Arizona Cardinals vs. Houston Texans 11/10/13
Texans Interim Head Coach Wade Phillips
Opening Statement:
"Obviously, a tough game for us. This team keeps fighting, but we're not coming up with the plays to make the difference certainly in the ball game. We did win the turnover battle, plus two. Normally, that is good for you. I thought their defense played outstanding in the second half. We obviously had trouble. I know in the third quarter we didn't make much at all. We had the ball with two minutes left in the game, three points behind. That's where you need to come through and at least tie the game, and we didn't, and we had four downs to do it. We weren't able to do that; we weren't able to finish that. I thought their offense did a good job of throwing the ball well on first downs trying to keep us out of third downs. I thought we played good third-down defense. They've got a smart quarterback. He hit us on a blitz and maybe it's probably my fault for blitzing then, but it was a little more desperation at that time, although we came back and still had a chance. If I had one to take back, I'd take that one back, try to keep them out of the end zone and keep them to three points. All in all, seems like the same thing. The team is playing extremely hard, but not enough good plays. One play here, one play there. Again, they really dominated us in the second half on the defensive side of the ball."
On his thoughts about losing seven consecutive games with all of the talent that is on this team:
"Thank you for that note there – franchise record. It's obviously upsetting to all of us. The team is going to stick together, I can tell you that. They're going to come back and work hard and try to do the right things to change. It's all those years (in the past), they've done it, but we haven't had a lot of good things go for us (this year)."
On if Gary Kubiak was in his thoughts:
"We obviously wanted to win this one for him, and we didn't get that done."
On if he communicated with Gary Kubiak at all leading up to the game:
"Yeah, he said, 'Win one. Win one.' He texted me and I texted him back."
On if he's spoken with him since the game had ended:
"No. I haven't had time."
On the last series that Houston had offensively and the blocked field goal:
"The blocked field goal, 31 (Justin Bethel) is the guy that we emphasized. It's the guy that we've got to stop because he's the field goal blocker, and he did it. We let down that area. The last drive we had it with 2:06 left. A lot of teams can move down there and make the plays, but we didn't do it."
On the second consecutive week of starting well and then the offense has struggled:
"I'd have to look at the film and see. It looked like they blitzed us quite a bit in the second half. That's what you do with a young quarterback."
On the touchdown catches by Andre Johnson:
"How terrific is he? He can make fantastic plays. That's why he's going to be a Hall of Famer one of these days. He's such a tremendous competitor, not just ability, but he's a great competitor. I'm glad we've got him on our team."
On how bad he feels for Gary Kubiak because the Texans were not able to get the win:
"I feel bad for the team, first of all. We do feel like we're playing really hard. We made some plays that could have won the game, and we didn't. Just like Andre's plays could have won the game. Defensive plays that we made, the interceptions and J.J. (Watt) pulling the ball out. We decided to punt 10 points behind and had to stop them there. When we stopped them and took the ball away from them, we scored a touchdown. We put all the pressure on them, and they were able to come through and win."
On if the last offensive series would have been different with a veteran quarterback like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady, instead of a guy who is in his third NFL start:
"This game, especially, we had trouble against them throwing the ball all game. Anytime you have four downs to throw the football, you have a chance at making some first downs, and we didn't make but one."
On J.J. Watt's ability to find ways to make big plays throughout the season:
"He's a great player. You talk about Andre (Johnson), but J.J.'s a great player on that side of the ball. He makes plays. That's why he's a great player; he makes plays. He makes plays all over the field."
On the injuries:
"We had quite a few injuries in the game. (Joe) Mays went out for a while, hurt a little bit of his knee; an oblique, whatever an oblique is, he hurt that. Elbert Mack had a hamstring and went out. 'K. Jack' (Kareem Jackson) went out. He got hit in the chest and couldn't come back, so we lost our starting corner in the game. (DeVier) Posey had a hip and a back, so we had a few injuries, especially when Mays went out, and we were down less than five 'backers. That hurt us on that series."
On not getting a touchdown on the last series of the first half:
"We didn't get any points; that was the most disappointing. You need to score when you get the opportunities, and we didn't."
On if Gary Kubiak will return next week:
"I don't know. I think it's too early to tell."
Texans QB Case Keenum
On the team's play in the second half:
"We struggled offensively in the second half. They did a good job of making adjustments and we were put in some situations. Still, we need to make sure we do our job when it's crunch time. The second half is obviously very important to every game. We fell short there."
