Head coach Gary Kubiak spoke to the media after practice on Thursday.
Head coach Gary Kubiak
(on today's practice) "We could have practiced better today. That's all I can tell you. A little sluggish today; we need to practice better."
(on whether thinking that QB David Carr's future rests on these next games is an overstatement) "Yeah, I think it's a tremendous overstatement. We evaluate every player here and every coach and yours truly, right here. That's part of our job and our process every year. We play, and then at the end of the season we evaluate what everybody's doing. I think that's getting a little far fetched at this point. Does David (Carr) need to play well for his team to win this week? Yeas he does, but that's every week. You've got to do that for 16 weeks to have an opportunity to win."
(on whether DE Antwan Peek's speed will be helpful in stopping Titans QB Vince Young) "Yeah. I mean, he rushes the passer very well, and he has tremendous speed to chase people. Playing against (Titans QB) Vince (Young) is about discipline in your defense. If you get undisciplined and you're not in your gap or you're not in your contain situation, he's going to make you pay. So it's more about discipline than anything else."
(on how much over pursuit of Young he has seen on film) "Well, it's only natural, you know. Because you know he's going to make plays with his feet, so you get very conscious of that. Some teams, you don't rush the passer as well because you're conscious of them leaving the pocket. Hey, we've got to just go play and play our defense. (Defensive coordinator) Richard (Smith) calls it; we have to run it and be disciplined in what we're doing."
(on whether RB Chris Taylor will be used in the offense) "He could be both. He'll definitely play special teams and he could play some offense."
(on whether playing Taylor who hasn't had a touch since preseason brings up fumble worries) "He'd better not. But now that you brought it up, yeah now I'm a little worried about it. No, as a matter of fact, I told Chris (Taylor) yesterday, I said, 'Chris, why weren't you on the final roster?' Chris said, 'Because of my pass blocking?' I said, 'No.' 'Because I wouldn't get the ball downhill?' I said, 'No, you put the ball on the ground. So you better be ready to protect the ball this week." So he knows that was on of the reasons he was on the practice squad, because he did a lot of good things. If he does touch it he needs to hang on to it. Remind him of that."
(on the turnovers vs. Oakland being classic forced fumbles) "Well, we've paid a lot of attention to it the six or seven weeks. We were down near the bottom as far as getting turnovers. We added a period to our practice to just create some drills and just talk about it on a daily basis. You know obviously it's helped out. Some of those drills we've been working on came in to play last week. That's what he (DE Anthony Weaver) is talking about."
(on whether he feels better about K Kris Brown's play) "You know, it was interesting because it was such a beautiful day there in Oakland; it was gorgeous. I have been there when the wind blows in the Bay Area and stuff. That kid's ball moved all over the place when he kicked it, (Sebastian) Janikowski. And Kris' ball moved; even on the three he made his ball moved quite a bit. It's interesting. But he's kicked off well all year. He's missed some field goals, but he has a mental toughness about him. You know, he missed the first one the other day and then he comes back and makes three big kicks. That's hard to do as a kicker. It's kind of like a quarterback throwing two picks in the first half; can you come back and play well in the second half? But that's just part of his job."
(on how the special teams will try to neutralize CB Pacman Jones on returns) "Yeah, he really has (been tough for this team), and a couple weeks ago against Philly he went 90 (yards) against them. You know it's a hard deal because we were trying to kick the ball sideline to pin the kid (or) kick it out of bounds. What happens when you do that is your team gets lazy in a lot of ways because they think the ball's going to be in a certain spot. Now your punter misses and it's right down the middle of the field, and hell, you're all out of position. We feel like that's what hurt us last time. We're going to have to do everything we can to cover kicks, number one. If we punt it to him we had better be ready to tackle. I think we got so tied up with where Chad (Stanley) was going to punt the ball that we did not cover well. And we have been a pretty good cover team all year, so it's a great challenge. And we need to get down there and cover it."
(on P Chad Stanley's punting) "Well, it needs to get better. You know he's been very inconsistent. He's had good days where he punted extremely well and then he's had rough days. Last week he didn't punt well. Hopefully he comes back in here this week and, hopefully we don't punt too dang much, but when he does hopefully he punts extremely well."
(on the Titans playing Jones at receiver last week)"Yeah, he's just such a threat. And he's hard to tackle. When he's come on the field offensively it's been for a reason. So if we see him out there we're going to have to pay good attention to them."
(on whether this is the first team they have faced that has an option-style package) "Yeah, when we prepared for the Jets they had the kid that was doing that the kid from Missouri (Brad Smith). So that's something we prepared for, just having to recall from preparing for it the first time. But it is different. They are doing a lot of college football stuff with him, which is very smart on their part. It's a big change for our defense."
(on whether he thinks other teams avoid that kind of play for their QB's health) "It's probably just that player. You don't see that type of player come along that has the running ability and the size he has. So you have him and you have Michael Vick that have started to do that. I think it's just the rarity of the player and trying to find a way to move the ball."
(on how he keeps his team focused on the Titans with all the attention on Vince Young) "That's a great question because there is such a big focus on stopping the quarterback and all the things that he has done. And it does start with him; he is going to touch the ball every snap. They have been a team, they may show up and throw it 15, 20 times, and they are capable of running the ball right down your throat. I think everything starts with the running game. But you're right, if you get so carried away in one spot, you're going to get beat in the other. So we're just going to have to play good all-around football."
