(on the Panthers’ pass rush seeming nonexistent)

“When we did bring pressure, we were a step late, and that’s unfortunate.”

(on Carolina’s undisciplined penalties)

“The big part of the problem today is we have a number of guys that are down, and we were trying to shuffle guys in and out.”

(on concerns with depth at running back)

“We’re playing two undrafted free agents right now at running back. As of right now, Darrin Reaves is our starter.”

(on seeing the defense unravel over the past few weeks)

“It’s very disturbing. Again, just looking at the tape and looking at what we saw last week, I’d like to believe that we understand what we can and can’t do. Apparently, we don’t understand that well enough.”

(on the kind of day WR Steve Smith Sr. had)

“Well, Steve had a nice day. The ball gets tipped, he catches it for a touchdown. He beats Melvin [White] in man coverage and, quite honestly, I would like to see Melvin maintain his composure there because if he rolls with Steve, he would’ve had a chance for a play. He didn’t, and as a result, he gave up a touchdown to Steve.”

(on if covering WR Steve Smith Sr. was a moment too big for CB Melvin White)

“I just think it was a lack of execution. I thought he was in a great position. I thought he jammed Steve, Steve went vertical, Melvin rolled, and then he kind of lost his composure. It’s all about maintaining your composure, especially when you have your back to the ball. You have to be able to read Steve, or whoever the wide receiver is, and then try to make the play on the ball. Because what’s going to happen is if you do what you do, more than likely you’re going to get a penalty, and that’s what happened. They threw the flag, Steve made a great catch.”

(on if Josh Norman will replace White going forward)

“We’re most certainly going to look at that. I’m not going to have that. If we’re not going to maintain our composure when we’re playing, I’ll make changes. I’m not going to stand for it. That, to me … [When] you have an opportunity to make a play, you have to make a play. We have to coach him up better, and he has to play better. That’s the truth of the matter.”

(on what he thought about QB Cam Newton’s performance today)

“He got pressured again, and we have to be better at that. We have to protect him. I know it’s kind of a work in progress as a group, but they seem to hold up and do some good things. We drove the ball pretty well a couple of times. We put ourselves in position to score points. We can’t take a big sack and – can’t allow it – and knock us out of field goal range on the very first drive, which I thought was very methodical. We came out, we did the no-huddle right off the bat, we had a good tempo – we had the ball for about 7 or 8 minutes and drove it into field goal position, and then we had the big negative play that knocks us out. We can’t do that, and that has to be corrected. We have to look at it as coaches, make those corrections and go forward.”

(on how close he was to letting LB Thomas Davis play today)

“Not close enough. He went through [and] did everything with the exception of one thing. We can’t take the chance. I’d rather suffer through today than lose a guy for four more weeks or six more weeks.”

(on what his message was to his team)

“We went through the same thing last year – Week 4 against Arizona – and that’s what I basically brought up. I said, ‘Guys, we have an opportunity to get things rolling in the right direction.’ So, now we have to come back, we’ll have a good week of work and get ready for Chicago.”

(on the opening drive)

“The first thing is, I have to be better and not taking sacks. That put us out of field goal range and cost us, because I know [K Graham] Gano would have made that kick. I’m still maturing as a football player, and I’ll learn from this.”

(on Ravens’ WR Steve Smith Sr.’s performance)

“I told him how proud I was of him. He has a lot of tread on those tires. He’s like one of those big Tonka trucks. He’s an unbelievably talented player and I respect him so much. I wasn’t surprised at the way he played. I’m one of his biggest fans. I wish he was still here, but things happen. I wish him the best.”

(on the offensive pass interference call against him)

“I went inside. He jumped me inside. I got outside. I thought it was a swim move, but he thought it was a pass interference, and they have a job to do. So, he called it. And you just have to move on from it.”

(on today’s loss)

“It went very poorly. We didn’t do a whole lot right. We had a good opening drive, got into field goal range, then went penalty, sack, out of field goal range, punt. That was a tough way to start. We always talk about getting a good start, and starting fast. We did but it just didn’t do any good for us. They scored and we answered. It just never seemed like we were able to claw our way back in offensively obviously. We only scored 10 points. It was just an all-around poor effort.”

(on getting back on track after two straight losses)

“It’s week four and we are two and two. We are 500 right now with 12 games left. In the NFL it’s a long season. You don’t win anything in the first month or lose anything. You have to try to learn and move on from these bad games. Unfortunately we’ve had two in a row now.”

