On whether the blowout losses are just losses, or if there’s something more to the final scores

“There’s something to this. This is disappointing. Last week, the disappointment was we had an opportunity to win, and we didn’t make the plays at the right time, or we allowed the plays. This is a little bit more of things, when they happened; they really shouldn’t. Those are things that I as the head coach, I’ve got to address these. That’s on me, 100 percent.”

On the struggles of the secondary

“I think there are some things we need to look at to help these guys. Probably the thing that we need to do is look at what we can do in terms of trying to apply more pressure on the quarterback, … A lot of it has to do with what else is happening in front of you. It’s not just about what they’re doing; it’s about what we’re doing as a group. That could probably epitomize us as a defense. Good at times, sporadic at times, not as good at you’d like, at other times.”

On the latest rash of injuries to a position group, this time to the offensive line

“It’s the nature of the game. This is almost reminiscent of our first two years. Our first two years, we were just shy of the limit. We got to 79 players both of those years, so that’s concerning.”

On being in first place in a division where no one is playing well

“The NFC South is in flux. There are a lot of reasons why. The bottom line is we’re in a good situation as far as that’s concerned, but we’ve got to understand there’s a difference between perception and reality. And the reality is we’ve got to start getting ready for Seattle.”

On missed tackles against the Packers

“When you play fast, and you play physical, you’re going to miss some tackles. As long as somebody else is coming, that’s ok. It’s when you’re missing tackles from technique, and nobody else is there … we’ve got to do a better job of swarming and gang tackling.”

On what he means when he says the Panthers need to do a better job of swarming

“Regardless of how fast you are, it’s how fast you play. And it’s the effort behind the speed. It’s the effort when you’re running one way, and your teammate’s coming 100 miles per hour from the other side of the field, and so is this teammate. We need to do a better job of swarming. This is a skilled-athlete game. When these receivers and tight ends get in space, they’re tough. So we’ve got to do a better job of swarming and gang tackling, and that’s how you play good defense.”

On opposing quarterbacks completing 70 percent of their throws against the Panthers

“We’ve got to find a way to contest throws. The NFL is a game of contested throws. We didn’t have a pass breakup yesterday.”

On facing Russell Wilson, another smart and efficient quarterback

”He’s going to make plays. These quarterbacks we’ve faced are elite quarterbacks: Cutler, Roethlisberger, Stafford, Rodgers, and then you go against Russell Wilson. Every week you’re getting an upper-echelon quarterback. That’s the challenge, and our players have to know it and embrace it. Everyone’s got to have a part to it. The coverage has to be tight; the front has got to trap the quarterback, and then we have to stay disciplined with that rush.”

On this year’s defense compared to last year’s

“Every year is different. After two games you guys were asking me, ‘Is this defense better than the year before?’ And I said, ‘Wait for 16 games.’ I’m going to tell you wait for 16 games. We still have a lot of work to do, we’ve got nine games, we’re sitting in first place — let’s not forget that. I’ve got a bunch of guys in that room that have a ton of heart, and they want to play well. And they’ve played well at times. They’ve helped this football team win three games and tie the other one. Is that good enough? No, it’s not good enough. We’ve got to do a better job, and we will.”

On what is going wrong defensively

“The message is simple: it’s as plain as day. Do your job and go out and compete and play hard. It don’t get any simpler.
We’re not executing or making plays and were not competing hard enough. From the film, we watched we have a lot of guys that are on a consistent enough basis that are not competing hard enough, and it’s showing up and we have to do a better job.”

On what he means when he says the defense isn’t competing hard enough

“You have to be willing to go out and compete and give yourself up for this team, for this defense. You have to play like that the whole game. You can’t pick your spots and say ‘Hey, I’m going to play right now, and I’m going to take this play off.’ That play you take off could cost us the game. Guys have to go out with the mindset of we have to play a complete game. We are a defense that definitely needs it. We have been struggling the past few weeks, and it’s unacceptable, … That is not what we are accustomed to around here. We have developed a standard around here defensively, and we are trying to live up to that and we just haven’t been able to do that so far. We have to do a better job.”

On what McDermott meant by saying the defense needs to do a better job swarming

“That’s our brand. That’s why he said that. That’s our brand, and that’s what we do. Even when guys make mistakes, if you look at last year’s defense, if I miss a tackle or someone misses a tackle we had guys flying around and making that play and it covered up some of the stuff that was going on. Right now we have a lack of that going on. And that starts in practice, and we will have a good practice Wednesday.”

On Wilson

“He’s a quarterback that is very versatile and does a great job of getting out of the pocket and creating plays and extending plays downfield. As a defense, you have to understand that we are in a situation where you can leave guys or take plays off and think he’s down. You have to compete until the whistle is blown.”

On being atop the NFC South 

“At the end of the day we’re number one in the division right now, but if we continue to play the way we have it won’t last long. We have some really big games coming up, and we have Seattle coming to town and after that we have New Orleans. But first and foremost we have to go out and do our jobs against Seattle, or the outcome won’t be any different than the one we had this past weekend.”