On the team's last series of the game:
"I think DeAndre (Hopkins) made a couple plays. Andre (Johnson) did. We tried to take a few shots. I think their defense did a good job of playing over the top of our guys; played a little two-man (coverage). Especially on Dre's (Johnson) side. We tried to take a shot and they had him covered a little bit. The ball sailed on me a little bit, trying to just protect the ball. We had a chance and they stopped us. We didn't make the plays. I missed a few throws on that last drive that I'd like to have back."
On his two touchdown passes to WR Andre Johnson:
"Those were two of the best catches I've ever seen in my life. Those were incredible. I can't even describe it. You have to watch it to see how awesome those catches are."
On whether Coach Kubiak was on the team's mind during the game:
"Not too much. We all have a job to do. Obviously with him out, everyone has to step up and do a better job. I think we all remembered him, but we all had a job to do."
On his 3rd down pass during the last series:
"We had man to man outside vs. Dre (Johnson) in that play. If we get bump man out there, we're going to take the go route on that. They did a good job covering it. In that last second, instead of throwing the ball where he could catch it, it sailed, and I threw it outside."
On his 4th down pass during the game's last series:
"I didn't see what happened. I threw the ball, and I couldn't see. I just tried to give him a chance and I was a little late with that pass as well. He came out of my vision so I didn't get that ball on him."
On the team's series at the end of the first half:
"We had routes going to the end zone. They played off. Our secondary reads on those plays were down short. They came in and made a couple plays and we wanted to preserve the points there."
On his progress and development over the course of the season:
"It's terribly frustrating when I have to come in and look at the locker room and look at the guys. There are four or five plays that I could make that make a huge difference in this game and I didn't make them. That's terribly frustrating to me. It's something that I need to do. I have to make those plays. As far as progress, there are things I'm getting better at. But every week, I turn on the film, and there are more things. It's a growing process. I'm going to continue to grow. I'm going to get better. I'm used to winning. I feel like a winner. That's my mindset. Not winning kills me."
On NFL defenses being able to adjust to his play:
"Obviously this is a tough league. There are really good players everywhere. There are really good coaches. They make adjustments. That's another thing I can learn from. (I can learn) to expect the adjustments and expect different looks and expect changes. I have to continue to evolve and make changes and make those plays."
On his feelings about his game statistics in his three starts:
"I don't care about any stat except winning. Especially when you don't win, that makes it that much more important. That stat, when you don't win."
On the team losing in all three of his starts:
"It's like I said before. I've come into the locker room three times now, and have had to look at everybody in the locker room. I know, going back and watching the film, there's going to be a few plays that I could make and I'm going to make."
On the team's frustration level with the scoring differential in the second half of games:
"Like I said earlier, they did a good job making adjustments and we were in tough situations and just didn't make the plays. They (the plays) were even more important in the second half. We're obviously disappointed that we didn't make adjustments and make the plays we needed to when we needed to. I remember coming into the huddle, I think it was a drive with eight minutes (to go), the next to last drive we had. We told ourselves, 'this is a big drive. This is the drive of the game right here.' There are a few plays I missed on that drive and we didn't stay on the field."
On the forced fumble in the 4th quarter:
"The first play? I was about to say, 'the first play sucked.' That (the fumble recovery in the 4th quarter) was amazing. Our defense has come through and made some big plays when we really needed them to. That was amazing. That almost never happens and that was amazing to see that."
Texans FS Ed Reed
On the loss:
"Arizona played their best ball. We played really well outside of certain situations. Certain situations, we just got outplayed and outcoached."
On how tough it is being in the longest losing streak in franchise history:
"Very tough, but you don't go through fire like this for nothing. There's a lot you can learn from it. There's a lot of growing you can do as a team and as individuals. If you don't go through it, you don't grow through it. You're going to keep putting yourself in situations where you're playing close games like this."
On his comment on being outplayed and outcoached:
"Just certain situations. If you're watching the game, it's not no-brainers. Certain situations we have to get off the field. We need three-and-out. You have to also come out as an offense and move the ball. We can't go three-and-out and put your defense on the field that quick. That drive that they had, I'm looking at it like guys are a little fatigued because I know if you don't control the ball as much, offensively and defensively, you're going to get fatigued. They're going to get plays. Eventually they're going to figure out what you're doing if you're doing the same old things."
On Andre Johnson's two touchdown catches:
"Awesome. I told him before they were going out there, 'just go out there and get a score, make some plays.' That's what 'Dre does man. 'Dre is an awesome player. You have to get the ball to him."
