Head coach Gary Kubiak spoke to the media Monday about the Texans' 38-15 loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
Head Coach Gary Kubiak(on if he feels the same way he did yesterday after watching the tape) "Yes, like I said, we were soundly beaten yesterday by a great football team. They're the world champs and they're a heck of a football team and when you go into their place, you have to be pretty close to perfect. We know that within our short history with them since I've been here and we were anything but that. Give them a lot of credit. They had a lot to do with why we played poorly, but we definitely played poorly. Our special teams played good enough for us to win. When you go back and look at it, we pinned them four times inside the ten, we returned pretty darn well, except for one penalty that hurt us. Other then that, both sides of the ball, offensively and defensively, we were dominated pretty much so."
(on if he's worried about how the team will bounce back) "Yes, I'm concerned, especially after what took place yesterday because there were some things happening on the field yesterday that I thought we were over. We'll have to get those addressed when we come in here on Wednesday morning and be honest with each other and hopefully we go back to the way we were doing things there for those couple of weeks. This team coming in here this weekend is a tremendous football team that might be playing as good as anybody in the league right now. So, if we don't correct them, we're not going to like that result either, so we have our work cut out for us this week."
(on how would the AFC West, when he was there, stack up to the AFC South now) "I can't ever remember seeing this. I don't know. You guys would probably know as far as the record books how many times that has taken place, but if that ends up happening, that would be unbelievable. Our division is a heck of a division. It has a lot of, first off it has the world champs; it has a first ballot hall of famer running one of the teams and the other two teams have a lot of great young players. Hopefully we're coming along the same way with our young group. You look at it and all the teams to me have very bright futures, so I don't see the division, anything happening to it anytime soon. I think there are going to be some good teams for many, many years."
(on if he likes being in a tough division) "I don't think you know how things go from year-to-year, but definitely this year, it's been as good as there's been in a while as far as just looking at the divisions. But, that means if we want to be a good football team and we want to do accomplish things, we are going to have to do it against the best. It doesn't matter in this business whether you get past your division or you don't, you're going to have to play them all when it's all said and done anyway, so it should only make us better. I think it has made us better playing these good football teams at least six times a year. Those are automatics for us and we've struggled against those teams this year."
(on possibly going winless in the division) "That's a tough pill to swallow, but that could very well happen if we don't play better this week. Nobody has to tell us how good our division is and how we struggled in it this year. All we have to do is look in the mirror to see that. We've been in some good football games with some of those teams, but we've come out on the short end and we're not going to win this division in the future if we don't find ways to beat those teams. That's a challenge as well as beating anybody in this league, but it starts with your division."
(on how difficult it is to prepare for a ream when you're not sure who is playing) "You have to prepare to play. It's like the Colts; it's no different then the Colts. They're missing some players, but they're scheme, what they did in the game didn't change a lick. They did the same things that they always do offensively, defensively. I don't see Jacksonville changing. They're an excellent football team. You can only suit 45 guys, so it's not like all of a sudden they're going to go find a bunch of new guys to put on that football field. I'm sure they have some players that they want to make sure are healthy, but we're going to face a big, physical football that runs the ball extremely well, that is dominating a lot of opponents lately. I don't see any difference in what they're going to do."
(on if the Jaguars' running game is the thing that impresses him the most) "Yes, that and they're defense is playing extremely well. The thing about their team this year as compared to last year is they've been health. I think (head coach) Jack (Del Rio) would tell you the same thing. They lost a ton of players last year and had to battle through that. This year, they've been relatively healthy and this young quarterback has been a big boost for the team. He protects the ball very well, the play to his strength. They probably have the best one-two punch running the football in the game. When you run the ball and play good defense in this league, you have a chance to win week in and week out."
(on what it would mean to win on Sunday and finish 8-8) "It would mean a great deal. That's something we talked about last week and to be honest with you, I would sit here and say it's something we'll probably talk about this week, but I think the thing we have to talk this week is fixing last week. I don't think we come in here Wednesday and start talking about winning our eighth game and finishing the first time with a non-losing record, if I had to tell our players that or anybody that, it's probably an insult to where we're at right now. I think we have to come in here figure out why we played so poorly yesterday and we managed to fix that, I think that's the key this week."
(on what happened on the field that he thought he was over) "It's just simple things. I could sit here all day, just some of the mistakes we made, so of the mental mistakes we made, alignment mistakes; things that have reared they're ugly head with our football team, on the road especially and a couple of places, I'm thinking San Diego number one. We talked about all week going into Indy and playing with poise, just 'hey, they're a good team; we're going to have to play great to beat them, we all know that, but let's not beat ourselves. Let's play smart football. Let's to the things we're capable of doing and then let's see what happens. We can out doing those things and all of a sudden we got back in that mode of hurting ourselves, penalties, dropping balls, busted alignments on defense, thinks that any given week we might get a way with few of them. You play the Indianapolis Colts and (QB) Peyton Manning, you won't get away with one or two them. That's just the way it is. When those started to happen, they didn't cease to stop very quickly."
