Texans head coach Gary Kubiak spoke to the media during his weekly press conference at Reliant Stadium on Monday afternoon.
Head Coach Gary Kubiak
(on ILB Tim Dobbins) "(Tim) Dobbins is out of the hospital, doing good. He ran with the team today. All indications are he's back on the field Wednesday just got a real good shot. Like I said, his neck was bothering him a little bit but everything looks fine."
(on other injury updates) "No. (Brian Cushing) was back out there today. (Bryan) Braman is actually back to work today, should be ready to go on Wednesday. We're fine. We came out pretty good."
(on the offensive performance against Miami) "First off, we had horrible field position to start the game. I think we started at the 5, 10 and 13. They did a good job of keeping the game on our end early. They moved the ball on us the first drive. We moved it on them. Missed a field goal, that flipped the field position again so after that once we got the turnover I think we scored six out of seven possessions so that's a darn good thing. The biggest thing I was disappointed in offensively was how we ran the ball, which wasn't very good at all and how we finished on the 1-yard line and how we finished the game the last couple drives. I think that's a mark of a good team. Everybody knows you got to run it to finish a game you still line up and run it. We didn't do that yesterday."
(on the biggest problem with the running game) "I think it's across the board. It starts up front. It always starts up front. We got to do all things better, coach it better, call it better, do it better, backs, wide receivers, tight ends. You know what I mean, it's not one thing."
(on if Miami Offensive Coordinator Mike Sherman gave the Texans things they hadn't seen) "We saw a lot of formations and stuff that we hadn't seen them do in the preseason. Like I said, they ran the ball on us a little bit early in the game, moved the ball on us. I think once we got to the end of the first quarter or early in the second quarter, I thought defensively we were pretty dominant the rest of the football game. But that's part of Opening Day. You're going to always get some things. I'm sure we showed them some things that they hadn't seen also. But early in the game, we're battling and trying to get the field position flipped and the turnovers obviously flipped the field position and the game entirely."
(on the run defense) "Well we've had a few issues in the preseason. We've played San Francisco, big physical team, ran the ball on us pretty good when we played our ones in that game. Of course that wasn't our ones out there against Minnesota. We're going to get tested. This week, not to get too far ahead, but obviously we're playing a big physical team that's going to test us that way. So it's something that we can do a better job of. Once we got the lead obviously they were throwing it a bunch. We were able to get after the quarterback and get the turnovers. But it's something that we got to continue to improve upon."
(on Jacksonville RB Maurice Jones-Drew's play this week) "I expect his best. We had him at the Pro Bowl. You always respect players that you play against. I knew he was a great player. When we went to the Pro Bowl I was very impressed with him there not only as a player, as a person. He's a typical player who takes care of himself. They knew he was going to be ready to go when he came back. Obviously yesterday showed that. They had a game in their grasp yesterday with what 15 seconds left to play in the game? So I know that was a very difficult game for them and they'll be ready to go. It's always tough for us when we go there."
(on RG Antoine Caldwell and RT Derek Newton on the line Sunday) "I don't look right and left, you know what I mean? That's been a big question throughout the course of camp. Obviously they are two new players for us. That was (Derek) Newton's first start in the NFL; so some good, some bad. I think we knew that going in. That is what we're going to get. (Antoine) Caldwell has started some games, but I'm looking at it the big picture. We didn't run the ball well whether we ran it right, left or up the middle. So when I talk to them I'm talking to all five of them. I'm not talking to right or left and we got to play better than we did in the game."
(on DE Antonio Smith's postgame comments about a Miami G Richie Incognito) "Antonio (Smith) is a high-effort player, energy player. Their guard, he gets after it, too. Those two had a heck of a battle going on all day long. I think that's just part of the game. It was very competitive. I think both teams were ready to play, very competitive environment. I didn't see anything different from what you normally see week to week. I just saw two guys getting after it."
(on QB Matt Schaub and DE Tim Jamison signing contract extensions) "Well first off, Matt (Schaub) was exceptional in the game, played very well. He had a good camp. Like I said, I thought he was on top of his game yesterday. I'm happy for him. It's good for the organization. It's good for the football team. We got a fine player and we got him locked up for a while. I'm happy for Matt (Schaub) and his family. He wanted to be here. He wants to play here so that's a very positive step. Tim (Jamison) is a great example of a guy really earning his keep. Tim came from a free agent, been cut a few times, told no, kept coming back. He's become a fine player for us and got rewarded yesterday. He played very well in the game yesterday. You're always happy when you know you're going to lock some of those guys up for a while so that was a good day not only to win but to have that happen."
