance of December football and especially the importance of this win today. I thought we did a lot of good things in all three phases. Ball security, outside of the first quarter, was good for us. The long drives offensively in the fourth quarter are really what stand out as far as our performance there. Defensively, point total, keeping them down to 13 points, that s exactly what you re looking for. And I thought our return units, particularly, improved and we got better in that phase. Tough opponent, uncommon opponent like we
talked all week. Coming off this three-game stretch, particularly the Sunday night and the Monday night into the short week into the noon game, that was a concern of mine. There were a number of guys out there gutting it out, playing through injury and so forth. I can t say enough about Clay Matthews and Nick Perry and Jake Ryan for pushing through some things. Hopefully, we get a little help there this week and we ve got the Seahawks coming to town, so we ve got a chance to catch our breath tonight. (on how he feels about his team going into last four weeks) I feel good about where we are today. Really, my focus is getting healthy. If we can get a couple guys, maybe another guy back this week, that would be nice. But just get a little healthier and get ready to beat these Seahawks. That s all I m worried about. I told the team this the other day, until you win 10 games in this league, it s nonsense to talk about anything else. We re not worried about Detroit or any other team out there or anybody s record. We have six wins and we know we have to get to seven fast. (on if Perry can play through his injury) We ll see. We ll see. We ll have to get some more information on it. I don t have enough information to give you a good answer. (on if QB Rodgers injury limited him) More probably for me more than him. He wanted everything. He would have liked to have more movement. Offensively, I didn t do a good enough job getting the line game adjusted. We needed to get some things cleaner during the first half and I think we got that rectified in the second half and really, put the ball in Aaron s hand during the fourth quarter. I think once we get past this week we ll be fine. But he obviously moved around a bunch today. (on what impressed him the most on two long touchdown drives in fourth quarter) The timing of it and we needed it. And just the fact that you ve got to keep the chains moving and we did it with the passing game. To throw the ball in those situations, you throw when you have to throw, the wind has really been a strength of our offense there probably the last eight weeks. And that s what it came down to in the fourth quarter. That was our mindset and that s really was the product of going that way. (on if Rodgers and Nelson have their chemistry back) Definitely. I don t know how much more Jordy needs to prove. He s going through what every great player goes through that first year back from a major injury. He practices everyday and those are the little things that are probably the most important because I think his performance speaks for itself. Those guys played big today and they played big when we needed it. (on his decision to go for it on 4 th and two at the Houston 48 in the third quarter) Just felt good about the way we were playing on offense. And fourth and two, just the confidence in the call. It was still early enough in the game that I felt the risk and the reward was worth it. Those were the kind of things you look for. Clearly understand that the negative out of it. It was a field position game. We had the field position, obviously in the first half. And they had it in the third quarter. We were able to flip it once we got past that drive of ours. You think about all those things. Frankly, I had plenty of time to think about it. There s some little details in the run game and that s clearly a good example of it. We need to get the adjustments cleaner to our players. Because that conversion, we should have had that just based on the defensive play. They shifted into a jam front and things like that but those are good lessons for our younger players playing in that weather. This will definitely help us down the road. (on using RB Christine Michael) I thought we used Christine Michael just as much as he was supposed to be used. I mean, there s different personnel groups you get into. You have three-and-outs which obviously affect player s opportunities, but I like the progress Christine Michael is making. (on the going more with Michael, RB Ty Montgomery, and Aaron Ripkowksi in the run game is the plan from here on out) Well, I have said those three guys deserve more opportunities. We had some things, I don t want to overstate, in the run game that were not clean. I didn t do a good enough job getting them cleaned up and rectified, but when Ty Montgomery goes into the game and then Ripkowski plays, and Christine is doing some good things, those guys will have more opportunities. That s the way it has always gone here. If you produce you will have more chances. (on if there was anything in particular that got the Packers offense going on the long touchdown drives) Well, we just tailored toward our passing game, and I thought the protection was good. Aaron did a lot of good things. Obviously throwing on time, and some of those things, extended a couple big plays. Hit the whole shot there on the long second drive to Jordy. Just ran our offense.
