News

Head Coach Gary Kubiak
(on the team’s health) “(G Antoine) Caldwell got a stinger concussion.  He’s going through the protocol, the concussion protocol with the league. (DE) Tim Jamison will miss the rest of the season. He tore his Achilles. He ended up playing four or five plays and tore his Achilles, so (I) feel bad for Timmy. He’s worked real hard, and was a big positive going for us. (CB Johnathan) Joseph (has a) sore groin, he’ll be day-to-day and (SS Quintin) Demps has a chance this week. I would say we start the week with Demps and Joseph being day-to-day.”

(on if CB Johnathan Joseph has been bothered by a sore groin in recent weeks) “He’s missed a little practice time. We’ve given him some Wednesdays off, given him some time off. He’s had some soreness, nothing to keep him from playing. He’s played with it before. The biggest thing is we’re about 350 to 400 snaps into this season, so it’s a lot of snaps and obviously he’s on the field all the time covering their best. We may have to be smart with him this week and get him to Sunday. We think he’ll be okay. It’s something that he’s been able to work through before, and hopefully he’ll work through it again.”

(on what concerns him the most after watching film of Sunday’s loss) “There’s not one thing; it was across the board. They got after us, like I said, really, really, good. We started slow as a team. We’ve been starting pretty fast as a football team. We get down. We hurt ourselves as a football team. We gave them a couple extra possessions with the off sides, obviously, on their first touchdown, gave them basically three opportunities to possess the football on their first drive of the third quarter. Some undisciplined things that we did, that’s our biggest concern today, but I think across the board all three phases wasn’t good enough.  Today we’ve got a lot of corrections to make and lots of soul searching to do, especially with this team we’ve got coming in here this week. It wasn’t one thing. It was a bunch of things.”

(on if he’s still unhappy with the special teams) “Yeah, I’m disappointed because we’re not carrying some stuff from the practice field to the game. That’s my biggest concern. Our return game, especially kickoff return has been poor, extremely poor. We work on these things during the week, and we’re not getting them done on the weekend. We may have to change our train of thought there and some of the things we do. I thought (WR) Keshawn (Martin) did some good stuff, heck he actually did a heck of a job on one punt return. He was very close and one ball he shouldn’t have brought out of the end zone, but he’s trying to make a play and almost makes a hell of a play, so I was encouraged by him. We did make one big positive play on special teams with the blocked punt, but gave them two possessions, too, with a couple of penalties, lack-of-discipline-type penalties. Something’s got to get better.  If our football team is going to get better, it’s going to have to get a hell of a lot better.”

(on OLB Bryan Braman’s play on special teams) “He’s been playing good. (OLB) Bryan (Braman) has finally gotten healthy. The last few weeks he’s been himself as you all know. When we got started he had the hamstring issue early in the season. Braman can be a difference-maker for us, not only blocked a punt, but had a couple of nice covers and tackles, went in and played some defense at the end of the game and played well. We got to have that when it comes to him and (OLB) Jesse (Nading) and those type of guys on special teams.  They’ve got to be difference makers every week. It can’t be a stop-gap situation. We’ve got to count on them to be a difference in some games.”

(on his early thoughts on replacing DE Tim Jamison) “We’ve got to think about it. Obviously we got a young man on our practice squad who we think a lot of in (David) Hunter so that’s option number one, but we’ve got a couple days here to take a look. We only carry six guys on our team so we’re very shorthanded defensive line-wise but we’ll have to do something. Obviously we can’t sit there and run (DE) Antonio (Smith) and (DE) J.J. (Watt) in the ground. We’re going to have to go get them some help or pull it up from within so we’ll see what happens.”

(on if he thinks the team lacked urgency during last night’s game) “No, I didn’t say that. I thought we had a great week of practice so I don’t know where you got that from. I thought we were very prepared. We practiced as well as we had practiced all year. We’re playing a great football team. We got off to a very poor start. We go three and out offensively. We had the off sides issue, so we got down in this game as compared to all those other games we played. We had our opportunities. We cut it to 11 right at the half, and I felt like we’re fine just got to go out and play. We cut it to 11 again at 28-17 and they run the kickoff back to the 50 so we we’re playing a tough opponent. We were going to have to play special and we weren’t able to do that. But as far as going into the game, our preparation, I didn’t feel any different than I felt the first five.”

(on if he noticed any difference in the team today) “Obviously, they know they got it handed to them pretty good. We knew that last night, and you turn on the film today and you see it again. It’s a humbling game. You play a lot of football and you’re going to have some highs and lows. That’s the first big low of the year. We’ve got other challenges coming our way, so how we handle those type of things will have a lot to do with what we are when it’s all said and done. It’s a big disappointment, but we’ve got to move on. They’re out of here now, we’ve moved on to Baltimore. We’ve got this game before our bye. We’re going to have to play really well. I think this team is a big-time football team. We’ve had trouble with them in the past so we’ve got to get back to work.”

(on DE Jared Crick) “He played good. I was impressed with some guys. Late in the game when it’s not good, you find out a lot about some character of some people on your football team. You watch defensively we stood up and stopped them a couple of times. (NT) Earl (Mitchell) was impressive. (DE Jared) Crick was impressive. (OLB Bryan) Braman was impressive. Offensively you watch (RB) Justin (Forsett) go in there and carry the football the way he carried the ball and pass protect, (TE) Garrett Graham. You’re going to find out a lot about guys and how important it is to them in tough situations like that. I think all their teammates looked at that film today and they know that those guys are with them and they can count on them. Obviously those guys are going to have to play more football for us as we move forward.”

