It hurt more than anything that I was so close to the goal and not enough.
As such, Wilkes’ words came as scathing to the team. Many in that locker room believed his message and were convinced he was going to do something statistically near impossible to recover from a 1-5 start heading into the postseason.
Those who were here during the good times knew how close we were to the playoffs and each other, which made it difficult to put into words.
“I’m not sure deflating is the right word,” said JJ Jansen of Long Snapper. “It’s hard. It hurts. We have a really good team, a really good group of men. We played 10 weeks at full capacity. To be in such a good close game, play a lot. To do, and no moral victory, but I’m proud of how we played.
“The scars of the loss, and obviously the important game. I’m a total believer in going out with stuff.I think it’s really easy for another group of players to close out the season.But not this group.
“This is a young team that is building, growing and getting better. It was clearly a meaningful game, but we didn’t want to change our approach or change our DNA, which is the core of the team. No, next week won’t mean the same as this week, but we still have a lot to play and we want to finish the season strong as a group. , we imagine… playing with the same energy and emotion that we’ve shown in the last 10 weeks.”