(on whether he felt the mistakes from the Steelers game had been taken care of coming into this game)

“I did feel good this week in practice, but it’s one of those things that you can feel good as you want in practice, but if you can’t put it together in a game, it’s not going to work.”

(on the pass rush)

“The pass rush is an important part of the game. We didn’t do a good enough job with that today. Greg [Hardy] was a great player. Guys have stepped up and played well in that spot. And, as you know, Wes [Horton] and Kony [Ealy] have done a good job. So, the best thing for us is to look at the film and see where we have improved on. Maybe it wasn’t those guys’ fault. Maybe it was somebody else’s fault. At the end of the day, we’ve got to play better as a whole. We can’t point fingers. We can’t say ‘What if we had this? What if we had that?’ We’ve got to do our responsibilities. Coaches put us in a good position to make plays, and we just have to do our job.”

(on his pre-game injury test)

“A lot of the stuff I did felt really good. But everything didn’t feel good. As a player and as an organization, they had to make a decision and they felt I just wasn’t ready. I’ll do everything in my power to be ready for Chicago next week.”

(on the emotions of the game with WR Steve Smith Sr. playing)

“It was kind of emotional. Frankly, I’m tired of hearing about it though. He did what he did. We did what we did.”

(on his on-field conversations with WR Steve Smith Sr.)

“He was giving me encouragement and I was giving it back to him. It was…whatever.”

(on playing without Greg Hardy)

“I don’t want to use that as a cop out. This is professional football. Everybody is good. Everybody has to step up when his number is called. So, we aren’t going to use that as a cop-out.”

(on the pass rush)

“We’re blitzing more. We have linebackers and safeties going. It just gets more guys involved. It’s a thing we have to deal with. We’re a good football team, and we’re going to get it right.

(on whether WR Steve Smith Sr. had to reel in his emotions)

“No. He was calm throughout. He was calm before the game. I asked him in the training room, before the game, I said, ‘How are you doing? You doing OK?’ and he said,’Nope.’ (laughter) What does that mean? I think it means he recognized the gravity of the situation a little bit. And he recognized the need that he had to, like anybody, get control of those emotions. He did a great job of it.”

(on whether the first touchdown drive was how they planned to draw it up)

“I told Gary [Kubiak], ‘That’s the best design I’ve ever seen in football.’ You know? It was nice to get one of those. We had a couple breaks, really in the first half. A couple plays like that. Joe [Flacco] drops the snap and throws it up to the corner of the end zone, and Steve [Smith, Sr.] goes and makes it. You don’t see that too often.”

(on if he thought it was his day after the first touchdown pass)

“If you believe in that stuff, once you throw that first touchdown pass that it’s your day, I don’t necessarily think about that stuff, but I was happy in the moment. I got a little freebie. We did a great job, we kept our focus all day, and that’s why we were went out there and were able to play the way we were for 60 minutes.”

(on if he made good on his promise from Week 1 saying he can still play and wait for Week 4)

“That film was a coaching session. They’re going to be coaching. I’m 35 years old, and I ran around them boys like they were schoolyard kids.”

CLICK FOR STEVE SMITH’S COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT

(on if there was any added incentive to come out and play fast for Steve Smith Sr.)

“Yeah, we wanted to play well for him. There’s no secret to that. He’s a guy that we care a lot about, and we knew how much it meant to him. He didn’t really have to say it, it was just understood. He means a lot to Charlotte, the city in general, and the organization can’t take away what he’s done. It’s deep-rooted and it means a lot to him – that’s his home. And any time he has a chance to go against his team, which he probably never envisioned that even happening, and him playing the way he did, it’s like a storybook.”

(on the defensive game plan)

“The game plan coming in was definitely tending to [RB] DeAngelo Williams. We really didn’t want to get him going, especially since he made the ‘goggle statement.’ We definitely wanted to limit his success and we did that.”

(on the near touchdown to WR Kelvin Benjamin)

“You couldn’t ask for anybody to put the ball more perfectly. I thought I was going to have a pick, and at the last second I was like, ‘Wow the ball is still carrying.’ Like I said, Cam Newton has incredible arm talent, and hats off to him.”

(on Cam Newton’s scrambling ability)

“You definitely have to be concerned with a dual quarterback threat like that. Obviously, he’s hampered by an ankle injury so he didn’t run that much. So we were pretty happy about that.”

(on the Panthers’ touchdown)

“I would like to say they made a play, but they did not. We literally could not have busted the coverage any worse. It was literally the worst brain fart. It was so simple that we just couldn’t believe it happened, but we got it back and we fixed it.”