Josh, you know, not where we always,
you know? Wanted to be with this.
What do you think you know
processing in the day after?
What do you think went wrong?
I don't think we obviously executed at
a high level and it starts with me.
You know what weren't as detailed as
maybe we would have liked to have been,
but again, credit to to the Bengals.
They had a really good game plan.
They came out and on both sides
of the ball and they were firing.
Yeah, we just didn't, we didn't answer back.
Josh, you from two years ago
conference championship appearance to
now back-to-back divisional rounds,
does it feel in your mind?
Like this season was a step
backward in some ways,
in the sense that you didn't advance
beyond where you got last year.
You know, I don't want to just discredit.
Everything that we did this year.
You know, there's a lot of lot of
positives that we saw throughout the year.
You know, a lot of adversity that this
team had been dealt and I'm still
proud of our team for how we handled.
Some of those really adverse situations
you know they, they weren't,
they weren't all easy and.
That's the NFL, man.
Every there's gonna be 31 unhappy teams.
And that this is gonna be the feeling
every year unless you win the Super Bowl.
So again, obviously we we wanna,
we wanna win our last game
and we didn't do that, so.
Lots to learn from, lots to grow from.
But, you know, we'll stick
together as a team and, you know,
as an office in an organization and,
you know, continue to try to figure things
out. I recognize that the hurt
is still fresh from yesterday,
but what in your mind has to happen to,
to push past this, this, you know,
this stage of where you've
been and in advance beyond it.
Yeah, I mean, it's a,
it's a loaded question, you know,
we gotta, we gotta play,
play better in the later parts of the season.
You know, we gotta find a way
to to peak at the right time,
you know, in the playoffs.
So we've got a lot to look at,
lot to learn from and grow from.
You know, we're gonna continue to,
you know, keep working on things,
Josh with your elbow,
we know it's listed on the injury report,
you know, through the season.
What are the steps forward in terms
of taking care of that is at rest,
you're gonna have to give
an operation of any sort.
Where's that at?
Yeah. No, we don't think operations
necessary at this time and actually
rest in rest and recovery is
going to be really good for it.
Yeah. How impactful was it
since the injury to the end
of the season in your performance?
I mean there is a period obviously
right after for a few weeks where?
You know, it was pretty bothersome, but.
Again, it didn't affect me all that much.
Just kind of felt like.
Maybe I was trying to throw it a
little differently and mechanically
had to change a few things and
and got away a little bit from.
You know how I how I used,
how my mom used to throwing the ball,
and that's just kind of a byproduct of that.
But again, it didn't didn't
affect me too much.
It just seemed easy. Did it?
Did it because you could
sense later in the year?
Like everything just seemed hard
for you guys lately, or did you
have that same sense of feeling?
I don't. I mean, it's the NFL.
And again. The first few weeks of
a season you don't really know.
You know who the teams are in the league,
you know the first couple games are a really
big fill up process for for everybody.
And as you get in the
later part of the season,
that's when you know the opposing teams,
you know defenses in a in general
are starting to click and you know
they're figuring things out too.
They've got film on you.
So we got to be,
we got to be adaptive and we got to
figure out ways to again make it a
little easier for us and you know,
going in the offseason talking
with with the coaching staff
and just figuring out again ways
to maybe lessen that burden.
So again, there's a lot to learn from.
Understanding that peaking at the
right time and also knowing that
some things were prevented seems
to prevent this team from peeking.
Through a lot of adversity from what?
From the things that happened.
How do you balance being?
Proud of this.
And yet still
unhappy with where things ended.
Yeah, well, again,
there's there's a lot of love in
this locker room for each other.
But at the same time, you know,
I'm sick to my stomach and a lot
of guys in locker room are as well,
you know, we wanna.
We want to win a Super Bowl and
that's that's our goal and that's
our mindset every time we step out
on on the field and each and every
year that that'll never change.
Sucks, you know,
feeling like you're close and
not being able to accomplish it.
And, you know,
it's been the last three years with the,
you know, very similar feeling.
We got to continue to, you know,
push out, push forward and, you know,
find a way to get over this hump and,
you know,
set out to accomplish what we want.
Yesterday. Over those conversations,
like with him and just conversation
really since the game ended.
Yeah, I mean guys are,
guys are competitive again.
We don't wanna lose.
It's not fun losing.
It's not fun losing that way.
So it's it's all understood,
you know at the end of the day we
gotta be there for each other and and
continue to keep pushing forward.
Did you ever feel like.
At any point this season that
there gonna be like disconnect
between you two or you guys like
we're on the same page at all
or was it just there's sometimes
more of those opportunities.
