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TE Christian Fauria Press Conf. Transcript - 12/30/2002

Fauria: I’m happy with the way my season went. I kind of feel shorthanded a little bit because we didn’t get to go to the playoffs.

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Q: Sense of frustration, sense of anger?

CF: No, I'm kind of feeling a buzz kill, just from one extreme to the next. By the third quarter of that game it wasn't really looking very good, so I just shut it off and tried to deal with the reality of the whole deal. It was even worse when I woke up this morning as far as, you just come out and you clean out your locker, the season's over.

Q: Not exactly what you expected when you were coming to the New England Patriots?

CF: Yeah. I'm not going to lie, for me, I'm happy with the way my season went. I had two goals, personal success and team success, and I kind of feel shorthanded a little bit because we didn't get to go to the playoffs, and having a winning record and not being able to go it's a little hard for me to swallow, but what are you going to do, I can't sit here and keep worrying about it. I definitely think it's something that you can build on, I know a lot of teams are saying that right now, but I really think this is something that you can take with you into next year and remember the things that happened and the opportunities that got away and that could have made a difference now that the season's come to an end. Again, it's just the way it ended up.

Q: As you step away and look at the season what is going to come to mind in terms of what didn't allow the team to play to its abilities?

CF: I think it comes down to the little things and after every loss we had talked about the little things. The missed assignments, the dropped balls, the bad reads, all those things they teach you in Pop Warner football, and then when you get to a higher level you tend to overanalyze everything and you forget your roots. It's not anything that you can't overcome or you can't fix. Maybe we waited a little long to fix some of those things to get to this point, but I really think the most important thing is just to kind of look at the positives more than anything and try and build on it.

Q: Did your teammates deliver any messages this morning?

CF: No. I got in this morning and everybody was packing up their lockers.

Q: There wasn't a team meeting?

CF: No, there was a team meeting with coach, but nothing was said, nothing was said but any players. It was all said the night before. Like I said, when you wake up in the morning it's kind of a buzz kill because you're really still drawing on that emotion and that experience, and then that's it, you have nothing to really show for it.

Q: Was there a low point in the season where the team lost its way?

CF: I think maybe, but when we lost four in a row, I can say that kind of lost our way, but we got back on track. I think a lot of teams go through that, it's a long season you have some ups and downs. We could have let it really get out of hand and could have been struggling to be 8-8, or 7-9 instead of 9-7 with a chance to be in the playoffs and winning the division. Seasons are really weird, you never really know what to expect, and when you do try to figure it out it kind of kicks you in the rear and shifts another way, and you try to adapt to that on the run. The four in a row was definitely something that we weren't expecting and I think out of the three out of four games, I think we could have won all of them except when we played in Miami when we played terrible. But the other games, Green Bay, Denver, and San Diego, those were games that I think we were definitely in contention and could have won.

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