The Saints postgame locker room was eerily still when the media got talk to the team following a 3rd straight playoff demise. It felt like a mixture of shock, disbelief and pain all rolled into one. The mood of the team remained down Monday following exit interviews and cleaning out lockers.
“We have high expectations. So when you have high expectations and you don't meet those expectations, it's a great fall,” said linebacker Demario Davis. “When you have that high of expectations and you don't reach them, it hurts.”
Of course there was a controversial ending in the Mercedes Benz Superdome. It appeared that Vikings tight end Kyle Rudolph pushed-off on corner P.J. Williams before snagging the game winning score. No call was made nor was anything overturned after New York watched the replay.
The last play of @Vikings at @Saints is OPI. By written rule and on-field philosophy, Receiver clearly created an advantage. If called and reviewed, it stands. The consistent standard for creating an overturn remains a topic.
— John Parry (@JohnParryESPN) January 5, 2020As frustrating as it is, the players know it shouldn’t have even come to that. “We gotta give Minnesota all the credit,” Davis said. “They made one or two more plays than we made, so you just have to give them credit.”
In the upside world on the NFL, Davis was not selected to the Pro Bowl, but was tabbed a first team All-Pro following a 111 tackle season with four sacks, one interception, eleven tackles for losses, twelve passes defensed and nine hits on the quarterback.
He’s a wild man when hunting on the field, but very Zen-like when you talk to him. Davis’ calm, cool, demeanor explains how to recover from this negative and turning it into something positive.
“It's just like anything in anything in life; you get knocked down, you got to get back up. One of the fortunate things about this game is that there's an offseason, so you have a lot of time to rest, recover, process it, and then begin to rebuild.”
