Here’s Pat Willis:
49ERS LINEBACKER PATRICK WILLIS
(on how crushed he is to lose this game) “It’s one of those things where you work all season long. You start at training camp, and then OTAs, spring football, then training camp and the regular season. To get to this point, it’s unfortunate that we came up short. The other team, they won and you can’t take anything away from them. They are champions and we lost.”
(on what part of this game will stick with him the most) “The clock striking zero and us with fewer points.”
(on if he thought he thought that they would come back like they did against Atlanta) “Every game is different and we got down in this game. The one thing about us is, we knew all along that we are a team that will fight for four quarters. Even when adversity hit us, we understand that but we don’t quit. We don’t stop fighting until that last clock hits zero. We just have another day to come out on top.”
(on if he has had a chance to talk to Ray Lewis yet) “No, I didn’t get a chance to talk to him. It’s got crazy out there on the field. I’m sure we will text at some point. I am happy for him and glad he was able to get that second ring. At the same time too, I really wanted it for us. I wanted to bring that championship back to the bay. Unfortunately, we didn’t get it done as a team.”
(on if it was hard to stay focused this week) “No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t hard to stay focused at all. We understood what was at stake and what kind of game this was. We understood the magnitude of this game. We just, I don’t know, we came up short. We came up short.”
(on if there is one part of the game that will make him most frustrated) “You can say that we were on the 5-yard-line and we should have scored, but at the same time too, we had every opportunity. Everybody had their hand on this game. We lost as a team and we win as a team. Just across the board today, we had some things that didn’t go well for us. We point the fingers at nobody. We all had a hand in this game and we win together and we lose together, and today we lost it.”
(on if the defense played poorly in the first half or there were just a few bad plays) “Obviously, they put points up on the board, so anytime the put points on the board then we are not playing too well. It’s one of those things where the defense was making plays. We had some one-on-ones and we are expected to win them. In the first quarter and the first half, we didn’t win. We were able to calm down and come back out in the second half, and they got a field goal, but we would have loved to have that for four quarters.”
(on the game that CB Chris Culliver had) “No I haven’t had a chance to talk to him. I got to talk to him a little bit during the game. I know that he feels bad. Cully (Chris Culliver) is competitive and he wants to win on every play. Today he had a tough one and I stand behind him and I know what kind of player he is. He is only going to fuel him to make it better.”
(on the effect of the power outage) No, I don’t think it had any effect on us. I think we came back out and played great football the second half. We just didn’t do enough to come through on top.”
(on if he anticipated the fake field goal that Baltimore ran) “No, it’s just one of those things that I just saw it and realized that I had to go. It was one of those things that I just felt like was just very disrespectful. It’s one of those things where they said that they are going to go for the fake because we think we can score on y’all at any time. At that point in the game, I kind of felt then that we were thinking about that point of the defense. To get that stop was big for us. At the end of the day we just didn’t make enough plays across the board.”
(on if the halftime locker room was similar to the locker room at the NFC Championship Game) “Yeah, it was a little bit in the sense that it was a lot longer. One of those things all year long our coaches talk about they say, ‘You just have to calm down.’ We got ourselves in a hole, but we got ourselves there but we have to fight and stay poised and come back out and just play. When you come back out and the first kickoff, they end up scoring on the kickoff, that was a little bit crazy. Even then, we still didn’t blink. It was just like, wow, that happened but we have to keep fighting. We still have time.”
(on who talked in the locker room after the game) “Nobody, man. Obviously, it was a quiet locker room. We understand that we are a team and even through adverse times we stay a team. There is no more next week. Now we just go into the off season and get ready to compete again before you know it. We are going to stay together and we are going to fight. We understand that this team won’t be the same, but what will come of it is we will stay together and make happen what we need to make happen.”
(on the long halftime and the power outage delay) “It was just crazy. We were just sitting down like, ‘Wow, this is a new stadium and the power outage goes out here too after it happened at Candlestick (Park) one time on a Monday night game. Candlestick is an old park and that’s why. This is a new stadium and after the last one, we understood that we just have to stay warm and get ready to play.”
Patrick Willis now must be considered the next Ray Lewis.