What The Cowboys Said Following Their 21-12 Loss To The Seahawks

Check out what the Dallas Cowboys said following their 21-12 loss to the Seahawks in Week 16: Head Coach Jason Garrett (On being eliminated from the playoffs and today’s game...) “Obviously it was a big game for us, and we needed to win it, and we didn’t do the things necessary to win it. I thought our team fought hard and battled hard. We just didn’t play well enough. Turnovers were a big part of this game. The missed field goals at the end certainly hurt us. So you have to do those basic fundamental things. They scored one of their touchdowns on the interception return and then the other two turnovers gave them two other opportunities to score. I thought our defense did a good job battling throughout the ball game. We limited them to not many yards. I thought we controlled the game offensively, we just didn’t cash in once we got in there close. Ultimately those are the things that are the difference between winning and losing ball games. We did a good job executing in all the phases to cash into the important things to win games.” (On what he thought Seattle did to fluster Dak...) “Well they’re a good football team. They play good defense, they have good rushers. They do a good job at getting at the quarterback. They’re fast in the back end of it. I thought at times he did a very good job and other times he didn’t do well enough for the passing game.” (On Dak’s interceptions...) “The second one was a play up the middle to Dez and I didn’t have a great vantage point of it where the ball was located. I do know the ball was tipped up in the air. The one that was returned, he was just working through his progression. I think he was shielded a little bit from seeing Zeke, and I think he was checking the ball down to Zeke or to the back and didn’t great a good look at it and threw the ball over his head.” (On what he tells the team after this, and being eliminated from the playoffs...) “I thought we played a good game. I thought we fought hard. We didn’t play well enough. We didn’t do the fundamental things. Taking care of the football is line one to win ball games in this league. That’s not only for us, but that’s for other teams. We’ll go back and look at each play specifically, as to why those turnovers happened. You try to rectify those moving forward, but they were big plays in the game, and when you do that, you don’t give yourself the best chance to win. The effort, the fight, the physicalness were very positive in this game, but ultimately we didn’t do the necessary to win.” (On his message to the team going forward in this last game...) “We just got to get back to work and we’ve got to finish strong. Finish is a really important word for us, each play, each day, each game, and we certainly have to finish the season the right way and we have the right kind of guys to do that.” Quarterback Dak Prescott (On tonight’s performance...) “It was frustrating. It’s hard to get over. I’m sure I’ll get over it at some point, but right now is not the time. It was tough. It was a tough game that didn’t go our way. We didn’t play well enough for us to win, simple as that. Just have to learn from it and get better.” (On his two interceptions...) “On the first interception, I did a poor job of staying with my pre-snap plan. I was going here, going there, then just changed my plan mid-play. Then eventually, tried to get back down to the check down, and my feet weren’t underneath. I tried to throw it off-balance, throw it over people, and it sailed on me. I went and threw the pick. It was a bad throw and I credit- or don’t credit- my lack of following my plan. On the second one, I just think I have to throw him a better ball. Put it right there on his facemask and don’t give him a chance to drop it.” (On the goal line series in the fourth quarter...) “I give them credit. They beat us situationally. We moved the ball and we had success, but as you were saying in the red zone we had to settle for a field goal. They beat us situationally. We have to find a way to get it in the end zone- myself, the running back, the running game, we just have to find a better way to get in the end zone.” (On this year’s frustrations...) “It makes me respect this league, the game, the preparation, and everything it takes to be great in this league so much more. Having a first year like I did, I think you almost want to take things for granted. And then you come in the second year and a lot of things just go against you and it’s tough. On the field, off the field- you have to battle through it and I feel like I’ve done that. I’ve given my all, I’ll learn from it and get better.” (On RB Ezekiel Elliott’s return...) “I feel like we moved the ball. We ran the ball with success. We ran the ball, we threw the ball, we just didn’t execute and get touchdowns down in the red zone and that is the difference