Brooks: “It was a B.S. call.”

NEW ORLEANS — Ahmad Brooks sat as his locker after the game wiping his forehead with a towel. It was no use. After every wipe, beads of sweat filled his forehead almost instantly. He kept wiping anyway. A few reporters approached him mid-wipe.

Q: Can we ask you a question?

BROOKS: Do it.

Q: On that play at the end when you were called for a personal foul, were you surprised by the call?

BROOKS: It was B.S. It was a B.S. call to me. I didn’t hit him with my helmet. I didn’t hit him with my hand. I simply hit him with my chest and caused a fumble and NaVorro recovered it. That was the game, basically.

Q: Did you think you had the game won on that play?

BROOKS: I mean there were two minutes left in the game, right? We would have gotten the ball back. They had one timeout. I don’t know how many timeouts we had, maybe we had one. We have gotten the ball on the 25, 30. It wouldn’t have gone down the way it did, because they kicked a field goal to tie the game.

Q: Do you think the NFL is too sensitive as far as hits on the quarterback?

BROOKS: Oh man, you try to protect all the players around the NFL as much as possible, but I just think they protect the offensive players a little too much. The defensive line, we still get chopped, we still get cut blocked by the offensive linemen and they don’t do anything about that. If you’re going to protect everybody, then how about you change the rules on chop blocking?

Q: What could you have done differently on that play?

BROOKS: I’m going full speed. He’s going full speed. At the last second, he ducked his shoulder. I don’t know what I could have done differently. I maybe could have tackled him lower. But I’m rushing around the edge, I’m turning the corner, I’m trying to get to him and then I’m trying to knock the ball out of his hands because I’m thinking he’s going to throw the ball. He lowered his shoulder. I don’t even know what they called. What did they call?

Q: Contact with the neck.

BROOKS: Oh, contact with the neck.

Q: Do you know where you got him?

BROOKS: Nah.

Q: You couldn’t feel it?

BROOKS: Nah, he felt it. I saw his lip bleeding.

Q: You felt you made contact in the chest?

BROOKS: No, I felt like I hit him with my chest. Like I basically bear-hugged kind of hard and he lowered his shoulder.

Q: Did he say anything to you after that play?

BROOKS: No, he didn’t say anything.

Q: Did you know right away that they had flagged you?

BROOKS: I looked to my left and I saw somebody throw a flag and I was like, “OK, here we go again.”

Q: Did you know it would be on you?

BROOKS: Yeah.

Q: How frustrating was it?

BROOKS: It’s very frustrating. The game could have gone a totally different direction than it went. I’m just mad because that was a big play in the game and we lost the game and that’s probably the reason why.

Q: Do you think if it was a quarterback less famous than Drew Brees they might now have done that?

(A player in the background): Yup.

BROOKS: Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t think it was because it’s Drew Brees. It’s probably because we’re in New Orleans.

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