Yeah, I just feel like sometimes
they're there weren't that you
know that many opportunities and.
Again, defenses can game plan.
You know and try to take away
your #1 receiver and. You know,
that's that's just the fact of it,
you know those guys on the other
side of the ball get paid too,
but just again continuing to
find ways to to get him the ball.
I think it's good to go. Yeah,
I think it's. Yeah, we don't,
we don't play on any of that.
Josh, you mentioned that you felt at
times maybe that your throwing motion
was compromised a bit after the injury.
Did that improve as the season went
on to where you know now here in
like in say in the playoffs that you
were back to throwing normally? Or
yeah, I think really two weeks ago
is when I kind of felt like I got
back to mechanically what I like.
Again, being in the rotational thrower,
it's very kind of elbow prevalent and
maybe I got a little bit to more of a
linear type deal because I just couldn't
really use all that much force and
kind of flicking it out there, but.
Again, just just adapting,
Josh. We've seen this team invest heavily
on the defense last year, signing von,
multiple first round picks used on,
on that side of the football,
are you satisfied with the level to
which you have added on the offense,
whether that be up front,
in front of you or at wide
receiver and giving you weapons?
I love our guys. They they
battle their tails off.
Yeah, that that doesn't bother me.
And I gotta go out there and be the best
quarterback that I can be for this team
and just go try to execute and, you know,
trust the 10 guys on the field with me.
That made it difficult for the guys.
I mean they were bringing some
simulated pressures and dropping
a DN and bringing the star and.
You know, throwing some,
whether it be junk, tamper some post,
tizzone behind it and just,
you know, mixing up the looks of
where they were bringing pressure.
So again, just gotta be gotta be better.
You know, and they they all
played us yesterday, which,
you know, is a sucky feeling.
And we gotta learn from it.
Um, I mean the adversity
that this team had overcome.
Again, there's a there's a lot
of a lot of stuff that happened.
To a football team that.
I don't know if it's ever
happened before, you know and.
Just just battling through that with
the guys in this locker room and thus,
you know, trusting each other.
Obviously we want, we want,
we wanted to win,
make no mistake about it.
But you know,
I'm proud of how this team was
able to fight through some of
the stuff that we went through.
How do you get?
I mean the only, the only way is
forward and we had to continue to keep
pushing and learning and you know
talking with the the coaching staff
and being involved with that and.
Figuring out how. How we can make
this thing work going forward?
And how it's, you know, to make it
a little easier for us and again.
The NFL, it's hard to win this league,
you know, and and to have sustained
success is very, very difficult.
And you know, we've been in the
playoffs the last four years now.
You know, we've gotten close,
but we haven't gotten to where
we want to get to. And, you know,
we're gonna keep striving to do that.
And again, the guys in this locker
room have that same feeling.
And again, every year is different.
I don't know who's.
Like personnel and all that stuff,
that's such a different part of it too.
And you know,
it sucks saying by these guys that,
you know, you may never,
may never play with again,
never see again.
And that's just kind of the
fact of the league and.
It's a business at the end of the day,
but I've got so much love for
for the guys in this locker room
to talk about that.
You get drafted alongside a
guy named Jermaine. You know,
how important is it to keep a
guy like that in this building?
Yeah, I mean, Tremaines had a,
he's had an unbelievable year.
You know, he's a captain.
Calls our place for us on
defensive side of the ball.
A guy that you know has been asleep
for five years now and he's made some
some unbelievable plays and had some
unbelievable moments for us and.
And I don't know how that's all shaking up.
I don't know anything about that.
What? I love to have him. Absolutely.
He's, he's a difference maker out there.
Guys love him. I love him.
And he busts his tail.
He works hard, he doesn't complain.
And you know, he's the ultimate,
ultimate guy on defense that you
would want leading your defense. So.
I guess we'll have to see. And I again.
I, I, I hope we get him back.
You pick James based on what you
saw this year and be the number
one guy next year, hold that role.
I mean, yeah,
I I think he's got that ability.
And again, who knows what's
going to happen with all that.
So I'll kind of leave it,
leave it there. Go ahead.
Yeah, I thought,
I thought he did a really good job.
You know putting us in positions to to be
successful and you know if you look at the.
The statistics and rankings, I mean,
I think we're ranked statistically
at least pretty high in basically
all the metrics that you want to use.
But again, I gotta be better for him.
You know, especially when
he gives me some shot plays.
I had turned the ball too many,
turned the ball over too
many times this year and.
You know, didn't.
Didn't really bite us all that much,
you know, only losing three games
in in the regular season.
But there's opportunities where it
could have and you know just taking a
deep dive into that and understanding,
you know defenses as well as I can
and just trying to make the right
play moving forward and you know,
again allow this offense to to
continue being out in the field.
