Edwards Q&A

Comments from Bills quarterback Trent Edwards following his team's 20-10 loss to the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium:

(On the slow start)
“I think it was the same old thing, the little mistakes here and there that killed the drive, or you turn the ball over and put your team in a bad spot. It is tough to move the ball and consistently perform well when you shoot yourself in the foot. That is what has been happening lately and we need to do a good job of fixing that pretty soon.”

(On the Patriots' defense)
“We need to give a lot of credit to that defense, they are obviously very talented, very skilled. They play hard, they play fast, and they show a lot of different looks. For me, on a few plays here and there, it is confusing to know what their coverages are, what their fronts are, and they do a great job of disguising that. That is what they are good at, and they continued to do that today against us. ”

(On his performance)
“I’ll look at the tape tomorrow and know better, but I do have some plays in my head that if I put the ball in a little different spot, you move the chains, and we are not getting off the field and putting our defense back on. For some reason or the other, they made the plays, they confused us a little bit here and there and, unfortunately, some of the balls were not where they needed to be.”

(On the first interception)
“I put it behind him and I just didn’t really feel confident with that throw. I just needed to step into it and make it. That was all on me. It was a good play call; I just needed to put it a little bit in front of him. Again, it’s not like we’re that far off. That’s what’s frustrating right now. There are a lot of guys in this locker room that are very confident, but that’s because we don’t feel that we’re that far away from beating a team like [the Patriots], or winning these critical football games.”

(On his confidence level)
“I’m still going to be confident either way. I feel like I can feed off the other guys around me, too. There are 10 other guys on the offense. Our defense is playing well. Our special teams are playing well, we had another big return there. Our defense got a turnover for us late in the game. I just feel like, I said before, we’re kind of shooting ourselves in the foot. There’s really no reason to lose confidence because of that. We still have seven football games left and we need to win them all.”

(On the Patriots defense)
“They were playing some deep coverages; the safeties were deep. They were dropping a lot of guys into coverage and you have to take what they give you. Unfortunately, when we had the chance, maybe on that Lee [Evans] throw, that I could’ve put a little bit more inside and maybe take a shot like that. But again, they were playing with some pretty soft coverage today.”

(On whether he felt the league is catching up with him)
“No, I think we’re just in a little bit of a place right now and we need to fix things really quickly. I don’t know how you’d describe it, but again, we’re frustrated because we feel like we’re a better football team than what we’re performing right now.”

(On the attention paid to his performance early in the season)
“I think this is a team sport. The media likes to focus in on individuals and that’s their job. I’ve said this all along from Day One that this team is what it’s all about. Accepting the individuals accolades, or criticisms, it’s tough at the quarterback position because you’re going to get all the credit when you win and all the credit when you lose. I don’t know if it’s catching up to me by any means, but we need to continue to focus on the team.”

(On if there’s a specific part of his game that’s changed)
“I think a little bit of everything, honestly. Underneath throws, deep throws, footwork, pocket presence, turnovers, it’s been everything; all of that can be looked into. I need to fix that soon and we’ll have a chance here when we play a week from tomorrow and we’re going to have our hands full again.”

(On not being able to be on the field with the offense throughout most of the fourth quarter)
“That’s partially the offense’s fault for putting them in that position. I give a lot of credit to their offense, a good offense that stayed on the field, converted on third downs. That’s how you win football games in this league. You have to keep the other team’s offense off of the field. I was pretty impressed with the Patriots all day.”

(On the third-and-goal play in the second quarter)
“On fade throws outside, when they give you coverage — which they had all day — we have to check to a run. We, for some reason, miscommunicated it. I’d have to talk to those guys, I don’t know, but we didn’t convert down there on the goal line. That would have been big to put seven points up on the board instead of three. That’s probably something that we have to fix, too.”

(On whether there’s a main contributing factor in the losses)
“It’s just little mistakes here and there, honestly. The mistakes that we weren’t making earlier in the season, we’re now making those mistakes for some reason. It’s probably on us, and it’s probably has to do with the defense that we’re facing and we need to fix those little mistakes here pretty soon.”

(On whether he takes any consolation in the loss)
“Not at all. Right now, I’m pretty frustrated that we let one get away there. I’m only really focused on the fact that we lost that football game. I knew going into this game that they were going to do exactly what they did. It’s one thing to watch it on tape and study it and put in all the work, but it’s another thing to go out there and perform on the field. Like I said, I give a lot of credit to those guys on the other side of the field and we’ll have a chance at our place at the end of the season. I’m hoping I’ll be ready for that, too.”