Remember the drill: Kubiak’s quotes are in black but his thoughts are listed in red italics. The link at the bottom of the article will take you to the video of the press conference. It isn’t up right now (6pm) but will be posted there tonight, at some point.
(on rookie RB Ben Tate’s injury status) “Well, he obviously has a very significant ankle injury. It’s still under evaluation at this point. I know that it’s going to need surgery. It’s going to require surgery. So we’ll probably have a definite answer for you sometime tomorrow. Very unfortunate. It doesn’t look good. That’s the best I can describe it for right now.”
Ben Tate is going to be out of the year but we will wait until we formerly place him on the IR to make the announcement. It’s just how we do things here.
(on his overall opinion of his team’s play) “Kind of like what I said after the game. I thought our ones were very sharp on both sides of the ball, offensively and defensively. I thought our twos played pretty good, too, especially on the defensive side of the ball. We made a lot of plays, got turnovers. Offensively we moved the ball with the twos. (QB) Dan (Orlovsky) moved the group. We didn’t finish those drives, we turned the ball over and kicked a few field goals. But you know, there in the third quarter, we didn’t make any plays offensively to keep the defense off the field and they give up a few drives. Just kind of what I said last night. We needed to finish the game and find a way to win, offensively, holding the football a little bit in the fourth quarter and couldn’t do it.”
I’m very excited about the season. The guys we are counting on look good and we’re finally entering the season without the defense being a liability. Chris White almost single-handedly lost the game for us in the 3rd quarter, but I don’t like to call players out like that.
(on what impressed him about QB John David Booty in the two-minute drill) “Well, he had struggled the previous six plays; they had been three-and-out and three-and-out. He watched a game get away from his team. I was impressed with the fact that he went right back out there and I think he was seven-for-seven on the two-minute drive and had us in position to possibly tie the game. That’s what you have to do as a quarterback. You got to have a short memory. You have bad plays; come back and have good ones. He did some good things.”
That last drive doesn’t make up for the first two series when he played horribly.
(on the interior line play from his first and second teams) “Well, the first group I thought was very solid. (RT) Eric (Winston) and (LT) Duane (Brown) were very solid. (C) Chris Myers the same. Our guards, I’m sure you all noticed, we really rotated. (G) Kasey (Studdard) played a whole half because (G) Mike Brisiel did not play. Then we rotated on the other side with Gump (G Antoine Caldwell) and (G) Wade (Smith) for three quarters. They played a lot of football. We’ve still got a good battle going on (with) who’s going to be our starting guards. I think you’re going to see us continue to move some guys, probably, until we get to the Dallas week and settle down. They’re all doing some good things. We’re looking for more consistency from all of them. Obviously we think Mike has a chance, a good chance in the battle to start but he’s been sick and had some issues going on. Hopefully he’s back on the field this week.”
I’m very happy with the play of the offensive line yesterday. I think we are settling on Chris Myers as the starting center. So, the battle is really at LG. Caldwell will start at RG but, he’s a young guy that has responded well to the competition, so I’m going to continue the impression that he hasn’t won the job yet. I’m just not sure, out of Studdard, Brisiel, and Wade Smith, who will start at LG on week one.
(on if WR Trindon Holliday was overly cautious in the punt and kickoff return game) “I think we need to do a better job from a coaching standpoint on getting him lined up on some punts. He got himself in some bad positions, as far as his depth a couple times. Kickoff-wise, you could tell the first kickoff return he was really locked in to what we wanted from him. Then after that, I thought it got a little confusing for him. You know, it’s his first time out there. Lots of things happen. Probably the only thing I was really disappointed was picking up the ball on the five-yard line. That’s how you get beat. He’s got a lot to learn from that standpoint.”
Holliday looks headed to the practice squad. We have already dismissed the idea of him contributing at WR this season and we have lowered our expectations of him as a returner, right now. Still, though, it would be nice to have Jacoby concentrate solely on WR.
(on the play of rookie LB Darryl Sharpton and the defense as a whole) “I thought the defense played good all night. Like I said, we had a hard time holding up in the fourth quarter. (LB Darryl) Sharpton made a lot of plays. He did that at Miami, continued to do it here. (SS) Troy Nolan, very good. (DT) Earl Mitchell inside, very good. A lot of good things going on. (CB Antwaun) Molden, a lot of plays being made by the second group defensively and some young players on offense doing some things, too. Shelley Smith, a guard, played a whole half, was very impressive. (WR Dorin) Dickerson to me continues to make some strides with this football team. So we’re going to get some young help. We’ve got some good young players out there. The guys who were kind of stepping to the forefront as we were going through camp are the same guys who showed up and did it last night.”
