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Panthers Head Coach Ron Rivera

On game plan against WR Julio Jones:

“Try to cover him. We targeted him a couple of times to cover him, and he made some big plays.”

 

CB James Bradberry

On Jones’s big day:

“You start with the first play going to Julio, so I knew right from then they were going to keep trying to go to him. Unfortunately I hurt my toe, so I didn’t want to put my team in a bad position where I was hindering them.”

On the Panthers’ game plan against Jones:

“It wasn’t anything special. We just knew he had to limit his catches. Obviously we didn’t do that.”

 

CB Bené Benwikere

On Jones’s big day:

“It unraveled for us. Everything we planned, everything we wanted to do just didn’t work for us. We had a scheme. We had a system in place. We had things we wanted to do. Things kind of happened and it fell apart from that. Once that happened, other people were called to step up. Other people are supposed to make plays, and we just didn’t.”

Falcons WR Julio Jones

On the success of the passing game:

“We are hitting on all cylinders as far as the passing game because we had a great week last week in the run game. Carolina figured they were going to come out here and stop the run game and they tried to do that. They left me one on one out there and we made some explosive plays down the field.”

On whether being wide open surprised him:

“It did. Especially against a divisional opponent to play one on one on me. We took advantage of it and we had some explosive plays.”

On whether they wanted to exploit the Panthers’ secondary:

“They put the young corner on me man-to-man. If they would’ve put two men on me or cheated a safety over Matt would’ve made great reads and hit the other guys that were open. They singled me out and Matt made some great decisions.”

On if he’d be fine if other teams play him with one-on-one coverage:

“I love it.”

 

Falcons QB Matt Ryan

On his 500-passing yards and Julio’s 300-receiving yards making history:

“That’s pretty cool to be a part of that. To watch the way Julio played today was really cool. Every play it seemed like we went to him, he was coming through big, creating explosive plays. To me the best catch of the day, I think we had a third-and-three and he ran a short little under route on the left-hand side in traffic and snatched it, didn’t even bring it into his chest. His hands are so strong. He had some other great plays, don’t get me wrong, but I threw that one and I was like, ‘Man, that was a hell of a catch,’ and that was fun to see. Hats off to him, he played unbelievable.”