(on how much credit Rodgers deserves for how the team is playing) He s playing great football. He deserves a lot of credit. The guy is an outstanding leader. He does a lot of things you don t read about because people don t hear about it. He s an exceptional leader and he s a great football player. You do what you want with that. Those are the facts. (on if he couldn t challenge the play where Davante Adams stepped out of bounds along the sideline) Correct. QUARTERBACK AARON RODGERS: (on how his hamstring is) It felt alright. We ll see how it feels tomorrow. (on if he came out of this game any worse than he came in injury wise) I don t know if you ever come out better than you did coming in, but I feel good about where I m at. I had decent movement and didn t do anything to create a major setback. (on if he curtailed his movement, and how much was the field vs the injury) Probably a little bit of both. We were going to stay away from some under center stuff, but we ve got a great treatment team here and felt progressively better throughout the week, so I wanted to get under center on a few of those plays. But, yeah, the hamstring and this field was pretty slick. (on if there s more caution if he knows the field will be slippery) I wasn t worried about my slipping. I felt good about my footwear and the advantage is often for the offense on a bad field because you know where you re going. So I wasn t worried about that. I was just trying to be smart about my hamstring and not extend too many plays. (on if he likes playing in a snow game like this) As a thrower you love a perfect environment, but as a football fan and historian you love games like this. These are the fun ones. This is Lambeau Field in the winter that we love. Unfortunately, we had some games last year where these were rain games, so it s nice to have the snow. It s obviously a lot easier to throw the football when it s snowing than when it s raining, so that helped today. (on how he thinks the quick-hit passing game works on a day like this) The timing was a little bit off because the footing was definitely an issue at times, so you have to slow yourself down a little bit because it s just tougher for the receivers to get in and out of breaks. Obviously, they know where they re going so they still have the advantage on a bad field, but you kind of had to slow down the tempo just a little bit. (on the 98-yard TD drive) We just needed to put something together. It starts with one first down when you re backed up. We had some good field position earlier in the game and kind of squandered it, and our last few drives were back on the two (yard line) and the 10 or 11, so for us to put together two drives over 180 yards of offense was pretty special. We had, obviously, a couple good drives last week to close the game out and did the same this week. (on if he said anything in the huddle before the 98-yard drive) Yeah, probably. We ll leave it in the huddle. (on where they think they are with a month to go) A lot can obviously change in two weeks. (We) were backs against the wall at 4-6, obviously struggling, but there was something in the locker room that I felt and l saw that made me feel like saying I think we could run the table. You can t run the table if you don t win today, so we re fortunate to get this one today. We re back to.500. Obviously would have appreciated a little help from the Saints, but we still have a lot of things in front of us. We ve got a very good opponent coming in next week that s going to be coming off a Sunday night game, so we ll check that out tonight and we re moving in the right direction. The defense is playing a lot better, the special teams has done a really good job. Obviously, the kick coverage today was important, Jake (Schum) had some really nice punts. Those are important in the winter time. It s tough to kick the ball at Lambeau in the winter. Offensively, we ve got to find that rhythm we had last week a little quicker. We didn t start very fast, obviously I fumbled the ball at the one-
and-a-half yard line there that hurt us (and) took points off the board. A game like today, you kind of knew if you got to two scores you re in real good position to win. (We) couldn t quite push it there, let them back in the game and then put together a couple good drives. (on if his confidence in Jordy Nelson is back to what it was before the injury) It never changed with him. I ve always been confident throwing him the ball on any type of play. (on what went through his mind on the fumble on the goal line) I can t quite say it here, my exact thoughts, but it was frustrating. Just the timing of everything was a little off and obviously that s on me. I can t have that happen. (on the difficulty of the TD pass to Jordy with him being so open) Usually, I think if you let yourself think about that in a dry-weather game it is actually fairly difficult because you re worried about the throw. In a wetweather game and a ball that s a little bit slick you re actually not thinking about overthrowing. You re just thinking about how that ball feels in your hand before you throw it, so I was just trying to loosen my grip slightly as I was releasing it to make sure the ball came out right, and thankfully it did. For him, it s probably a tough catch, because he can feel the guy coming, the ball s in the air it feels like forever, and he has to body catch it because of the wet weather, so I m glad he held on to that. (on Jordy s reaction to the big hit on the sideline) I ll tell you exactly what happened from him. He said he took a helmet to helmet shot and then the guy was kind of hunched over, so he had just told the medical staff, Hey, check him out. He looks like he s a little woozy, and then the guy started yelling obscenities to him and he (Jordy) said he was trying to help, and then he kept yelling obscenities to him, so then he probably didn t say any obscenities back. I would have but he s a little restrained. (on his exchanges with Texans S Corey Moore) I was just surprised by his voice. He s got a Ron Zook-type voice. I didn t realize that, so he comes over, he rocks Randall (Cobb) on the sidelines, he s kind of standing there, Peppers was coming over, so I was just getting them back on the field. He wasn t talking any trash to me, but he was talking and it sounded like maybe he was sick, so I just asked him what happened to his voice, and then he said This is how I talk, so I felt bad. I wasn t trying to make fun of him, I just thought maybe he was sick or something. But no, it was a lot of respect out there. I have no problem with any of those guys. (on the running game with Michael and Montgomery) We ll see. I think that today was a reaction at times with Ty (Montgomery). We wanted to get C-Mike (Michael) some more touches but I think it was more of a reaction of how we were playing and Ty obviously had a couple really nice runs. I m still going to sing the praises of (Aaron) Ripkowski. I think he deserves to be in there as much as he was today and maybe more. He does some great things for us, obviously in the passing game, he had a couple catches today, but running the football, he s just a downhill, tough football player, and I m really proud of the way that he s progressed this season. He's a guy you can really count on now, and that s saying a lot about him. (on if they can tell how well the offense is functioning in weather like this) You can definitely tell how you re functioning and I think we were not hitting on all cylinders there. We were not great on third down, obviously I turned the ball over in the red zone. We re trying to find what personnel group is going to give us that jolt, and it turned out to be our three-receiver set with Ty (Montgomery) in the backfield that kind of gave us that jump. Every game is different. Last week we had a lot of success with our 20 personnel, three receivers and two backs, and this week we started that. We had a little bit of success, and then we kind of got to our 11 personnel and Ty gave us a good jolt there. (on how he thinks he s playing now and what s changed, if anything) I m just trying to win football games. You guys can worry about that stuff.
