But my mom knew this was my job and she gave me her blessing and told me to stay out here and do the best I could out here. But overall it was, by far, the toughest time in my life.

I have so far to go, I mean so far to go, but I can already see where it's paying off a little bit. I need to improve on consistency with my technique. I have to keep my pads down on every play. Have to be a better student of the game and break my opponents down better. It's going to take time.

We knew that Ray wasn't going to be at full strength this week. But Coach Marshall stepped in, and that's where team camaraderie kicks in. And I think coming away with a win like this against a team as good as the Falcons, I think that means tons to him.

We wanted to win this game, and we knew what would come along with it,

Ricky Woods is an exceptional player. He's certainly one of the best in our league. We would certainly like to find a way to stop Ricky, but we can't spend so much energy and effort on trying to stop him that we let other players get loose.

Having five guys in double figures is the kind of balance I like to see. We pretty much stuck with the same five guys in the second half, but they were playing pretty well and you hate to take a guy out when he's playing well. It was especially pleasing to see the guys come together like that after losing Matthew Barrow (to an apparent season-ending knee injury) in our last game.