Gary Kubiak's Press Conference: The Day After The Texans Lost To The Chiefs

As his team's season circles the drain, Gary Kubiak met with the media yesterday afternoon to discuss his team's loss to the Chiefs, Brian Cushing's injury, who's starting at quarterback against the Colts, why he made the decision to release three players, and a cornucopia of other things, none of which adequately explain how this team is 2-5 entering its bye week. Here's a link to the full transcript; I've placed a few of the more interesting nuggets for your immediate perusal below.

(on the decision to waive the three rookies) "Well, I won’t discuss team rules and those types of things. I’ll make decisions based on a body of work in everything I do. I’ve got five months of work invested in those three young men and made a decision today to move forward. We’ve got some things we need to address as a football team, at the inside linebacker position, our special teams. So we’ve got some moves to make. We’ll take those roster spots and try to make those moves."

(on if he’s ever waived anybody because of rules violations since he’s been in Houston) "I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve been here a long time. I don’t know."

(on ILB Brian Cushing’s status) "Obviously, he has a significant knee injury. He’s going to have surgery at some point this week. I know they’re scheduling it as we speak. There may be some word out there already on when that’s going to take place. I just know as I walked in that it can happen in the next 48 hours, so they’re trying to get it scheduled."

(on any other injuries) "The biggest thing we’ve got going on is Duane Brown’s got a sore ankle. He’s doing pretty good today. Arian (Foster’s) got a hamstring issue that’ll be day-to-day. Ben Tate’s got some sore ribs. Other than that, I think those are the three major ones."

(on if QB Matt Schaub will return to being the starter after the bye week if he is healthy) "I’ve got to sit down and look at our situation and what’s going on right now. Obviously, Matt’s our starting quarterback. Case (Keenum) play this week because Matt wasn’t healthy. Case went in and played extremely well. I’m going to sit down, we’re on a bye week, I’m going to evaluate where we’re at as a team and move forward form there. So I’m going to do that everywhere, not just at the quarterback position, I’ll do that at every place."

(on QB Case Keenum not making many mistakes yesterday and if he looks at it like he wants to see more) "Well, I was impressed with what he did. I would say that. To go into Kansas City in that environment, that noise, and to handle the football team the way he handled it, I thought was impressive. We had no huddle issues. We had no problems getting in and out and getting our game plan run. I think we had one false start the whole game, which I was very impressed with, with the environment that we were in. He did a lot of really good things. He did a lot of things that he’s got to go improve upon for us to be successful. So we’ve got to go fix those things. I think, for a first time out and the position he was in, I thought he handled the team very well."

(on needing to find another running back now and if there’s anyone on the practice squad that might fill that role) "Yeah, we’ve got a young man who we’ve been very impressed with. Ray Graham’s been practicing really well for us. Now, we’ve got some things we’ve got to address. I mentioned two things; inside linebacker is something we’ve got to address as a team right now. (Justin) Tuggle’s going to make a move and go over to the Sam linebacker position behind Brooks (Reed) and work outside. So we’ve got some rebuilding to do inside, with some issues. And we have some special teams issues. The moves we make have got to be special teams oriented to help Joe (Marciano). So that’s some things we’ve got to address here in the next few days."

(on why the move with LB Justin Tuggle with the need at inside linebacker) "I don’t know. With Willie (Jefferson), we’ve got another need for an outside guy. So *Bryan) Braman plays the will and Tuggle becomes the backup Sam. So that gives us our four guys there to work with and obviously (Darryl) Sharpton and Joe (Mays) will work inside. We’ve got (Mike) Mohamed. We activated Mohamed for this game. He played very well for us on special teams. Now, we’ve got a need to get some more inside help. So that’s what we’ll do."

(on if special teams can be fixed during the bye week break) "Yeah, they have to be. Actually, we improved in a lot of areas yesterday. I thought Elbert Mack came in and gave us a lift and played extremely well for us. (Mike) Mohamed gave us a lift. Eddie (Pleasant) played good. The special teams are a little bit like the offense and defense in my opinion. We’re playing a pretty good football game and we give up our two biggest returns when we needed to cover most in a 17-16 game, in both situations, both kickoff and punt. But that was the same thing offensive and defensively. I could say the same things. But any time you have injuries on your team, it filters down to the special teams, so we’ve got to find a way to help Joe (Marciano) and Lig (Bob Ligashesky) with some of that."

(on if he’s OK with WR Keshawn Martin returning) "I’m a little concerned about him. He did not practice the last two weeks. He took a shot to play in the game, so he toughed it up for his football team. It’s been difficult. I don’t think he’s totally been himself. Some of the moves we may make here in the next couple of days could include us finding somebody who can return kicks too, but I think Keshawn will be better. He’s got two weeks now. He had a very beat up shoulder coming out of the game two weeks. I think he’s giving up for his team."

(on if he is happy with the play of FS Ed Reed) "I think we can all play better, I think across the board, offensively, defensively, special teams. I think Ed would tell you the same thing. I think he’s improved coming off his hip injury. He’s played a little bit more for us each week. We try to rest him in certain situations. Shiloh (Keo) played a bunch yesterday, so we just need to keep improving across the board as a team."

(on if how the team responded to QB Case Keenum will factor into the decision of who to start after the bye week) "It will all go into it. I’ve got to look at everything."

(on what he would say to QB Case Keenum if he put him back on the bench after a performance like he had on Sunday) "What would I tell him? I don’t know. We have to see what we’re going to do."

(on how difficult it will be to reach a decision on who to start at quarterback after the bye week) "That’s a difficult call, either way, from that standpoint. I’m going to look at it. Matt (Schaub) is back moving around a little bit today. We’ve got a bye week here. We have a couple of days to evaluate ourselves, evaluate our football team and see where we’re at and then I will do what I think is best for the team."

(on if the Texans will be a shotgun team moving forward) "He went under center some. The first and goal at the one, we got under center. Didn’t work though, did it?"

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