Texans head coach Gary Kubiak spent Monday meeting with coaches and reviewing game film with the team. He talked to the media about what went wrong with the Texans in Tennessee and the adjustments they will make before facing the Jaguars in Jacksonville.
Head coach Gary Kubiak
(on if he has decided to stick with QB Matt Schaub as the starter) "Yeah, nothing's changed. I'm trying to evaluate the ballgame to see how some of the things we're doing so poorly that are not giving us a chance to win, but nothing has changed. Nothing's changed with our team."
(on if using the shotgun formation is an option) "We do it. We did it some yesterday a few times. With that group, if you get back there too deep you're in trouble. I kind of give him (Schaub) the freedom to do it when he wants to do it. But when you get in a place like that and the noise and those two guys (Titans DEs Kyle Vanden Bosch and Jevon Kearse) coming off the edges, you start sitting back there 10 yards on a consistent basis - you're probably going to go down. But we'll do it. We do do it."
(on if they have the technology to rewind and watch replays before challenging a play) "Our technology is whatever the visiting team gives us in the booths. So we've got TV up there. Sometimes we do get the replay; sometimes we don't. So you have to make decisions. Unfortunately on the long pass, we did not see it until after they had went up and snapped the ball. That was a decision you just had to make off the cuff and I wish I'd a made it. I wish I'd have thrown it because it definitely would have come back."
(on if he trusts the people upstairs to say to challenge it without seeing a replay) "Well, yeah. You have to have your guys basically throw themselves out there and say 'I think you ought to throw it or you shouldn't throw it.' You know, it's hard as a coach up there and looking all the way across the field and you're trying to decide on an inch or two. That's very difficult, but that's the way you go about it. And sometimes when you're on the road, when there are tight plays like that, sometimes it's tough to get the replay. And that's pretty smart on their part. So we had one early; we didn't have one late… or the second one."
{QUOTE}(on if he was tempted to challenge when they were rushing up to the line like they were guilty) "Well, that's one of the things. Normally, when there is a close play like that they will hold up a little bit to try to get you some time to see a replay if there is going to be one. The officials are usually pretty good about that. I think every team in the league has that in their system built in - that if you think you have a close play and you think it may be replayed and you want to take the indecision out of it you make a call and try to sprint to the line of scrimmage and they did a good job of doing that."
(on what made him have the confidence to stick with QB Matt Schaub) "Well, I thought he (Schaub) made some tremendous plays early in the game. I thought we should have actually been up at halftime had we made some of those plays, or come up with some of the throws that he had made, some of the plays. He had his mistakes, but he also did some good things that would have given us a chance to be in position to win the football game. There's a lot of mistakes. It's not one guy. There's plenty to go around and we are trying to address all of them tonight."
(on how tough it is to trust a player when they say to challenge a play) "Sometimes it's just your gut. I don't know how to answer that question. I know Will (Demps) was hollering at me that I should challenge it. It's just your gut whether you do it or not. So it's just a mistake not to do it. I wish I would have done it."
(on if he thinks Titans RB LenDale White got in on his touchdown run) "When I look at it today, I think he stuck the ball out there. I don't know if his body got in but it looked like he stuck the ball out there. So in that position, on the half yard line, I didn't do it. When I look at it today, I think he probably would have not reversed the call from what I saw."
(on if RB Steve Slaton is the starting running back now) "Yes, he is. Yes, he's played extremely well. I'm very impressed with him as the game went on. He got stronger as the game went on. Even the last play of the game, his effort chasing the kid (Titans CB Cortland Finnegan) down the sidelines was tremendous. He's got a chance to be a fine player. It will be interesting to see how he comes out of this first game plan, that many plays and taking some of those hits that he took and seeing how he responds this week. But he deserves the opportunity to right back out there this week."
(on how he evaluates the defense in the first half of the game) "Yeah, that kind of stumps us because we didn't do anything different. We still did some of the same things. I think the thing that was glaring in the second half is, defensively, we got them in a lot of third down-and-long situations. In the first half, they had a lot of third-and-two and third-and-three. So down-and-distance I think dictated our success a little bit. But we obviously played probably some of our best defensive football in a while in the second half of that game."
(on how he feels about the type of pressure they have gotten on the quarterbacks) "The type of pressure we got on the quarterback? I thought we made (Pittsburgh QB) Ben (Roethlisberger) get rid of the ball, but he made a lot of plays. We had a couple sacks in that game and this game we ran a bunch of zone dogs and various things. I thought our spinner package in the second half caused them some problems and made them get rid of the ball. And, as always, just causing havoc and making the quarterback make a quick decision is as important as walking out of the game with sacks. So, we try to do some of those things and I think some of them were effective in the second half."
(on why they didn't move DE Mario Williams up in the middle sooner) "Well, if we knew he was going to be free we probably should have. We caused them some problems with the spinner package. Some teams sort them out better than others, but we found a way to get him free. One of them was the screen pass. So I think one of them they were turning him loose. But if we can be effective in doing that then maybe we'll do it some more."
