New Orleans is now a defense-first team…what?

Sean Payton

On the win generally:

“It was a good win. Obviously, always a tough place to play on the road, dealing with the noise. I thought our defense really played well after the one explosive (play) early on. We knew it was going to be one of those games that field position was going to be important, ball security was going to be important, and I think preparing in our mind for what we thought the weather was going to be like, maybe it wasn’t quite that . . . I never heard of a bomb typhoon, but that kind of gets your attention. For the most part I think we handled the weather. Kicker did a great job. I thought the special teams and kicking game, we did some good things, too.”

On the performance of Alvin Kamara:

“Do you remember two years ago? Well, but two years ago it was kind of a back-and-forth, low-scoring, not much. And in the two-minute drill, we hit him on a screen that put us up, and that was pretty significant. It was Teddy’s first start, and, you know you’re always wanting to get the quarterback going a little bit. They play a lot of zone, and even in the single-safety zone they’re really going to be into the hook areas deep, and I thought Jameis (Winston) did a good job, especially in that two-minute drill. That was significant when you can score like that and then start the half with the football. But we got a lot of soft zone in that. I was asked at the end of the half, you know, why Alvin so much? A lot of that was based on the depth of the underneath coverage. So Jameis was smart enough to keep dumping it to him. Typically a good two-minute drill, there’s always an underneath throw or two to the runners, and this was no different. Then it tightened up a little bit more in the second half.”

On the play of his defense:

“Yeah, listen, man, that, you know, they’re competitive. We knew kind of it was going to be that type of game. I thought, there were a couple drives where they got extended a little bit because of penalties. We knew that crew was calling the most coming into this game, by far, both on offense and defensive fouls. And sure enough, you know, I don’t know what the totals were, but there were a lot of fouls called. And that was kind of on par with where they’re at. They’re first of 17, so we’ll get a chance to look at that.”

On whether the Marshon Lattimore-DK Metcalf issues concerned him during the game:

“Yeah, because you don’t want to bring 140 people to Seattle from New Orleans and lose because it gets away from you. Everyone’s counting on everyone. And I get it. You want to be competitive. I think that’s a sign of a team that eventually you know how to win, and to win, and to win, and to win, and that becomes everything. That’s becomes everything. More important than anything else, it’s leaving with another win. You know, it’s a young team. We’re still preaching that message, but pretty soon you expect it. But then there’s certain things, you know, I’ve been in tight playoff games where personal fouls like that, I mean, everyone’s counting on you, no different than ball security, really. We’re counting on, you’re holding the ball. Everyone’s counting on you.”

On Demario Davis:

“Man, I just love the way he leads and plays with enthusiasm. He’s really developed into not just run but pass as well. You know, he’s someone who has good instincts, can close the cushion on a run or a play in space. He tackles well. He’s playing well, and I’m sure when we look at the tape tomorrow, we’ll see a lot of good efforts. That was a good hard-fought win. It’s tough.”

Brian Johnson

On making his NFL debut:

“Not to think about those things. Not to overthink things. I’ve just got to go out there and do what I’ve done plenty of times before. That was kind of my mentality coming into this game.”

Alvin Kamara

On playing in Seattle:

“It’s cool, it’s definitely a nice environment. Every time we come up here, the weather is s%$& but other than that, it’s cool.”

On Seattle’s inability to stop the run game:

“They are a good front, don’t get me wrong. They play hard, the whole defense played hard, but we knew up front that it would be a tough game to run the ball. Sometimes you get teams where you line up and you feel like you know what they are doing. Those are the teams that play the hardest because they do what they do so well. They have Bobby (Wagner), Carlos (Dunlap II), Poona (Ford) in the middle, and a gang of guys. Jamal (Adams) is out there, and they are making plays, coming up, and hitting. You have to stay true and try to stay ahead of the chains. You can’t be discouraged when you get two yards and three yards, it’s going to come.”

Jameis Winston

On Alvin Kamara:

“I can talk about how great of a player he is and how helpful he is to this offense just in general. (Alvin) is one of the most dominant players in this league so it’s always exciting when you put the ball in his hands and watch the things that he does.”

On the return of Terron Armstead and Erik McCoy:

“It was good to get in a rhythm and get (Erik and Terron) back. Those guys are leaders on that line so it’s good to see them have a great game and stay healthy.”

On a lack of deep pass completions:

“I wish we could’ve hit a few. Like I said, we’re going to continue to get better. I was happy to have Kevin (White) up. He was open on a few of them. Like I said, we’re going to continue to get better and get healthy in that receiver room and just keep working.”

On when he decides to run versus pass:

“I’m always trying to pass. I’m always trying to look down the field and get a completion. It’s not really second guessing, I’m just feeling the situation and assess the coverage to see if I can get the ball down the field and then take off and run.”

Demario Davis

On the defense:

“We take a lot of pride in our defense. We’ve got to be able to play complimentary football. We have a very high standard for our group and there’s no other way that we would take it. Defense on the field with the game on the line. We get excited and we play with a lot of energy in those situations.”

On the the play of the defense finally resulting in sacks:

“That’s a credit to the cover guys. We can take away the first read, and he has to hold the ball. Credit to the D coordinator and the d-line having a good rush plan for us. And then guys just executing their job. It’s fun to play on defense when you know that all you have to do is do your job and it’s going to work. Guys did their job. I think we were getting pressures early on, but we weren’t getting them to the ground, we’ve got to find a way to get him on the ground. They have a good offensive line. Geno (Smith) was making his reads and doing a good job, we just have to execute there.”

Cam Jordan

On the return of Marcus Davenport:

“As we get healthier and healthier every week it’s going to become even more abundant. Yes, Marcus (Davenport) came back I was excited. We’ve had enough adversity, I’m getting more and more excited for the next d-lineman coming back. I don’t want to talk about it until it’s there. It’s like trying to open a Christmas present too early, you’ve got to wait your turn.”

On what this win means moving forward:

“I hope it’ll just be the win. Other than the confidence we get for the defense finishing out like this. As we get further away from here I hope it tallies up more and more wins. At the end of the year it doesn’t matter how close we came, it matters about the win column. As we try and get to our goal, we have to get more and more W’s (wins).”

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