(on if he thought his team was going to pull off the comeback) “Yeah, I thought it was going to be one of those magical moments. Two minutes left, one timeout, we have the ball. We had a silly special teams penalty that kind of negated us, put us back, really backed us up. But we came out, we started off with (TE) Heath (Miller). We just didn’t finish. That’s something that we’ve done all year. It’s just disappointing, especially to play in a Super Bowl and get to this level. You can’t turn the ball over. You can’t do it on this stage of the game for the Super Bowl. They were the better team today. They executed. We turned the ball over, they scored points off our turnovers, and it’s disappointing. You’ve got to take your hat off to those guys.”
(on if it felt like Pittsburgh’s win over Arizona two years ago) “It felt like that. We were driving fairly well against their defense. We felt like whoever had the ball last was going to win the game. We just fell short. Hats off to the Green Bay Packers. They can take the Lombardi back to where it all started. It’s just sad to see guys like Flozell Adams and stuff like that. That locker room was pretty bad.”
(on how he felt at the end of the game) “Shocked. I had a feeling we were going to do it again. We’ve been in those situations, two minute drives. But we should have never been in that situation. That’s the discouraging part. We turned the ball over. You can’t beat a great team like the Packers turning the ball over. We’re still dejected, but there was still hope at the end of the tunnel. I thought we were going to come through, we didn’t. They were the better team today.”
(on if he plans to return next season) “I’ll be back. I’m not going anywhere.”
(on QB Ben Roethlisberger) “He’s a warrior. He stayed in there. I think somebody went at his knees, twisted his knee. His ankle was already bum, but he’s always going to be a competitor to the end. That’s why going into that two-minute drive I just knew we had a chance. I don’t know who made the play on fourth down. Hats off to them. I can’t sit here and say we gave them anything. They came out and they earned it, and they deserve to be Super Bowl champions.”
(on if he’s saying ‘What if?’) “You’re always going to say, ‘What if?’ On the losing side, you’re always going to look at things in perspective and say, ‘Well, what if we didn’t turn the ball over?’ But we turned the ball over three times against the Packers. Not too many teams are going to beat the Packers like that. That’s really the difference in the game. You look at all the plays, we made plays, they made plays. Their defense was solid, our defense was solid. Our offensive line was phenomenal. It came down to the turnovers.”
(on if he watched the Packers offense on their final drive) “No, we were going over two-minute huddle on the sideline. For (Aaron) Rodgers to take it down and score on our defense, that’s the sign of a great coming-out party for him. I think this was a big game for him and against our defense. We’ve got a lot of prideful guys in our locker room that are down right now. We all can contribute to this loss. We aren’t going to single out anybody. They’re well-deserved.”
