On Monday, the Texans' locker room was full of players upset by their performance against the Titans.
TE Owen Daniels
(on how much the disappointing start has shaken his thoughts in terms of what he thought about the team before the season) "I still think we're a good team. I think we're going to win a lot of games this year. Obviously, Week 1 was not a good game, but we fought hard yesterday. We just offensively bogged down in the red zone. I think we had the ball on the 10-yard line, 11-yard line, and the one-yard line and got zero points out of it. So, that's not the way you win games. We were bad on third down. We need to fix that stuff."
(on what was missing in those red zone opportunities) "I think we were just a little off here and there. We moved the ball down the field to get in those situations. So we obviously don't have a problem moving the ball. We just need to capitalize when we get in those red zone situations and actually get points. You can't win if you don't get points."
(on if anything offensively stood out today in meetings) "There are negative things and there's positive things. Which one would you like? The negative stuff? I think Matt (Schaub) took a lot of hits. It's tough enough for him to stand back there and read the defense and make plays without a rush, let alone having guys hanging on him. So we need to do a better job of protecting. We were facing a good front four and we were expecting a tough day, but we need to be better there. I think we ran the ball a lot better. Steve Slaton did a hell of a job for us, big time runs. He's getting a lot better. Those things stuck out to me."
{QUOTE}(on what types of things you point to in saying it might not look as bad as it does on paper) "Well, if you look at it on paper, I don't think it looks very good. If you're going to win in this league, you need to be good on third down and we have been terrible on third down. If we're put in a position where coach (Gary Kubiak) is going to give us the opportunity to go for it on fourth down, we need to make the most of that and convert, and we haven't done that yet. So for us, we've been in situations where we've been in position to score and have not converted third downs and fourth downs in those situations. So that needs to be fixed."
(on if it gives confidence to the offense when Kubiak allows them to go for it on fourth downs) "Definitely, we don't ever want to come off of the field. We want to go for it if it's a manageable situation, and I think coach (Kubiak) is making good decisions by going for it on third down. We just maybe didn't necessarily have the best play called or they had a defense that didn't match up to our play or they had us covered up, but we need to find a way to make it work."
(on what was coach Gary Kubiak's message to the team today) "There's a lot of stuff to clean up. I don't thinks he's, he's not hitting the panic button. We're not hitting the panic button. We just need to go back to work and fix the things that I've said here just now that we've been faltering."
(on about the fans maybe talking about a quarterback controversy) "Yeah, I think everyone who I have spoken to, I guess, media-wise has mentioned it. I guess that's expected in, I guess, the situation where Matt (Schaub) hasn't played up to his ability. I think he'd be the first one to tell you that. That's our guy. That's all we really have to say about it. He's going to play a lot better. We're going to protect better for him and we've got to get him to get a win this week."
WR Andre Johnson
(on what he saw after looking at the film) "Nothing really changed from what I said yesterday after the game. We just didn't make the plays. That's pretty much it. Like I said, it's not a secret. We just didn't make plays. If you look at it on film, you see the same thing. So it wasn't a surprise to me."
(on how much of his confidence has been shaken by the bad start) "I don't think my confidence is shaken. I think I'm a little bit frustrated. I think everybody is because you have expectations and then to go out the first two games and you don't play up to them. I wouldn't say that anything is shaken on anything like that. I still have a lot of confidence in this football team. There are still a lot of football games left to play. You have to take it one game at a time. It's still early. That was only our second game and in order for us to get to where we want to be, we have to finish those drives that we didn't finish yesterday and make those plays. So, like the two plays I had, those are plays that I've made over and over. I just didn't make them yesterday, and like I said, I take full responsibility for it. That's something that I won't have happen again. I'm pretty upset about it, but at the end of the day, I have to move on with it. I can't let it linger. I just have to get ready for Jacksonville."
(on if he thinks it looks more fixable than if you look at it through his eyes instead of the final score) "I think it's very fixable because we stopped ourselves. A lot of the plays that were not made is because we didn't make them. Of course, Tennessee has a great defense. Their d-line, their front seven, is probably one of the tops in the league. When you look at the film, there was just always a breakdown here or there. It wasn't where it was just always they just went out and dominated us or anything like that. It was always something where a guy missed something on the blocking scheme or I didn't make a play. Everyone's just taking turns messing it up. It's something that we've said over and over. It's just time to get it fixed, and hopefully we can go out and fix that next week."
(on what he thinks of the team so far this year) "Every team coming into the season feels like their team is much better than the year before. You go through the preseason and things go fine, and then you start the regular season and you look like a totally different team. We aren't the only team that that has happened to. If you look at some of the teams in the past, you know, you look at the Giants last year. They could still go out and win the Super Bowl. The thing that we can't do is we just can't hang our heads after these two games. Everybody just has to rally around each other and just determine that we're going to go out and get this thing fixed and get it headed in the right direction."
(on if he sees that referring to the previous question) "Yeah, you know, sitting in the locker room after the game, guys are frustrated. Guys want to win. Just like when we're sitting in there watching film, we look at it and guys just try to figure out what they could have done better. That's a good thing. If we just had a bunch of guys that really just didn't care, then it would be another thing. Guys want to win around here and we're just trying to do everything we can to try to get it right."
G Chester Pitts
(on what is happening along the offensive line that is making QB Matt Schaub hurry) "Bad technique. Honestly, that's the easy way to sum it up. It's definitely not want to or definitely not fight. It's just finishing a little bit longer, being in better position, working together better as a unit."
(on if he is concerned about that part of the offense) "Well, of course. That's all that I'm really tied into. I can't control how the receivers and all that stuff, just the O-line, and collectively we're looked at as a group so whatever goes wrong, whether it's one lineman here, one there, it's all of us. So it absolutely matters and we have to find a way to fix it."
(on if the last two games have shaken the confidence of the team) "I don't believe that, no. I just think that concentration, maybe studying a little more, just little things that we can do to find a way to do our job better."
(on if the situation is better than it looks) "You know, I wouldn't say it's better than it looks. Well, I guess you could say it's better than it looks to the layperson, yes. But for us, we knew, I mean in the middle of a play I know if I take a bad step, I know the moment I did it, 'Dang I wish I could pull that back.' I just feel like it's one of those things. It's just such small little details that if it goes this way, that way, it won't be a problem. But it just hasn't teetered our way."
(on if the season is on the brink right now even though it just started) "I'm not ready to jump off that bridge. I definitely believe that we need to win this game as much as we need to win Tennessee two, even though that's two months away. But our approach, the way we treat the game is going to be exactly the same. We have to find a way to get a 'W.'"
(on if they are braced for a clamoring for a quarterback change) "Not really. The people that are doing all the clamoring tend to not know football as well as the people that are making those decision. I don't want to be rude or anything, but the guys at home watching TV need to stay at home watching TV and let the guys who know what they are doing do their jobs."
(on if things like that come with the territory) "Absolutely. When anything goes wrong - if a running back fumbles twice: 'Oh, we need to get a new running back.' If a linemen misses two blocks in a game, it's: 'Oh, we need to get his butt out of here and get someone better.' But if you score two touchdowns: 'Oh, he's great,' but he could have missed three pass blocks in the game. What is it? Perception versus reality. There is no controversy and Matt's (Schaub) going to be fine. The biggest thing I do is look at the mirror at myself and see what I can do to help Matt."
