Gary Kubiak's Monday Afternoon Presser

Here's a link to what Gary had to say in his press conference yesterday. I'm going to cherry-pick a few of the quotes for your perusal right here, though, so feel free to react as you see fit in the Comments.

(on QB Matt Leinart’s injury and which quarterback he’s going to sign) "Matt has a fracture, which is what was believed and it’s been confirmed, will have to have surgery. It’s my understanding we’re going to try to do it sometime quickly here in the next week. I visited with him today at length, very disappointed, obviously, with his opportunity he had and what happened. So, we move forward from there. You know, the most important thing right now for me is moving forward with T.J. (Yates) and Kellen (Clemens). We will bring another guy in. That’s something (Executive Vice President/General Manager) Rick (Smith) and I have talked about, the options. When that will happen, I don’t know, but my focus right now is strictly with T.J. and Kellen, moving forward with Atlanta and getting through yesterday’s game. I don’t have much for you at this point from that standpoint, but we’ve talked about a lot of players."

(on what happened to the running game in the second half) “Good question. We didn’t run the ball very good. I’ll take the blame for the second half. I don’t know if I put our guys in great position. I was concerned having one quarterback out there and making sure that I was trying to find a way to win the game that day. I don’t like some of the things I did. We played hard. We just didn’t play very good offensively in the second half.”

(on if he had to say much to QB T.J. Yates before he went into the game) “I didn’t have time. He still had his earpiece in when I was screaming at him to get in there. I thought he did a heck of a job. Like I said, we ran the ball. I called a timeout, probably wouldn’t call a timeout in that situation, but I wanted to get him composed with what I wanted to get done right there and boy, he went in there and did a good job. He dropped that one snap, but he got rid of the ball. That’s a tough situation, but he kind of knocked off the nerves there before we went in at halftime and then everybody really rallied around him at halftime, letting him know they were there for him. I respect the job he did yesterday.”

(on what it’s like having an 8-3 record but feeling down week after week with another guy down) “Well I’m not down. I’ve got some issues on my hands, but I’m not down. This team is not down. I want everyone to know that. I want the city to know that. We’re excited about our opportunity. It has been very challenging, but hey, that’s part of life. You get some challenges, you’ve got to step to the plate and find a way to get it done. I’m looking forward to going to work with this team to do that. We’ve just got to stay focused on one game at a time and we get a chance to come home this week and play in front of the home crowd so we’re excited to do that.”

(on how WR Andre Johnson and FS Danieal Manning came out of the game) “Andre came out fine. He played too much. Dang it, I had him in there too many plays. He got tired on me. He took a step forward. It’s going to take a few weeks for him to get back to himself, but for the progress he’s made to play yesterday and come out of the game okay, I feel good about that. I just wish I would’ve had 10 or 12 less snaps than I did. I think I left him out there too long. Danieal was fine. He played in the thirties. He came out fine, feeling good. I just walked past him in the locker room—very upbeat. It’s amazing what he’s done. Those guys should continue to get better, so we’re okay.”

You should still click on the link, if for no other reason than to see what Kubes' nicknames for Matt Schaub and Matt Leinart are.