SAFETY MORGAN BURNETT: (on the play involving his fumble recovery) I give credit to (LaDarius Gunter). He did the tough part, he knocked the ball out. And that s just something we ve been doing since training camp, just pursue to the football. You never know what happens. That was just a prime example of just running to the ball and the ball popped out. I was trying to basically get as many yards as I could. (on the defense only allowing 13 points in back-to-back weeks) Yeah, I mean the main thing is just winning. Any way that you can get a win, that s what we re looking for at this point. Things like that come along the way and that s great, but the most important part is just winning. That s two in a row and now we re just trying to keep this thing rolling. (on what the key has been to the better defensive performances) I just think, it s really just guys just having short-term memory. Whether it s good or bad, guys just having a short-term memory. Guys willing to compete and guys challenging themselves and looking at themselves in the mirror and going out and getting the job done and being accountable. (on the toughness and grit of the defense battling through injuries) Just me personally, I respect those guys so much for that because that s a lot of physical toughness to do that. It s also a lot of mental toughness to actually go in knowing that you re going to feel that pain, but when they say all hands on deck, those guys are an example of that. And they know that, we need everyone, we need everyone in this locker room to get the job done. It s going to be tough and challenging and at this part of the year no one is feeling great, but you have to go out there, suck it up, have grit and get the job done. WIDE RECEIVER RANDALL COBB: (on if he will get a fine for doing a snow angel in the end zone) I don t know. We ll see. I hope not. (on if he s ever done a snow angel and a Lambeau Leap in the same game) I have not and that was fun. It was definitely a fun game to play in. (on who has the advantage when the field is snow covered and slippery) I don t think there really is an advantage. Everyone is playing on the same turf. (on what clicked with the offense during its long scoring drives in the second half) Getting first downs. We didn t do that in the first half. It s as simple as that. We didn t execute. (on how hard it is running routes with the field in that kind of condition) I mean, it s tough. Every step you took, you lost the arch in your foot. It was just snow piled up in your cleats, so we kept trying to get the snow out right before we got in our alignment, into our stance, but it definitely was tough to play through. CORNERBACK DAMARIOUS RANDALL: (on how this team has responded with its backs against the wall and with injuries) It just shows the brotherhood that we have for each other. Obviously, we all want to have the best record, the winning record, but just handling adversity is the thing that great teams get over and that is what we re trying to do here. (on playing in a snow game) It was pretty cool. I don t think it was as cold as I expected it to be, but it was pretty fun. (on guys on defense battling through injuries and being part of the locker room lately) That just speaks volumes for the coaching staff and the guys that we have in the locker room, and everybody wants to win. That is our main focus, winning one game at a time, and that s just the way we ve been taking it. TACKLE DAVID BAKHTIARI: (on the weather adding anything extra to the excitement today) Yeah, it s December football, especially living in Wisconsin and Green Bay. Those are the kind of games that we enjoy, especially when we can put our hand in the, not necessarily in the dirt, in the snow and kind of get after the opponents.
(on if the offensive line knew they had to protect Aaron Rodgers even more so today given his hamstring) Yeah, whatever he s able to do, whatever his given his limitations, we kind of knew. You know, hold stout and we kind of knew they were going to try and test him. (on if there was any do-or-die kind of talk in the huddle before the 98-yard drive) No, just kind of, what we like to call statement drives. Hey, let s build one, one play at a time, let s chip away, let s march down there. Anytime you can march, 98 whatever, over 90-plus yards down the field and come away with seven points, that s definitely a momentum changer. (on the team wanting to play well especially playing a team from Texas in the snow) Sure, yeah. I thought that give them credit where credit is due. I think they handled it pretty well. The snow was kind of, that kind of snow is a little different, a little sticky. Real quick you go from having cleats to having no cleats.