BB: That was a real good, solid team
victory for us today. Real happy to win, happy with the way that we played.
Thought it was, field position-wise, just kind of the reverse of what
we saw last week where we had the ball pretty much on their side of the 50
the whole first half — a lot different from what
we saw down there in Miami. But I think Houston's a real
competitive football team. I know that it didn't go well for them today, but
I think Gary [Kubiak's] done a good job with them. I think
that they're improving a lot. They have a lot of young players. Obviously,
they have a long way to go and they have a lot of work to do based on the
situation that he came into, but I think that he's done a good job with
them. I think that the teams are a lot more competitive than what the final
score indicated today. But it was a good, solid effort. We got some
turnovers, we were able to capitalize, make a couple plays offensively, and
special teams, I thought they had a real good day. They covered well, they
returned well, got us scoring opportunities, converted those, so that was an
important part of the game. And Houston's very good on special teams,
so that was a big challenge for our guys today and they really responded to
it. It's good to win. Need to have a short memory on this one and move on to
Jacksonville.
Q: Did you see an improvement with
the offensive line protection this week?
BB: I thought they did a good job today. I told you that about last
week's game, but I thought they did a good job. It could still be better.
There's always room for improvement. But we got a lot of heavy fronts where
they had extra
guys down there in blitz and all of that; it was a little challenging at times.
But I thought we had a little production running the ball and were able to
take advantage of some of those pressure defenses.
Q: On the screen pass, was that more of a result of Houston overloading
the left side?
BB: Well, we screened them quite a bit
today. I'm not sure how many we called, but it was probably close to 10, I'd
say. That's sometimes a good play against pressure and sometimes it's a
good play when they drop off if you can get it
going. The big thing is just to get out there and get it moving. That's a
timing play between the quarterback and the back and the line and the rush
and all of that. We had a couple plays of good production on that. That
was good execution by the team.
Q: You seemed particularly pleased after that particular play — you high-fived Josh [McDaniels]. Was it
a call at that particular time there?
BB: Well we worked on those all week.
We thought it would be a big part of
the game plan and thought we'd have some opportunities to run those. Anytime
we score from the 43-yard line and score a 43-yard touchdown, that's good.
We've spent a lot of time working on those kinds of plays, game-planning
them, practicing them. The guys go out there and work their butts off on all
the different blitzes and zones and mans and all of the different looks and
you go out there and get it done right and get it executed like that,
everybody feels real good about it. It's a lot of hard work that goes into a
play like that. So it's good to see a positive result.
Q: With Laurence Maroney being out,
was Kevin Faulk a big part of the game plan today?
BB: All of the backs, all of them, produced for us — Heath [Evans] and Corey [Dillon] and Kevin. I think this was one of those games...I talked to
Corey before the game about how important he was going to be in this one and
it was going to be a lot on him, and as usual, he stepped up and delivered for
us for four quarters, as did Kevin, as did Heath. Those guys all, even
though we were a little shorthanded at that position, they all stepped up
and gave us real productive games.
Q: Was it good to see Ellis Hobbs step up like he did today, too?
BB: Yes. The kickoff return was a big play. Whatever chance they had to get
back into the game at that point was really hurt by that long play. There
was a lot of good blocking there and Ellis just accelerated through. We've
seen him in the return game last year, and even last week in Miami, when he
splits it, he has a chance to make some big yardage, as we saw last week. So
he's fast, he runs hard and he's tough. He's been playing all year with that
wrist and fighting through it. I give him a lot of credit for the way he has
competed throughout the season. I thought it was nice to see him do well
today. He had a nice interception, too.
Q: In the matchups and the 'Any given Sunday'
thing, and you see what Jacksonville does
to Indianapolis and yet Jacksonville has lost to Houston twice. How do you figure week-to-week...?
BB: Because those other games don't mean anything. The only thing
that means anything is that one game and how those two teams matchup and how
they play on that particular day. It doesn't matter what their record is or
what happened last week or last month or last year. Look, I think Houston does a lot
of things well. Like I said, I know things didn't go right for them today,
but I think Gary has done a real good job rebuilding this team. Obviously
there's a lot of rebuilding that needs to be done, but I've watched every
one of their games this year and I saw them consistently getting better
through the season. Like I said, we got some breaks today that we were
fortunate to get, but Houston, they're going to be okay.
Q: With those screen plays, did you
just figure because of the success Miami had with
blitzing and pressure that you would see that from Houston...?
BB: No, I would say it was a lot more about trying to prepare for Houston than it was
worrying about the Miami game. There have been some other teams that have
had success with that and we felt like we might have an opportunity to...I
mean, a lot of
them were different plays. It wasn't like we kept running the same one. We
tried to just keep giving them different looks on that and make it a little
bit harder for them to recognize. But in the end it just came down to good
execution by our quarterback and back and the linemen getting
out there. There were a couple of them that really, had we made one more
block or made it a little bit sooner, we might have had a few more yards.
But it's probably always going to be that way.
Q: What did you see on the fake punt in the first quarter? Was that the
regular punt return personnel?
BB: It was our punt return personnel out there. I didn't get a real good
look at it, but it looked like Corey Mays...certainly when [Jason] Simmons was walking around in there on fourth-and-less-than-one. Houston has done a
good job on those kind of deceptive plays in the kicking game in the past.
They've run the fakes and they ran the fake reverse against Oakland on the
punt return, which was a huge play in the game — really ended up winning
the game for them. They do a good job on stuff like that. Anytime it's
fourth-and-one and the punt team is out there, you have to be alert for some
type of dive play, or the fullback walking up under center, or them trying
to get you to jump offside or something. So it was a smart play by the punt
return team and a heads up play. It looked like Corey was able to shoot the gap there
and make the hit.
Q: You said last week you and some
kind of conversations with [Ellis]. Whatever it was, it seemed to be
a pretty productive conversation.
BB: Ellis has worked hard. He's fought through that hand injury, which
is not an easy thing for a corner to play with at his positions at
corner and kick returner. He's a tough kid. He's worked hard. Like I said,
he's fought through some adversity, but he's tough and he's given us some
quality plays. He certainly gave us plenty of them today. I was happy to see
him do well and see all of that hard work and diligence pay off for him.
Q: Would you consider using him more
now on kickoffs when Maroney is
healthy?
BB: We'll make that decision week-to-week. We've got pretty good depth at
that position. Kevin has done a good job. Laurence has done a good job. Ellis has stepped in there and did it last year. I think we have a couple
of guys that can do it. Willie [Andrews] did it in preseason and I thought
he had some good plays in there, too. So I think we have pretty good depth at
that position. The key is [you can never] have too many of them.
Q: With Vince [Wilfork], Ben Watson and Maroney out, were you concerned
with the number of guys out?
BB: We'd always like to have all of our players every week. That's always
a concern. There's nothing more important to this football team than the
health of the players. Without healthy players, you don't have a team. We're
going to try to do all we can to get treatment in the next couple of days
and get extra treatment and come in here Wednesday and be ready to start
getting ready for Jacksonville. We know that's going to be a tough, physical
game like it always is against them. We'll just have to do the best we can at
this time of year, but everybody is battling through that, too. You play 14
games in the National Football League, everybody has some bumps and bruises
at this point. We just have to try to get as much treatment as we can and
get ready to go and tee it up again. But we know Jacksonville will be tough.
They're a real physical football team on both sides of the ball. |
