Head coach Gary Kubiak is eager for the Texans to return home after playing three games on the road against playoff teams. Kubiak reviewed Sunday's overtime loss to the Jaguars and discussed the Oct. 5 home opener against the Colts.
Head coach Gary Kubiak
(on injuries) "We've got a lot of guys nicked up. I'll start with C.C. (Brown). C.C. is having surgery today. He is going to go on injured reserve here at some point pretty quickly. It looks like it's about a 10- to 12-week recovery process. We thought maybe it was something that could take about a month if he could play with a cast, but that's not the case because of where the break is. Like I said, C.C. will be done for the year. Some of the other guys that are going to be listed as day-to-day will be Will Demps, Chris Taylor, Kevin Bentley, Brandon Harrison, and Mark Bruener, naturally. DeMeco's (Ryans) got a little ankle sprain. So there's a bunch of guys there. I'll have a better answer for you on Wednesday, but right now C.C's answer is definite."
(on what happened on the fake punt that was converted for a touchdown) "They started to run the punt team on and run the offense off, and somewhere in the middle they brought back eleven guys is the way I should explain it. If we had executed the call we made, we should have stopped the play. Obviously, we had a problem executing the call, so with the confusion we should have gotten a timeout."
(on if it would have been up to him or a player to call the timeout) "I think either one. I trust Kevin (Bentley) out there on the field. He's kind of the leader of the group out there, but we made the call. We just didn't align correctly, and actually I can always call a timeout on the sideline. So I put that on me."
(on what the Jaguars did differently in the second half to give the defense problems) "They really didn't do much. They stayed committed to the run. I say they threw the ball very, very effectively. They came out early in the third quarter and I think they threw the ball the first three or four plays in a row, but I wouldn't say they did a lot different. The thing that we did in the first half was we got off the field on some third-down plays, and in the second half we didn't. I think we got off the field on one third down. They did miss one other third down, but they made it up on fourth down. So we just couldn't make the play to get off the field. I think that was the biggest difference."
(on how encouraging QB Matt Schaub's play was) "He just played like a winner. He had his back to the wall; he was very challenged going into the game. There was no secret about that. He prepared. He had a good week. He went out there, and I thought he played smart early. He got himself into the flow of the game. I think he went back to some of the things that made him successful in the past. He moved around a little bit when he didn't have a play, scrambled a little bit. He didn't force the ball, checked the ball down to (Steve) Slaton and to the fullback a couple of times when he had to. I just thought he played solid, but the biggest thing is we played better around him. We protected him much better than we had the first two weeks and guys made plays after they caught the ball. Those things make a quarterback's life a lot easier."
{QUOTE}(on what freedom QB Matt Schaub has at the line to change plays) "We'll check sometimes, but we're not an offense that's built that way. We're not a team that does a great deal of checking. We feel like our run game - we can run it against any type of front. We feel like in the passing game, we have built in hot situations to take care of blitzes and stuff. So we don't check as much as some people, but we will do it. It depends on game plan to game plan."
(on if QB Matt Schaub could check out of the play if there were nine guys in the box) "Well, I think if we started seeing nine guys up there we would. But, as far as eight man fronts and stuff, we still feel like our run game should account for eight man fronts. That's the way we build our run game."
(on being at home for a month) "It will be good. It's nice to know that we'll be down here for the next month. It's been three very tough three road games in a row. We understood that when we got started, and naturally after the hurricane, not having the home game at week two, so that's been part of it. That's just something that we have to battle through, but we do look forward to getting back here and playing."
(on how hard is it to crawl out of an 0-3 hole) "Well, 0-2 or 0-3 whatever, we've just got to keep playing better. If we play like we played yesterday, we're going to win our games. We're playing another great football team this week. It's a long, long season. We have to stay positive in our approach. We have to continue to make the corrections we need to make as a football team, but there were a lot of good things that happened yesterday. There's still mistakes that are made, naturally. There's never a perfect game. You're always looking for one, but we're going to worry about week to week."
(on if he changed CB DeMarcus Faggins and CB Fred Bennett in the second half) "No, we're rotating all three of them. We've been playing all three of them. We start two of them. Fred (Bennett) and Jacques (Reeves) have started, but Petey's (DeMarcus Faggins) been in a straight rotation with all three of them. So we consider them all starters."
(on if CB Antwaun Molden is healthy and could get more playing time) "Yeah, he's fine. He's been playing special teams. Is there a chance he could play some more here or there—there's an opportunity, but we could also get (Eugene) Wilson involved. We've been looking at him the past few weeks since we picked him up. But, yeah, there's an opportunity he (Molden) could play."
(on tackling issues) "Well, I thought we tackled better. I thought we tackled better than we have all year. I can think of one big third-and-five tackle that we missed, and then we missed a couple of tackles there at the end of the football game. On that one flat route, I think we missed one out on the flat that got them in field goal position. As far as the quarterback, we were right there a bunch of times. We got a bunch of hands on him, but he's a big strong kid. You've got to tackle him just like you do a back or he's going to find a way out of there."