Sharpton was good. But, man, Molden, Mitchell, and Troy Nolan were great! The best thing about that is those were guys we really thought and hoped would step up for us. They are talented guys and are at positions of relative weakness for us. Add Shelley Smith’s performance at guard last night and we have four rookies that not only can make the roster but can play well for us in positions I had real concerns in. Oh, and Dickerson is so good we have to put him on the roster. The only problem is that we don’t need WRs right now. But, he’s damn good!
(on RB Jeremiah Johnson stepping up when RB Ben Tate was injured) “He really did. He’s got a lot of running ability. He’s shown that in camp; obviously he showed that at Oregon. We’ve got to get him comfortable, so to speak, in the pass game and pass protection, picking up blitzes and those things because he has got some ability to run the football. An opportunity came about last night because of an unfortunate situation, and it’s fixing to come about for a period of time now, so we’ll see how he does. Obviously, he’s moved up the depth chart. He’s going to play more this week. We’ll see if he continues to grow.”
We knew Johnson was an explosive runner. Nothing has changed our minds about that. However, he’s 5th on our depth chart for a reason. He is going to have to improve dramatically with his understanding of the offense, blocking, and pass catching/route running or he’ll be signed to the practice squad again.
(on the play of QB Dan Orlovsky) “I thought he was steady. Since he’s been here with me, I thought it was probably his best outing in the preseason. He protected the ball; he moved his group. He had two big, long drives; one came from being backed up. His group didn’t finish the drive. That wasn’t his fault, but I thought he was steady protecting the football. He can still play better, and I think he will, but I think it’s important that Dan just continues to show this team that he’s taking steps forward and he took one last night.”
He has yet to meet my expectations. However, he showed enought last night that I’m not going to go searching for another backup QB… at least, not this week. This had better be his worst performance of the preseason for him, though. He needs to actually score some points and make plays without committing turnovers.
(on whether he would keep four running backs on the 53-man roster) “Yeah, that’s always an option. Obviously you’ve got three active all the time and you usually keep four. If not, one of them may be on your practice squad. But gosh, they’re all so young, so that’s a big possibility that we do. There’s also a possibility if we’re going to lose (RB) Ben (Tate) for a period of time that we could be looking, too. We’ve got a long way to go. There’s a lot of training camp left, preseason games left just to get to opening day and we’re sitting here staring at four young backs right now, so it’s kind of scary.”
We’re already down to four RBs. Slaton doesn’t look right and there is plenty of opportunity for another RB to get injured. Rick Smith needs to work his magic and get a good, veteran back in here… and, hopefully he does that very soon!
(on how important winning games is during preseason) “It’s very important… The football team has got a group of guys playing really well, dominating the football game for three quarters, and then have to walk in and be disappointed in getting beat, but we’ve got to keep it in perspective, too, from the standpoint of the good things that were going on the field. Our first groups felt very good about themselves when they walked off the field last night. That’s important, and that’s all they got to play. It’s not their fault they didn’t play the fourth quarter; that’s on me. That’s how much I had them scheduled to play, but any time you step on the field, you compete, you want to find a way to win and we should have found a way to win the game but we didn’t.”
It’s not important at all! Did you see how dominate our starters were? They were great on both sides of the ball. And, our second-stringers were quite good as well. Why would anyone obsess over the final score of the first preseason game? I could’ve put the ones or twos in the game at anytime in the 4th quarter and iced that thing if I had wanted to. Sometimes fans and the media can be pretty silly about stuff.
(on RB Chris Henry’s performance) “He looked good on special teams. Offensively, he’s inconsistent with some assignment stuff and things that we’re trying to get him settled down on, but he’s very aggressive. He showed up for (special teams coordinator) Joe (Marciano) and he will get more time at the (running) back position as we move forward now with (RB Ben) Tate being out. So we’ll see, but he did some good things. He showed up.”
I was hoping for much more from him. Especially once Tate was injured. Before I panic, we’ll see how he runs the ball with the second team. We like him on special teams enough that he can make the roster as our 4th RB.