(on the running defense Sunday suffering because of a lack of reps together in camp) "You've been missing J.J. (Watt) throughout camp and Shaun (Cody) for the most part throughout camp. I think we get tested that way all the time. I think in this league you're going to get tested. If you don't stop the run, people are going to continue to do it. If you show you can stop it or if you get a 10-point lead or something in this league people start to run out of plays and they got to throw it around. We can play it a lot better than we played it early in the game yesterday. We know that. We also know we got a big test coming this week so those guys getting reps, playing together it's the same way with our guys up front on the other side of the ball. The further we go the more plays (Antoine) Caldwell and (Derek) Newton play together with everybody else we should get better. That's part of the process during the season so hopefully it works out both ways."
(on having WR Andre Johnson healthy) "Boy, I tell you, he got off to a great start. I think I said this to you all a couple times; but Andre (Johnson) the last 10 days of camp has really looked like the Andre I remember from four or five years ago; I'm talking about from a work standpoint at practice. Andre is a guy that needs to do it in practice to do it in a game. That's the way he is. He had an excellent week last week and it showed in the game. I think he still probably played a couple too many plays than I wanted him to play. Me and (Wide Receivers Coach) Larry (Kirksey) are gonna try to keep an eye on that, keep him fresh. I think he played 49 plays but they were 49 darn good ones. So he's off to a good start."
(on what makes QB Matt Schaub special that the public doesn't see) "Well, he's a leader. He's very respected in our locker room. Matt's (Schaub) a fine player. He can make all the throws. He can handle very difficult game plans. So from a football standpoint, that's a no-brainer. But what he brings to the team is total commitment to being as good as he can be. Matt's the first one in here every morning, last one to leave. I know that's an old cliché, but football is very important to him. Houston winning football games is very important to him and he loves this community. He's got a lot of good years of football left in him."
(on the special teams play against Miami) "We didn't play good at all. We didn't. When you get beat, you have to let things go and go get after the next game. Good teams, when they win, they're able to be hard on themselves. So we have to start today with that. We did not play well on special teams. We didn't cover well. We didn't return well; something that we had been doing pretty consistent during the preseason. We had some guys playing some special teams getting going again that need to be big special teams players for us. Whitney Mercilus needs to play well for us; Mister Alexander. Throughout the course of the preseason, we did protect some of those guys, when we're looking at young players and it showed yesterday. I don't think some of the key guys on special teams were on top of their games. We didn't come out of this game feeling very good about how we played but we make the corrections today and hopefully we're a lot better next week."
(on if he heard that the referee received a call from the booth to penalize CB Kareem Jackson for a facemask against the Dolphins) "No. I don't know anything about that. Kareem (Jackson) played very good. Kareem's a very physical player as a corner. When he tackles, when people make plays on him, gonna hit them. He's pretty physical in what he's doing. The thing I was impressed with right after that play is he gets a call; we talk about having a short memory in our locker room, when you make a mistake, go to the next play. I think it was almost the very next play he comes back and delivers a good, physical blow again, or a couple plays later. Kareem played well in the game, had a turnover. Our whole back end played very good."
(on only booting QB Matt Schaub twice in the passing game) "Yeah, we did it twice. They protected the edges pretty good. Normally, if we're not running the ball very well, you're not going to see a lot of boots. Those things kind of go hand-in-hand , but dropback-wise, we threw very good yesterday. So, we'll see. May see one to two one week and 10 next week. It kind of all depends on how we're playing."
(on the run game and concerns with slow starts moving ahead) "It's always a concern. Actually, we ran the ball good in the beginning of the game. If you're looking for the good runs, they were the first four or five. We were doing some good crack-toss stuff, trying to run these guys sideline-to-sideline because we knew they were tough to run downhill on. But there's always concerns every week, like you said. You come out of this game, you've got concerns with that, concerns with special teams. That's part of this league and those concerns usually change week-to-week. You've got to make sure you're giving them attention and keeping your players moving forward and on their toes and figuring out how you're going to win the next game because they're all different."