(on if they were out of position when Jaguars QB David Garrard ran up the middle) "No, we weren't out of position. We were going through our rush and doing some of our e.t.'s. Things we do inside to get pressure on the quarterback. He does a good job of finding the lane sometimes. Like I said, there were a few times that we were right there. If we find a way to get him down, we recover a while. Guys have to react back to the quarterback when he takes off and, you know, do a better job."
(on how they took WR Andre Johnson away) "Well, they cheated his way a bunch. Starting the game they ran Mathis with him, which we thought they would do. They cheated the free safety his way quite a bit. I thought our other guys stepped up and played really well. Owen Daniels played extremely well. Kevin Walter was exceptional. We're trying to get Andre more involved with what we're doing. That's when we're at our best in my opinion, when we're balanced. They did pay a lot of attention to Andre, which a lot of teams do."
(on who will take SS C.C. Brown's place at strong safety) "We'll take a look. We'll get Nick (Ferguson) involved, naturally. We want to get Brandon Harrison involved. We'll see how he comes off of his injury. You could very well see a rotation of three players there as well."
(on if the rotation at strong safety will include FS Dominique Barber) "Well, I think we'll wait and see. He did play a little bit the other day because of the emergency situation and how it happened and with Brandon (Harrison) being down. Evaluating how he played, I think he played about 10 to 15 plays, somewhere in that neighborhood. Like I said, with this situation you could see us start to rotate some players, but he is naturally getting more involved. He's playing a bunch on special teams."
(on if he feels like the team should be encouraged even though they lost) "Well, as I said yesterday, whether you lose by three or you get the heck kicked out of you in this league, losing is losing. We were closer because we played cleaner. We played a good football game on the road and didn't turn the ball over so we had a chance to win. That's how it works in this league. We have to make a play at the end of the game to win. I liked our effort. We played extremely hard, but it's just as disappointing as any other loss that I've been a part of."
(on how concerned he is about the defense not being able to get off the field) "Well, they've played some good halves. This game is about playing 60 minutes. So yesterday in the first half, I thought they played a good half of football in the first half. You know, we were in a 10-10 game. As I said, you can look at the whole second half and it really boils down to five or six plays. I think there's seven third downs if I'm right, and they converted on five of them. And the sixth one, one of the other two, if I'm saying this right, that they didn't convert on, they converted on fourth down. So, you not going to get off the field that way. So it really came down to making plays in crunch time and getting off the field."
(on if he sees any more improvement on defense than he saw last year) "I think at times we see improvement, and at times I see the same things coming up as last year. It's just something that we have to continue to address and improve upon."
(on wanting balance in the offense but the passing game being stronger than the running game) "Well, there was a reason why it was stronger yesterday. This team brought, I want to say, nine or ten double corner fires in the National Football League, and I hadn't seen them do it once. In this league on Sunday, you see a great deal of things, whether it's special teams, offense or defense, that you did not see as you prepare for a team. That's new and you have to adjust. It's like having to adjust to the fake punt. Offensively, we got double-corner fired a bunch. We had to adjust, and adjusting meant throwing the ball more and trying to get them out of that so that we could find some running lanes. And I thought offensively, (offensive coordinator) Kyle (Shanahan) and the staff did a great job of adjusting."
(on if he would like to run the ball more) "Yeah, I think we naturally don't want to drop back 40 times. But if we have to drop back 40 times because of the way someone is playing us, just like you asked me about nine-man fronts, those types of things, if someone is playing you that way then you may have to go do that to win that day. Whatever you have to do that day, but we're trying to get better running the football. But there have been some bright spots. 20 (RB Steve Slaton) continues to play well and to get better. Hopefully, Ahman (Green) gets back and becomes a part of this to get the kid some help. If he does that, then we should get better running the football."
(on if he feels better about QB Matt Schaub now) "Well, I felt good about him going into the game. I feel good about the kid. I know what he's made of; I know how hard he works. I also knew that if we played better around him then he would play better. It's not one guy. Like I said, he's feeling a lot better today. Everybody is feeling a lot better with how he played in the game. But the bottom line was he had a lot more help in how he played. The group played a lot better around him and they know that."
(on how important this game is) "They are all important. They all carry the same weight. We're playing a team that's fresh. Arguably one of the best quarterbacks ever to play the game, so I'm sure he's going to be ready to go and on top of his game. It's a huge game for them. They are sitting there 1-2. We have a team in our division that's 4-0 right now, so everybody is trying to go get them. But this game is just as big as any other one we play. We'll have to play very, very well to have a chance to beat this football team."
(on if the offense took what the Jaguars gave them) "Well, the biggest thing that we did was we played very well on third down. We had one unmanageable third down and we just ran the ball there to make sure we didn't make a mistake. Or we called a run, but Matt (Schaub) ended up dumping the ball to Kevin (Walter) on an option that we have in the run game. But we had manageable third downs. We had guys make plays on third downs - Owen Daniels, Kevin Walter, Andre (Johnson). The guys made plays and we stayed on the field. But the way they decided to play us yesterday, we were going to have to make some plays in the throwing game and that was fine. As long as we can go out there and do what they did yesterday."