(on the running game issues) “Well it was good last week and not worth a darn last night. There’s always something. It concerns the heck out of me, but we got behind. We never got it going. We can do better up front. We can run better a, all of those things, call it better. We got ourselves caught in a different type of football game than we want to play. The end result is we’re not running the ball very good at all. It’s not going to change how we believe and what we think we have to do to win if that’s what you’re asking me. We’ve just got to look really hard at it and hopefully change it this week.”

(on the Packers’ offense) “They’ve kind of changed themselves a little bit through his years of being there. They’ve got a ton of confidence in him. They’re letting him do a lot of no-huddle stuff and they have moved the ball extremely well. They do have one of the best three-down backs in the game, too. I think we’re facing a lot different opponent defensively this week than we did face last week. This team can beat you both ways. They’ve got some issues. Everybody’s got some issues this time of year. The team that came in here last night, they were missing some players and you saw what they were all about. This league is about rising to the challenge and we didn’t do that last night. We’re looking forward to our opportunity this week. We know how tough it will be because we always have a difficult time with these guys. It’s always physical. Special teams usually plays a big part every time we play them and we’re struggling there right now. We’ve got to be a lot better.

(on the pass protection on the right side of the offensive line) “I’m looking at the whole. I don’t look at the right side and the left side. I’m looking at the offensive line. We got behind. They brought a lot of stuff. (Green Bay Defensive Coordinator) Dom (Capers) does a great job, showed a lot of blitzes and stuff to give us problems. We didn’t protect the quarterback good enough across the board. That’s up front. That’s the running backs. (QB) Matt (Schaub) took a lot of shots last night. If you get behind, everybody knows you’re going to throw the ball; that’s when you got to be at your best protecting the quarterback. You can’t be average. So hopefully learn from that last night, but we got tested and like a lot of things, it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t right or left. It was the offense across the board.”

(on the Baltimore’s special teams) “They make a lot of big plays. They’ve always had a great kicking game and (Jacoby Jones) takes that one back a 108 yesterday. They’re’ a well-built football team all around and like I said offensively, they’re playing very explosive this year. When you come off a game like we did and you’re playing an opponent like them, it’ll get your attention real quick. Like I said, we’ve moved on. We actually went out and walked through some of their stuff already today trying to get this taste out of our month and move on. We just got to have a good week and get everybody back going and heading in the right direction.”

(on if the familiarity with the Ravens is helpful) “There’s always going to be some surprises. They always do some different things and we do some different things, some of the familiar stuff, 3-4 team. Of course they play a lot of different fronts than Green Bay does play, for us so we’ve got a little bit of change from that standpoint off of their 3-4. Like I said, offensively this team is throwing it around a bunch, but yet they lineup with (FB) Vonta Leach and (RB) Ray Rice and they can pound it at you, too, so I think our defense has got a lot different approach this week as they get ready for this game. Every week is different. They’re a little different than they were last year.”

(on if the Texans beat Baltimore they can be in the driver’s seat in the AFC playoff picture) “I don’t think that way. The most important thing is how we’re playing. I think that’s the most important thing. We’re going get a break after this week, and we’ve known that. That’s no surprise, but I’d hate to be feeling the way we’re feeling today next week. We need to get back playing a heck of a lot better football. It’s a long haul deal. You got to be honest with yourself each and every week whether you win you got to be honest if you’re not doing things right and when you get beat it’s easy to be honest with yourself. We had an easy day from that standpoint, but it won’t be an easy week. To turn it around will be very difficult, so we can’t get out there quick enough and get going.”

(on Ravens’ LB Ray Lewis’ injury and if that will change the way Baltimore plays defense) “No, they play the same defense and do the same stuff so it’s not going to change anything. It’s part of the game. It’s like us losing (ILB Brian) Cushing. We didn’t go out there and run a different defense. That’s part of football; what a great player (Ray Lewis). I’ve been against him many, many times; tremendous player in this league so you don’t want to see any player get hurt. They’ve been successful defensively for numerous years. Ever since I’ve been around so I’m sure they’re planning on staying the same way. It’s about their scheme. It just challenges their scheme.”

(on if he notices any significant differences on tape without ILB Brian Cushing) “First off, I would say that (ILB) Bradie (James) did a lot of good things. Bradie played 60-plus plays so it’s different. We’re coming off of this game. Here we have another guy who’s played a lot of snaps so it kind of changes our approach week-in and week-out and how we got to get him going. He’s been playing like 25-30 snaps, but I thought he did a lot of good stuff in the game. Were we attacked differently? If that’s what you’re asking me, I don’t feel that way. They obviously had us in nickel all night long, but that’s what they are as a team. They’re a three-wide team, spread the field and let number 12 (Aaron Rodgers) throw it around, and he can throw it around as good as anybody. That was our first week out without him (ILB Brian Cushing) and it wasn’t successful but it wasn’t not successful just because Cush wasn’t there. We had problems in a lot of other areas so it goes back to what I talked about last week, us playing better as a team and we didn’t do that.”

(on if OLB Whitney Mercilus will receive more opportunities) “Yeah, he did play a little bit more last night. (Defensive Coordinator) Wade (Phillips) had a couple of schemes in for him. You’re right. He needs to get more involved. He’s got to grow up as a player. I talked to a couple young players today. There are a lot of guys that have to grow up real fast for our team, (WR DeVier) Posey, (WR Keshawn) Martin, (C) Ben Jones, all those guys. They’re going to have to play above and beyond. They’ve played a college season already. We’re going into our 11th football game or something like that right now, so these guys are in for the long haul and they’re going to have to play like veterans.”