STEELERS QUOTES  

HEAD COACH MIKE TOMLIN

General

“It was a very disappointing loss for us this evening, especially when our guys fought so hard to overcome the adversity. The reality is, you need to give credit to Denver. They really made the critical plays when they needed to and that won them the ball game. We accept what we put on tape and we accept when we fall short. It was a tremendous effort, but not enough to get the win tonight.”

On Denver’s Run Defense

“They did a nice job tonight. I think the Florida (Jacksonville Jaguars) game really prohibited us from running as much as we would like to. There were just not enough opportunities. When you turn the ball over, you tend to get one dimensional.”

“We knew they would come out in preparation to stop the run and they were. It’s the same cat and mouse chess game. That’s just football.”

On Coming Out In the Second Half

“We felt we had time to get back into the football game and we tried to stay balanced. Give credit to those guys offensively to come out and move the ball so well in the second half.”

On Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger

“Ben’s play mirrored our offense tonight, and that’s how it usually is. We really stubbed ourselves in the toes in the first half. Our offense learned a lot about ourselves tonight, to come back out in the second half and get us back in the football game like they did. You really have to give credit to (Jay) Cutler and his offense; they made plays at critical junctions in the game. He threw strikes that lead to touchdowns.”

On Daniel Graham’s Last Minute Reviewed Reception

“They (the officials) called the play like they saw it. There were a lot of opportunities for us to seize the game. Unfortunately it didn’t work out for us, and that’s the nature of the beast.”

On Pittsburgh’s Start To the Game

“You don’t always get what you want, and that’s football. You’re not going to judge how you feel about a game, based on the way you start. It’s a 60 minute game. I asked our guys not to blink in the face of adversity. That’s just how we started; you’re not always going to start fast. You can’t ride the emotional rollercoaster, whether you come out fast or flat. We made it down the field and scored on the first possession of the game, but we didn’t play well enough for the whole 60 minutes to win it, and that’s the reality.”

On Denver’s Offense

“This was the fifth offense in football going into the game, and we knew that. We talked about it during the week. They have great players and coaches. I’m not surprised at all.”

On Turnovers at the Half

“The reality is that we dug ourselves in a hole, and we didn’t stop digging. We knew we weren’t going to push the panic button, and that time wasn’t an issue. We knew we had to stop giving up big plays defensively and take care of the ball offensively.”

STEELERS PLAYERS

QB Ben Roethlisberger

General

“You know what, it’s a tough loss for us. Give them a lot of credit, they played well offensively and defensively. They got it done and we didn’t.”

On Denver’s Defense

“The blitzes we thought we were going to get, we got. They did some good things. We didn’t do so well, obviously, in the first half and a lot of that is because of me. You need to make plays and some of the plays they made, were just really good plays.”

On Making Plays on the Scramble

“You live by the sword, you die by the sword. You make plays with it, other times you don’t. You’re not going to look back and second guess. We have a day off tomorrow, and then we’ll get ready for a big game next week.”

On The Steelers Second Half Play

“I’m real proud of the way the guys came out in the second half. The offensive line did a great job. The receivers got open for me and even when they weren’t open, they made plays. We had guys step up big when we needed them.”

LB Larry Foote

General

“We need to stop people on third down and tonight we didn’t do that. We dug ourselves a hole a little bit. At the end, we need to get off the field and give our offense a chance. They hit us with a couple of screens and that’s how the game goes sometimes. We need to hit the film, work and eliminate that.”

On the Broncos Overall Play
“They played like an NFL team, that gets paid. They had a lot of enthusiasm. With a  team like that, when you don’t kill them in the beginning, they start to gain life. It’s still early in the season, their backs were against the wall, but we gave them a lot of stuff tonight.

WR Santonio Holmes

General

“You have to finish the game. You have to finish the game. You have to play well on both sides, offensively and defensively. Coming off of a win and a bye, we just probably weren’t focused. We came out and played good, but we played ok. We could have made more plays. Having a bye week, kind of hurts you. But at the same time, we just have to stay focused on the game.”

DE Aaron Smith

General

“I wish I had an explanation, but I really don’t. They had some success moving the ball and they made some plays that we didn’t. We knew they were going to come out and play tough. They had been backed into a corner. We just didn’t make the plays tonight. We had guys work their butts off tonight and we came up a little short.”

OT Willie Colon

General

“We started off slow. They didn’t do anything we didn’t expect. It was one of those things. We showed up the best we could. But, stuff happens. They kept us off balance. We’re never going to bow down to anybody, no matter who we play. We now have to get ready for Cincinnati next week.”

BRONCOS QUOTES

HEAD COACH MIKE SHANAHAN

General

“It’s always nice to find a way to win.  Pittsburgh is a very good football team, and I thought it was physical on both sides of the ball.  Both teams fought, and it is always nice to make some plays at the end of the game and find a way to win.”

On K Jason Elam’s Consistency in High-Pressure Situations

“That’s why he’s been in the league for so many years because he can do that.  He’s got great tempo, like a golfer.  It doesn’t matter if it’s twenty, thirty or however many yards, he’s got the same swing every time.”

On QB Jay Cutler’s Composure

“He’s fearless.  He goes out there and he completes.  If he makes a mistake, he’ll forget about it and goes back and tries to make another play.  That’s what you want out of a quarterback -- you want a quarterback that’s going to go out there and make some plays, and do what he did today:  find a way to win.  Especially when they got the ball back for the last couple of drives, began controlling the tempo of the game and making a bunch of third downs.  He kept his composure and made the plays he had to make.”

On the Players Encouraging him to Take the Last Challenge

“They told me to.  I don’t get a chance to challenge in the last two minutes of the game because the officials do it upstairs.  We were trying to challenge that, but for some reason they would not allow us to do it.”

