From Wednesday’s conference calls with Carolina media

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When asked if Cam Newton looks like he’s lost a step post-surgery:

“It doesn’t look like to me at all. It’s a big concern every time we play Carolina because he’s going to get his yards. He’s going to get his yards on the designed runs and he’s also going to get his yards when the integrity of the play breaks down. You saw last week, it was one of the most unbelievable plays when he threw the ball down the sideline to Greg Olsen. He was able to avoid the sack, throw it at the last second, and Greg was able to get his feet in bounds. It was just a phenomenal play. Those are the types of plays everybody is used to seeing Cam Newton make and I think he’s still making them.”

On Atlanta’s offensive line, which has given up 18 sacks despite suffering a number of injuries:

“We’ve had two new players in, a rookie center and a second-year offensive tackle. They’ve grown in those two weeks and that’s what you want to see. You want to see growth when you’re having to play with different players. When you have that growth, usually you’re going to have some production.”

On former Falcons safety Thomas DeCoud:

“He’s a very heady football player that really understands the game. I know he missed a game with an injury a couple of weeks ago, but he’s a guy that understands how offenses are trying to attack and he has a pretty darn good understanding of how to try to make it difficult on the quarterback and the offense. He’s a smart football player.”

On former Panthers safety Charles Godfrey, who signed with the Falcons late last month:

“He’s played corner, he’s played nickel, and he’s played safety in the NFL and we felt it gives us some flexibility. We’ve had some struggles at times in the passing game. Our numbers aren’t where we’d like them to be and we wanted to add a guy that’s got some experience not only at one position.”

On how many wins it may take to win the NFC South:

“One more than the other three teams.”

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On facing the Panthers defense without Greg Hardy:

“Certainly he was very good against the run and the pass and it is hard to replace that with just one player. I still see a very good defense and a team that has a lot of talent and that plays very physical.”

When asked if he may changed up some calls since he’ll be facing DeCoud:

“Thomas obviously played with us for a long time so he knows a lot of what we do, but I think a lot of their defense does. They’ve got a lot of guys that have gone against us multiple times and we’ve gone against them multiple times.”

On Godfrey:

“Obviously I’ve played against Charles for a long time. We’ve always had a lot of respect for him, he’s a very physical player and obviously came to us. I thought he did a good job last week of picking up the system and he’s only going to get better for us as he learns the scheme.”

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