Gary Kubiak Speaks: The Weekly Presser

The official site has a fine transcript of Gary Kubiak's press conference yesterday; I'd encourage you to go here to read it in its entirety. As always, some of the excerpts that jumped out at me are posted below.

(on the Texans’ injuries) "(NT) Shaun Cody has got some rib issues. He’s actually right now being evaluated. They’re doing an MRI and some things. We’re dealing with that. Other than that, we came out just a little nicked. (TE) Owen (Daniels) got a hip bruise. He’s going to be fine, maybe a little slowed early in practice this week. (WR) Kevin Walter’s got some tightness in his groin. He’s got some soreness there so he could be a little slow early in the week, but we’ll know more. I would say Shaun is probably the biggest one right now, as we move forward."

(on his level of concern regarding NT Shaun Cody’s injury) "Well (NT) Shaun’s (Cody) dealt with other issues with his back so we’ve got him on a program. He’s playing about 20 plays a game, maybe 25 at the most, so just the combination of those things working together would concern me. But he’s always shown a way to be there for us, so we’ll see."

(on if he expects ILB Darryl Sharpton to be back at practice on Wednesday) "Yeah, as a matter of fact I just left him about 10 minutes ago. He looks really good. He’s basically been put through some really hard workouts the last four days and he’s responded to them. All systems should be go for Wednesday to go back on the practice field."

(on if he thinks RB Ben Tate will return Sunday) "I don’t think I can answer that right now. I thought (RB) Ben (Tate) would be further along when we got to the end of last week. He wasn’t. We went ahead and rested him through the weekend. It’s not like we worked him out or anything. He did nothing today but rehab. For me to say yes he’s going to be there, I think is a little bit of a stretch right now. I’m hoping. I’m hoping Wednesday or Thursday he’s back on the field doing some stuff at least with the trainers and we’ll see, but not as far as long as we had expected."

(on if he’s concerned about the team’s penalties) "Yeah, that is a concern. I think we had seven, but they seemed to come in bunches. Our two special teams penalties came back-to-back early in the game. It was a difference in about 20 yards of field position. Offensively, they came in bunches early in the game with some holding calls. I think coming out of the bye, two weeks out of the bye, just some technique stuff we did as a football team. We played high. We used our hands way too much, just some things that you do every day and work on. You could see getting back into the rhythm of the game. We did it much better in the second half."

(on G/C Ben Jones’ performance yesterday) "Well I’ll say this, I don’t think we played one of our better games up front, offensive line. Like I said, we had too many penalties, just some technique stuff I didn’t like. We’re going to have to play a lot better that we played up front this week next week if we’re going to win. (G/C) Ben (Jones) continues, I think, to play like a young player. There is a lot of good. There are a lot of things that got to get a lot better. Ben and (RT Derek) Newton are young players that are a little bit inconsistent and our other three are very consistent and they should be. They played a lot more football. It’s something we expected and something we’re continuing to try to work through, but there are flashes of very good things and that’s most important."

(on OLB Connor Barwin’s play) "We had two defensive players of the game. I’ll let you all guess who the other one was. (OLB) Connor (Barwin) was one of them. He’s playing very, very well. He’s had two good weeks, back-to-back. He’s all around the quarterback, playing very hard. I think because of Connor’s work, good things are starting to come his way more often. Yesterday was another step in the right direction. (DE) J.J. (Watt) was the other, by the way."

(on how the special teams fared against the Bills) "I thought we improved in some areas. Our kickoff coverage and our return game was better. We gave (WR) Keshawn (Martin) some legitimate opportunities. Our coverage game, obviously we were trying to keep the ball out of their returner’s hands, so we did some different things. I thought we took a step forward in some of those areas, but we did have some things that once again, they could jump up and bite you. We had a field goal blocked. There at the end of the game, like I mentioned in the post-press conference yesterday, we’ve got to get that ball out of bounds. We can’t serve one up to their returner in that situation. Those are some things that we need to improve upon but I think there is some positive stuff. We did take a step forward in some key areas that were really hurting us."

(on CB Kareem Jackson) "The ball is going away from him now. I’ll tell you, he’s playing so well. He’s come so far now. Him and J.Joe (CB Johnathan Joseph) both played well. We thought (FS) Glover (Quin) played probably his best game of the year. He played really well. (CB) Kareem (Jackson) is really growing up and playing well. He handles his stuff and understands (Defensive Coordinator) Wade’s (Phillips) defense very good."