On if he would have liked to be out there more:
"Yeah of course. I'm just doing what I'm told for the most part. At the same time, I know a lot of football. I know a lot about football. I know a lot about this game. I'm not just watching it blind. The stuff I do know, I can't say to you guys because it is a team sport and I do look at it from a coaching perspective as well. There's a lot of soul searching, top to bottom, that needs to be done as coaches and as players. I'm not perfect. I know I'm held to a high standard because of what I've done in the past, but that was the past. I'm a totally different player now. Even when I did go out there, the ball didn't come my way. That's neither here nor there. Like I said, I know football, certain situations we just didn't do well."
Texans WR Andre Johnson
On what hope remains for the big picture this season:
"There isn't much to say about it. We put ourselves in this position and we have to deal with it. So that's it."
On if he thought they had an opportunity to win when J.J. Watt got the strip and he got the touchdown:
"Of course. You have to play until the clock has zero on it. There's always opportunity and we didn't take advantage of it."
On the downfield passing game and his connection with Case Keenum:
"I feel comfortable with every quarterback we have. Whenever I get an opportunity, I just try to make the best of it. That's how I've always approached it."
On dealing with the seven-game losing streak:
"Like I said before, we put ourselves in this position. There's no reason to sit around and whine about it. Nothing we can do about it now. We just have to look forward to the games ahead and try to win as many as we can. "
On his two touchdown catches:
"Like I said, I always just try to make the best of my opportunities. He (Case Keenum) gave me an opportunity with the ball. I was able to make the plays on them."
On being able to keep his feet inbounds on his second touchdown catch:
"I knew my feet were in. That's something I work on a lot, keeping my feet inbounds when I make catches. I never had any doubt about it."
On what the Cardinals did in the second half to limit his opportunities:
"I think they put more pressure in the second half than they did in the first half. At times we were able to pick it up, sometimes we weren't. That's pretty much it."
Texans DE Antonio Smith
On the loss:
"It's definitely difficult. You feel like you play a good game, but the same thing keeps biting you in the butt. It's like a replaying record over and over again. We get some juice right before the half. We go out after the half, something happens, and it ends up in the same scenario. I think we have to take our chances when we have our chances. We have nothing to lose anymore. We have nothing to lose. I don't know what it's going to take, but I think when we have a chance to put a dagger in, we have to start putting daggers in people."
On how tough it was in the second half given how much time the defense spent on the field:
"In this game, I didn't even feel anything that made me think about how tough it was, I was on the field. I wouldn't say the first time, because the last couple games have been feeling the same way, we felt good about playing defense. I think this is the most turnovers we got in one game. I was proud of the team in that today we conquered a lot of demons on defense that we had not been conquering. When we got in the red zone, we had more stops than not today. We made them go for three more than not. When we needed turnovers, we got turnovers. The defense played in a way that made me proud today. I can't say anything else about it. I didn't even recognize or wonder what my offense was doing. I trust my brothers to do what they need to do. If they need us on the field to go out there and get another stop, that's what we have to do."
Texans RB Ben Tate
On how much talk there was amongst the players about winning the game for Gary Kubiak:
"We wanted to win it for ourselves and as well as Coach. Everyone wanted to win it for him. It's tough. I'm sure he's sitting back home right now shaking his head because we had a chance to win the game. Like I said, players on this team, we all have to step up to the plate, play better, make plays and help turn this thing around."
On the struggles in the second half of games:
"I don't know. I felt like we should have run the ball more in the second half. I felt like it was working. I didn't understand why we went away from it. Besides that, I really don't know. We just can't play one half of football every week. If we were playing one half of football, we'd be doing great right now, but there are two halves, two halves to a game. We just have to start playing better in the second half."
On if he was healthy enough to carry the load in the second half:
"Yeah. When I'm out there, of course I'm not 100%, but I'm going to do it to the best of my ability. When I'm out there, I want to go. I'm a player and I want to do my part to help the team win. I felt like in the second half I definitely could have done more, if I had the ball, to help the team win."
Texans DE J.J. Watt
On how the team got to this point:
"We've lost seven in a row. That's how we're here. We're not playing well enough to win. It's extremely frustrating. You work so damn hard, you prepare so much, and you commit so much time, energy and effort, you work your ass off all week, all offseason and all year, everyday. Then you come out here and you don't get it done. It's very frustrating. I don't think anybody would sit here and tell you this is what we expected; this is the way we saw things going. Obviously, we had extremely high expectations. We need to figure it out."
On being involved in getting more turnovers this game:
"Obviously, that's one thing that we've been emphasizing all season long is getting takeaways, turnovers and finding a way to capitalize on that. We got a couple of them today. We just need to continue to do that."
On if it is hard to believe they have gone from starting 11-1 last year to setting the franchise record for the most consecutive defeats:
"Yes, I would say that is difficult to believe."
