Mike Tomlin

On defense, I thought largely down in and down out, we did what we needed to do to minimize the impact of Derrick Henry.

It certainly didn't start that way.

He broke that big run early.

That's a credit to him.

It's a credit to them strategically in terms of identifying a schematic that they wanted to assault us with.

But I just thought down in and down out.

We did what we needed to do schematically in terms of allocating our guys and planning the appropriate front structure.

And I think in turn, our guys did what was required of them.

We put a lot on our men up front.

We create one on ones with our bigs up front.

We require our bigs to win those battles.

And I just thought guys like Benton and Hayward and Harmon,

did a real nice job of winning those one-on-ones, shedding tacklers, I mean, shedding blocks and getting in on tackles, not giving him clean access to the second and third level, which oftentimes is a recipe for disaster when facing the big runner.

We certainly took some schematic risk in an effort to minimize Lamar's talents in the game.

And I think we suffered the consequences from that at times.

We overplayed maybe some design runs and we put ourselves in some thinned out coverage circumstances.

But that's what you do when you plan and plan to win.

In the analysis of it, we'd probably do it again, to be quite honest with you.

That's the type of challenges that guys like him put you in, in terms of decision making.

But certainly we've been in the stadium against those guys a bunch, and we just felt like we couldn't allow him to run wild.