(on why you drop DE Mario Williams into coverage) "Well, anytime you have a zone dog package, or you have a package for players, you can't be 100 percent consistent just doing it one way. You have to show sometimes that you'll be able to things more than one way. If he was always a rusher and Anthony (Weaver) was always your dropper or something, you get very predictable as a defense. So I think it actually helped us in the second half, as we went through the second half, to be more unpredictable."
(on if he doesn't expect RB Ahman Green to be healthy for a while) "I don't know. I expect him to practice this week, but it has been awhile so we'll see how he does. But I do expect him to practice."
(on the red zone problems) "First off, to get six trips down there, that's a good thing. You like to get down there that much, but we weren't very effective. We didn't execute very well in the first half. In my opinion, we left 28 points out there in the first half not finishing off drives. Then in the second half, we give them the ball back on the 10, 11 and the one (yard lines). So that's three times your ineffective down there. But when you don't come away with points, it's tough to win in this league."
(on what he's not happy about with the red zone offense after looking at film) "Well, just not finishing. You have to find a way to score points down there. You have to find a way to score sevens. We had a drop down there; we had a busted play on a second down. I want to say a second-and-10 on the second drive. We had a totally busted play that we had worked on all week, and we busted it. You know, we had a third-down play where we had exactly what we wanted, exact defense, with two guys wide open and we don't hold up to get the ball. I probably threw it too much in the second half in the re dzone, probably should have ran it more down there. But regardless, the bottom line is we didn't finish down there."
(on what he can tell fans who are down about the losses) "Well, first off I'd tell them that we're down, too. We're disappointed in how we played. To me, yesterday, we're in the football game all the way until the end. I mean, if we make one play in the third quarter, or fourth quarter, we're right in that football game until the very end. So, we're disappointed. We expect to play a lot better. We played two good football teams. We're not playing very well right now. But we're going to keep working and figure this out and play better football. We have another tough challenge this week."
(on why he thinks they play so much better against the Jaguars than the Titans or Colts) "I don't know. I'd have to go back and look at all those games. I know we won a big game down there a couple of years ago making a play at the end of the game on our own end of the field. And last year, we won a game down there against them playing really well on special teams. So, without the obvious, we have played better against them for some reason. I don't have the answer for you right now."
(on if when evaluating QB Matt Schaub he takes into account what he's seen this year or over time from Schaub) "Obviously, when you're with players, I think the whole time you've been spending with them comes into account. You know what a player's made of, know what he's capable of. But, at the same time, in our business each week you play, you've got to sit there and evaluate what you're doing and how you're doing it. That's coaching, that's scheme, that's everything you're doing. So, in this business, every person, whether player or coach if they're not doing their job, there's a chance they could be replaced. That's part of this business. When I look at the big picture, if I felt like one player was the reason that we were not succeeding, then that's easy. I don't see it that way. I see a lot of reasons why we're not succeeding and we all need to fix those issues."
(on when he looks at the tape what tells him that it isn't as bad as the numbers indicate) "Well, it is bad. What tells me that it's not as bad? It's bad. We are making a lot of mistakes in a lot of areas. Yesterday, defensively in the first half we didn't play well. We didn't tackle well. Offensively, we left a lot of points on the board. A lot of people are involved in that. It's not just one person that's involved in that. So what we do is we evaluate as a team. We're going to come in here and look at a film together and we're going to say, 'Why was this not successful?' We're going to come to a conclusion of why that's not successful and we're going to try to fix it. Just pointing a finger at one person or putting all the blame on one person or one position—that's not going to take place because it's a team game and right now this team is not playing well."
(on if WR Andre Johnson and WR Kevin Walter should be producing more) "Well, I think we as a group have to produce better in the passing game. We're not very good right now on average yard per attempt compared to last year. We went through all of this today and talked about all of that. We had a chance to produce yesterday. We missed some plays. There was a chance to produce."
(on if he has thought about going for it on fourth and four) "Yeah. Would I do it again? We're down 24-12, so we're down by twelve. We're on the road. We're going to have to score some points to win. If you would have told me we we're going to be back down in the red zone four more times maybe I would make a different decision, but we're going to try to score points and try to win the football game. We had fourth-and-four. If we don't make it, we've got them backed up. Our defense has them backed up. They've been playing good. We'd been struggling snapping the ball on field goals throughout the day. So a lot of things go into that decisions, but I would be aggressive again."
(on what in particular he liked about RB Steve Slaton and the offensive line) "First off, he (Slaton) got better as the game went on. The one big play he made early in the game was really a single effort. We didn't block the play very well. He came out of the pile and took off and had a great effort at the end of the play too to get some more yards tack on for the penalty. (He) played well in the pass game, picked up some blitzes. One time he had to step up and pick up (DE Albert) Haynesworth on a gap call, just very, very impressive. Very few mistakes. I think one or two mistakes. I just love his effort. I love the last play of the game. I like what he stands for, playing really hard."
(on how the Texans came out of the game health wise) "We're beat up, but nothing that should keep anybody out of significant amount of time. I think right now Brandon Harrison is the one that we're most concerned about. He has a shoulder sprain. He'll be day-to-day."