(on CB Sherrick McManis’ performance) “He played really well. He played a lot of plays. I think he played 39-40 plays, which is a great deal for a first preseason game. You’ve got to think about how far he’s come. He did nothing in OTAs; he was injured. He came to camp, at the start of camp he was doing basically nothing but individual (drills). Five or six days into camp, they start to cut him loose, so in a week and a half’s time, this kid has gone from just getting back on the football field to playing 40 plays in an NFL game and played very well and did some good things, so we’re encouraged. That’s the player we drafted, and we knew if we could get him healthy he could help this team, so hopefully he continues to go that way.”
Oh yeah! That’s another rookie at a need position that looked amazing. Man, Rick really outdid himself with this year’s draft. Last season, Fred Bennett was our starting CB in week one… This year, he doesn’t have a prayer of making the 53 man roster. Boy, I’m excited about our defense!
(on if DE Connor Barwin has given them more options with how he has played) “I think what’s happened is Connor is turning into one of our top football players. You’re going to put your best eleven on the field and I think (defensive coordinator) Frank (Bush) has done a great job of finding ways to get him involved with our defense. He gives us some flexibility because he can drop in coverage and do those types of things. He can lock onto a back, a tight end. Frank has some packages that involve him. As long as he keeps progressing, we need to keep him on the field. He’s doing some really good stuff.”
Connor can make plays and I’m really excited about being able to add some wrinkles to the defense this year. He’s going to make a lot of plays in our nickel packages. We are going to really get after the QBs this year and be able to use Barwin to confuse them and create turnovers.
(on if DT Earl Mitchell showed up on tape at all) “Yeah, he did. He did some fine stuff. He’s another guy that had thirty-something snaps very quickly. We were worried about Earl’s conditioning going into camp. We didn’t like it in the offseason, but he’s found a way to get that better and he played very fresh and very fast last night.”
He’s so good that we are having to look for areas of criticism. We are so excited about him that we think he will immediately be heavily involved in the DL rotation. There was some concern about his ability to handle all those snaps, but he’s in excellent shape now.
(on what the status is of RB Ben Tate’s ankle) “It’s a significant ankle injury. That’s the best I can tell you right now. We’re still evaluating the surgery process. We know he needs surgery. It’s going to happen sometime soon. It could be Tuesday or Wednesday. I hope they have a final answer for you in the next day or so. It’s a pretty severe injury.”
Didn’t I already tell you crypticly that he’s going to the IR?
(on the kicking competition between Kris Brown and Neil Rackers) “I think it was even for what they did as far as kicking off and kicking field goals. They both did their job. As far as the last play, that’s just on us. We didn’t execute. We were going to throw a go route and if we didn’t complete it, we were going to kick a field goal. Taking a chance like that and something bad happening to you like the quarterback and a back running into each other with no timeouts, you get no chance to kick it. Just a bad situation that we didn’t get executed.”
This is Neil Rackers’ job unless he botches it. I feel bad for Kris Brown but I’m not going through that agian! If Rackers can kickoff like he did last night, everything is good!
(on how his secondary did against Cardinals WR Larry Fitzgerald) “(Fitzgerald) didn’t play much. I think he was only out there 10 or 12 plays. Like I told you, we didn’t go into that game matching up against people or anything. We just played our base stuff. He’s a great player; doesn’t matter where he’s at. He’s going to make plays. You just try to keep him contained.”
Eugene put a hit on him! Secondary looked great. Who cares about Fitzgerald right now and what was even the point of that question? oh John… dealing with the media would be funny if it wasn’t so exhausting.
(on the overall physical nature of the defense and if he’s seen improvement) “Yeah, I think so. I think that comes with confidence. Our camp has been very physical. We’ve hit probably more than any time before since I’ve been here. It transferred onto the playing field last night. When we talk about being physical, we’re talking about doing it as a team. It’s all around and I think the defense is leading the charge right now in how they’re going about their business. They’ve been very consistent all throughout camp.”
HEHEHEHEHEHE… Our defense is looking great!.. and they’re nasty too!
(on RB Steve Slaton starting the preseason with another fumble) “He did some really good stuff in the game. I know it’s tough because that’s what held us back and him back last year. To have it happen again in the first preseason game is obviously disappointing. If it’s going to happen, I’m sure glad it happened there and not three weeks from now. It’s something that’s got to be corrected for us to be successful. Steve knows that. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do in practice to tighten him up and hang onto the football because he did some good things as a player last night and obviously had to end his night with that one. It’s unfortunate.”
Why can’t we resolve these persistent issues with health/depth at RB. Maybe Steve will straighten himself out…maybe?
http://www.houstontexans.com/tv/
