Falcons And 49ers React To Roddy White's Game-Saving Forced Fumble

If you haven’t seen the latest edition of Roddy White’s annual pantsing of a Niner cornerback, we’ve got video here. Go to the 2:08 mark.

Best part of these postgame quotes: Roddy big-upping his teammate, Harvey Dahl, who ultimately wrestled the bouncing ball away from various defenders.

Roddy White:

I just watch (the defensive backs) every day at practice and watch them get the ball out on me at practice. You just learn from that. Any time that you see defensive players carrying the ball, they aren’t used to it so you’ve got a chance.

And I’m going to keep getting ‘em. Because they don’t know better.

I knew that he was going to try to score. When I saw him running to the sidelines, I knew that he was going to try to score. I just told myself, ‘Just get there, just get there,’ and I got there and got the ball out

Never die. (Dahl) doesn’t have to run down there. Nate had already passed the offensive linemen. For me to get there and strip it and for Harvey to get there to recover it and to give us a second chance, it’s big. It just speaks volumes about our team and those guys and the conditioning and effort that we put into games.

Harvey Dahl:

I just kept on it. I just put the G.I. Joe grip on it.

Mike Singletary:

He (CB Nate Clements) made a great play on the ball. I am sure he thought he was going to score. That is all there is to it. Roddy White made a great play, coming up behind him and knocking the ball out. All the blocking was in front of him. It’s that guy behind you that you can’t see.

Vernon Davis:

I said to myself, ‘We got this game.’

Matt Ryan:

It was an unbelievable effort on Roddy’s part. It’s obviously frustrating when you throw an interception in those situations, but I was hustling back trying to keep the guy in play. Roddy came out of nowhere and really made the play of the game. Harvey Dahl fell on it, which is an incredible effort by him being 60 yards behind the play as an offensive lineman. It kind of speaks to the character of our football team. Regardless of the situation, we are going to go out there and play hard. It really was a breath of new life when we got the football back and we went right down the field.

I was just trying to run him down the sideline. I think all of us had played this game so long that you never know what is going to happen. At that point it was jus trying to keep him out of the endzone. I was hustling back trying to force him either to cut back or do whatever, so it never creeps in to your mind at that point.

Harry Douglas:

He was carrying it like a loaf of bread, and Roddy got it out.

John Abraham, to the media:

We have to thank Roddy for that. That’s a never die situation. He just kept running. He kept playing and he ended up making a big play. No bad talk about Clements, but he should have got down. . . It shocked me. In that situation you know you have to get down and save the game for your teammates.

Patrick Willis:

It’s things we’re doing to ourselves that’s killing us.

John Abraham, to Twitter:

Tony Gonzalez:

They sit on it, and the game’s over.

Mike Smith:

We’ve a lot of things that we have to correct but I really like the fight and the resolve of our team. It showed on a number of occasions today, to throw that interception and have them running in, going to score to have Roddy White run down the field and strip that ball out, was a huge play. It was an effort play. Then to have offensive linemen running 70 yards basically from where the ball was snapped, again I don’t know exactly who got it, but from what I’ve been told it was Harvey Dahl who recovered the fumble underneath that pile. That says a lot about what this team is all about.

Michael Turner:

When he did it and we got the ball back, I was like ‘We’re going to win this game.’