When you start, it starts now, yeah,
talking with the coaching staff and you know,
maybe taking a little bit time
off and just kind of.
Reevaluating things and and actually
letting the body rest and recover,
but again,
just it doesn't really stop.
How much room do you?
How much room is there? Still
a lot of room. Lot of room and you
know the relationship that we have and
the faith that we have in each other
and that's that's gonna stay high and.
You know recency bias from this last game.
I know everybody's gonna lose their
minds but we did a lot of good things
this year and I I, I I trust him.
He works. He works so hard.
He works tirelessly.
He's always in the building and he'll
FaceTime me at 11:00 o'clock at night.
Still here and and just trying to
find new ways to get the ball.
You know into to certain guys hands.
So I respect, I respect the hell out of them.
I really do.
About this community went
through a lot this year.
Do you feel that you guys were at
least some sort of distraction or
inspiration through a nice season you had?
And I know it didn't end that well
through what this community went through,
the sense even there's a sense
of responsibility for that.
Yeah, again, there's there's a lot of stuff.
And like I said, the way our team handled it,
there's times usually we could have you know,
allowed it to be an excuse and we didn't.
And it's another day we got,
we got the more back.
So that's that's an extreme silver lining
for everybody in this locker room.
I love both of them, I really do.
And actually is now much.
I love Matt, but. They they were,
they were fantastic for me this year.
Joe works his tail off, he really does.
He's extremely smart.
Obviously being an offensive coordinator
before and I'm sure he's going to be
getting calls and however that you know,
plays out is yet to be seen.
But case, you know, just the presence,
the vet presence, you know,
the things that we're able to talk about.
Not just exes and O's,
but from leadership mentality
and and that type of standpoint,
how to interact with certain guys.
He's he's been great for me.
And you know,
again it's it's the league of the business.
I understand that things
change up extremely quickly,
but I love both those guys and I'd
love to work with them going forward.
Yesterday said it felt like the
sideline lacked energy given
what was at stake in the game.
That sounded like a sort of
a troubling thing to hear.
Did did you get that sense?
And and if you did,
how do you fix that going forward?
You know, I don't.
You know, energy is created by execution
and we didn't go out there and execute.
So you know the 2-3 and outs right away.
They scored two touchdowns right away.
That's just really bad situational football.
It's bad complimentary football, you know?
And. Somebody, somebody's got to step
up and make a play, you know, and.
Early on in the game we just,
we didn't and that's just,
that's the fact of it and we had
an opportunity to make it A1
score game right before halftime,
didn't get that done.
So again, it's, it's,
it's a lot of complementary football,
a lot of situational football that
we got to be better at and especially
against good teams where you need
to execute at a very high level.
And we didn't do that yesterday and
I take that upon my shoulders and
I got to be better for this team.
This offseason, what's that timeline?
Yeah, most likely. I honestly, I don't,
I don't know when I'm going back to
California if I'm going back to California.
I didn't really plan for this to
happen obviously, so just kind of
figuring things out as we go here
and just kind of playing it by ear.
Umm.
You know, like I got a lot more to
learn, a lot more to grow from,
and I got a long way to go.
Yesterday. Preparation wise in the game.
Yeah, I think it's,
it's a mixture of a lot of different things.
You know, we gotta, we gotta be out,
be able to go out there and and execute
and again we didn't and whether it was.
You know, mental error on my mistake.
Well, they're sliding the protection
in the right way or the wrong way,
or, you know, calling.
You know, to play the right way
in the huddle, whatever it is,
there's just a lot of things leading up
to it that we need to be better at and.
You know, and again I take that upon
on myself and you know, I gotta.
Get this team to where we feel like we're
comfortable to go out there on game day.
And I'm not saying that we we weren't
yesterday we just didn't execute and you
know we gotta we got to be better at that.
You mentioned the turnovers earlier as a as
an area that you identified as a problem.
Do you feel it may be at times this
season that you were trying to do too
much or what do you maybe attribute those
to if it's something else potentially
again looking back at at
film every year it's just.
You know, you continue to get better,
but you look at film,
it's just like, God, why?
Why are my eyes starting
here in this concept? Why?
Why am I looking over here?
Why am I throwing this
ball stuff to clean up?
And again, with repetition,
you know I'm going to continue
to get better and I'm going to
learn a lot from this season and.
You know, come out and have
the hunger for for next year.
It's different for everyone.
Um, no, I I can.
I can agree with that statement.
I don't know for for me personally.
But again, they just, you gotta play,
play your best against really good
teams and and we didn't yesterday.
And guys, thank you guys for everything.