in the game. We turn those field goal drives into touchdowns and it is a completely different game. We might be up a bunch of points, who knows. It’s just the situation- they beat us and it’s tough.” (On the team’s future...) The future is bright. We are not giving up on this team, we are not giving up on ourselves. We’re not giving up on anything. This year was tough. It didn’t go our way. We know we are not making the postseason, but hopefully it will motivate us. It will be the motivation through this whole offseason that we will come back ready to go once we get back together.” (On his message to the team...) “It’s tough to swallow what just what happened and the fact that we won’t be in the postseason. Right now if I had to say something, and moving forward I definitely will, it’s just about showing the character of this team and having pride in ourselves individually and having pride in our team, and having pride in this organization to make sure we go out and finish this season the way we want to.”Running Back Ezekiel Elliott (On how frustrating the loss was...) “It’s frustrating. We came out moving in the first half, but we weren’t able to get the ball in the end zone. We suffered from that later in the game. It’s hard to get a win in this league when you have three turnovers. We just have to execute better.” (On how the game changed after the turnovers...) “Turnovers change momentum. That’s what happened. I was just letting my teammates know that we were still in the game and had to keep our heads up and take our next opportunities.” Tight End Jason Witten (On his overall thoughts on the loss...) “It’s really disappointing. We had a chance and fought there at the end. It’s not overly complicated. Opportunities in this league are fleeting. You have to take advantage of them when you can. We just weren’t able to do that well enough tonight. Give them credit. We knew they were going to come in and play hard. They’ve had a lot of success over the years. They are a good football team. We just couldn’t do enough offensively to punch it in.” (On the team missing the playoffs...) “There is disappointment. There has been a lot of sacrifice. On July 25 or so, you kick it off with the conditioning test. You’ve been going for six months or so. When that opportunity ends for you, there is a lot of emotion with that. But as I said, it comes down to results and getting the job done at critical times. We just weren’t good enough." Defensive Lineman Tyrone Crawford (On the loss...) "It sucks, because we had it right there. This team’s a really good team and we would have made a great team in the playoffs.” (On Russell Wilson in second half...) “There are a few mental errors that we made to let him out of the pocket and make a couple of the bigger plays that he made. Like I always say every week, it’s on us when we lose a game like this, we could have done better.” Defensive End Benson Mayowa (On early-game success...) “It’s a football game, you’ve got to play all 60 minutes. The only time that you have control of the game is if you’re up forty-something to seven. It’s a back-and-forth game.” (On Russell Wilson...) “You’ve got to keep him in the pocket, he’s the most elusive I’ve seen since Micheal Vick. You’ve got to have a small rush. I feel like you’ve got to always go to his top shoulder but it is what it is and he’s having a great season thus far. He’s going to make his plays just like we made our plays." Safety Jeff Heath (On not winning the game...) “It’s tough. We knew we had to take care of our own business and we needed help along the way. Our main focus was taking care of ourselves and hopefully at the end we would get some help. It turns out we got the help but we didn’t fulfill our end of the bargain. It hurts but every loss hurts. Anytime your playoff chances are gone it’s tough but we’ve got a lot of pride and we’re going to approach this last game the right way and play well. (On defense playing well enough to win the game...) “We needed to get the ball. The games that we win we force turnovers and we didn’t have any today. We had a couple chances, the ball was on the ground but we didn’t capitalize. We need to get the ball back to our offense, give them extra possessions.” Linebacker Sean Lee (On the performance of the defensive unit...) “We would have liked to have caused some turnovers, we had some opportunities and anytime the other defense causes more turnovers, it’s a difference in the game. We needed to get interceptions, cause fumbles. We didn’t do that." (On the feeling after the loss...) “We feel like we’re a team that should be competing in the playoffs every year and to do that every year we need to put ourselves in that position down the stretch.”

What The Cowboys Said Following Their 21-12 Loss To The Seahawks

Check out what the Dallas Cowboys said following their 21-12 loss to the Seahawks in Week 16.