(on QB Matt Schaub playing this week) "It's hard to answer today. We talked about it as coaches upstairs. We'll be fair to him and fair to the football team. I think we'll look at him hard on Wednesday and see where he's at. I would not have put him on the field yesterday, even though he was number three, just watching him move around with the harness on him. I'll be very smart with him. I would hope that maybe he's battling us to play if it looks like he can play, but I think this is something we'll have to take a hard look at."
(on why even consider to play QB Matt Schaub) "I think it's important he gets back out there. Talking to the doctors and to Kevin (Bastin), this isn't something that he's going to further injure. It's not going to get any worse. From that standpoint I feel comfortable, but also at the same time, I have to feel comfortable that I feel like he can go out there and do the things he normally does and protect himself. I didn't feel that way in the middle of last week. We'll see if my mind changes from that standpoint. But I think it would be important for him to finish up out there, I really do."
(on where he draws the line on correcting mistakes and getting ready for next wee) "That's a hard thing to do because going back and talking about those things. It does create a little negativity, there's no doubt about that. It's hard to be real positive today and I'm sure it's hard for the players the same way. One of the reasons I think our team is making progress and getting better is we walk in here and we say this is right, this is wrong, this is what we have to clean up or these are the things we do well, these are the things we don't do well. There is a lot of honesty in our room among the coaching staff and the players and to be honest with you, if I walk in here Wednesday morning, eight o'clock, and I'm any different, I'm not going to fool them or anybody else. We'll take a very short time and we'll fix that and we'll pick our chin up off the ground and go get ready to play. But, we have to be honest with ourselves first and talk about our mistakes."
(on what the Patriots are doing this season) "That's unbelievable. I was with that team that we were 13-0 and we got beat by the Giants, ironically, down in the Meadowlands. That's hard because the pressure just builds and builds and what they're doing, the way their doing it, I think is what has been so impressive. The type of year they're having offensively, defensively. We're all watching history right now and I don't know if you'll ever see that again. They have tremendous organization and football team. Bill (Belichick) does a great job and it will be interesting to see how it all pans out, because I know the team we just left yesterday is pretty darn good too. It will be interesting to see what happens the rest of the way."
(on if he think Indianapolis or Jacksonville could beat New England) "I think Indianapolis and Jacksonville are capable of beating anybody on any given day and they've proven that. Look where they're at as football teams right now. And what Indianapolis has accomplished this year with some of their issues, to sit here 13-2 and play without Freeney and some of the defensive players that they've been missing. Plus without Marvin Harrison, the amount of time they've been playing without him. As I said last week, I think the job that Tony (Dungy) and them have done is one of the best jobs I've ever seen. I would not be surprised at all. I think they're going to be a very tough team to beat here in the playoffs. Probably this year, there are more powerful football teams going into this playoff season then I think we've ever seen. It's going to be interesting to see what happens."
(on T Eric Winston's injury) "Yes, he's a concern. He took a good shot in his back. He did not come back and play. Kevin (Bastin) is concerned about him. I think the kid thinks he'll be back. I think if he can possibly be back, he'll play, so I think he'll be day-to-day. Anthony Weaver is a big concern, shoulder issue and he tried to play through it. We're hoping Danny Clark can finish the season on the field this week. We're hoping (RB) Ronnie Dayne can finish the season on the field this week. Other then that, we should be ok. C.C. (Brown) got dinged, but Kevin thinks he'll be fine."
(on T Rashad Butler) "Yes he did. He got to play a little bit. He was ok. That's a tough place to go into and play but I think he has a future. He's very athletic. Our concern with him is size, weight, getting overpowered, that's our concern with him, so the offseason will be very important to his future with our team, but he did a good job for the amount of time he had."
(on the personal fouls against DT Travis Johnson) "The first one, the roughing, I don't see it. I don't know what the kid did wrong. It will be interesting to see that the league says. I think it was a mistake. I think the call was a mistake. The kid was just playing ball, Mario (Williams) makes a good play, whatever, but I disagree with that one. The other one, he's a little late. It's the first play of the second half. We just walked out of the locker room and it wasn't fun in there at halftime and we came out to be aggressive. I like the kid's aggression. He knows he can't hurt the team. He was a little late so it was a mistake on his part."