On Takeaways

“We have to get turnovers.  If you don’t win the turnover battle, you don’t win the game.  We were plus one today, but turnovers obviously dictate the outcome of the game.  It’s been that way for a lot of years and will continue to be that way.  Fortunately, we won the turnover battle today and had a big touchdown on that DE Tim Crowder return on the quarterback sack and fumble.”

On the Broncos Defense Playing Aggressively

“We won a lot of third down situations.  We were more consistent and obviously played very well in the run support.  We gave up a couple runs, but that’s a good running football team.  I’m not sure how many yards they got, but we played a lot more consistently and probably held them to under 120 yards or 130 yards on the day. They had a couple long runs under twenty [yards] or so, so we’ve got a ways to go, but it’s improvement.”

On Pittsburgh’s Timeout before Elam’s Game-Winning Field Goal

“Well, some people wait until the last second.  For a guy like Jason, he enjoys the timeout because it gives him a chance to focus on it [the kick], so I was on the other side of Jason hoping they would call the timeout.  They called it right before the snap which Jason seems to enjoy, or at least that’s what he tells me.”

The Emotion of Rosalind Williams [mother of Darrent Williams] and Judy Nash [wife of Damien Nash] Participating in the Pre-Game Coin Flip

“It was really emotional to be honest with you.  You kind of have to fight back your tears.  I’m sitting there talking to both of them, it’s hard to keep from crying.  You look at them, and you think about the memories of Darrent and Damien, and you think back on the last year, and it was very emotional.”

BRONCOS PLAYERS

QB Jay Cutler

General

“We haven’t lost confidence. We had a bye week, we got some things cleaned up and it showed tonight. Putting up 31 points on a team like this, and our defense going strong gives us some confidence.

“We got off to a good start. We started throwing slants on the outside and that worked for us tonight.”

On having momentum in the fourth quarter

“We were confident.  We’ve done it a lot this year.  It’s something that we’ve worked on a lot.  In the Buffalo game and the Oakland game – it gave us a confidence boost.  The guys did a great job on the offensive line and played one of our best games so far.  They really stepped up during that two-minute drive.  We had some big plays and had a heck of a catch out of [TE] Daniel [Graham], and [K] Jason [Elam] was in the clutch again, so it worked out well.”

On fans not expecting the Broncos to win

“I kept telling you guys.  We kept confident in the locker room.  We had a bye week and we know we are a good team, we just weren’t playing up to our potential.  I think the bye week really helped.  We stepped up and the guys were able to get away and get focused again.  We had a good week offensively and defensively in practice.  We played well.  So hopefully this gets us rolling again.”

On the final drive

“We were confident; we had two timeouts and pretty good field position. Our guys stepped up and did well all day. We felt good if we had to go to OT.”

PK Jason Elam

General

“We played with a lot more enthusiasm, a lot more energy—I don’t know what it was. Hopefully we can build on that because we have another big game coming up.”

On getting the close win

“We’ll take it if we can get it. If we can get 20 of 21 we will take it (in reference to Colorado Rockies’ run).”

On the game-winning kick

“I get nervous in practice. If you don’t get nervous there is something wrong with you. You just have to calm yourself and have trust in your swing.

“That’s the nature of the beast being a kicker in the NFL. You have to be ready on the sideline when it is your time.”

DE Tim Crowder

On his fumble recovery returned for a touchdown

“We were all trying to get it. [DE Elvis] Dumervil saw it and it got kicked around to me. I thought [when I got into the end zone] it was going to be called back or something. I’m still looking for my ball.”

General

“That was a very good team we beat out there and it’s a good win. It feels great to win a game like this.”

DE Jarvis Moss

On DE Tim Crowder’s fumble recovery returned for a touchdown

“I had to drop in to coverage on that play and I thought it was a sack. When I saw him running I had to catch up to him to be with him. All I could see was his big ol’ butt running in front of me.”

WR Brandon Marshall

On game-winning drive

“That’s one thing we do is move the ball under pressure. You just have to look back at our history and the way we move the ball in the two-minute drill.”

On the team playing with desperation

“We were 2-3 playing against an AFC team, so we needed this one. We needed this to get our confidence going.”

On WR Brandon Stokley

“He’s not ‘Slot Machine’ while [WR] Javon [Walker] is out. He’s a captain, he’s a leader and he’s special for us.”

General

“It was Sunday night and the whole world was watching. We just had to turn it around, and what a good way to turn things around.”

WR Brandon Stokley

On injuries affecting the team

“This is the NFL. There are guys out on every team, and players just have step up.”

On the offense’s mentality on the game-winning drive

“We are going to make plays, get a field goal and win this thing. Guys just stepped up and that’s what we have to do to win games. Everyone on the offense knew a lot was riding on that drive. We didn’t want our chances to be decided by the coin flip.”

CB Dre Bly

On containing Pittsburgh RB Willie Parker

“Today we did an excellent job of containing Willie Parker. He had no explosive runs over 40 yards like we had against the Chargers.”

On defensive performance

“I liked the poise we showed as a defense even though we gave up some plays.”

On playing injured

“There was some doubt [about whether he would come back into the game], but I’m a fiery guy. In games and in practice I don’t like to come out. I want to get all the reps. I bruised my ACFL on that interception. You have to play through injuries, and with [CB] Champ [Bailey] being out I had to stick with it.”

S John Lynch

On the fans

“People talk about home-field advantage, but here it’s not just talk.”

On defensive performance

“You have to play sound. I thought we played with great energy tonight and I thought our fans were awesome.”

On honoring the memories of Darrent Williams and Damien Nash

“We talked a lot about honoring our teammates who were honored tonight and I think we did. It was emotional for us as a team, and it was another step in the healing process.”