Gary Kubiak Returns, Meets With Media, Talks Ed Reed Release, Case Keenum, Texans Injuries, And More

Yesterday afternoon, Gary Kubiak met with the press for the first time since he returned to his head coaching duties for your Houston Texans. Here's a complete transcript of what Kubes (and Andre Johnson, Case Keenum, Ben Tate, and J.J. Watt) had to say. I've taken the liberty of pulling a few quotes from Kubiak out for discussion here.

(on what it was like being back with the team today) "It’s just great to be back. Great to be back on the field. Obviously, I’ve been getting going again this week. But just good to get back to work."

(statement on injuries) "Let me do my business here. (Shane) Lechler’s sick today. He’s got the flu. He was not here today. Then we had Joe Mays was out, (Darryl) Sharpton was out, Wade Smith was out, Ryan Griffin was out, Elbert Mack was out and Mike Mohamed was out. We had our work cut out for us today, but we had a good practice."

(on if he’ll coach on Sunday) "Yeah, all my indications (are) that I will be able to. I had a big appointment yesterday. I talked to them yesterday and, if everything goes well this week, yes, I will. I feel great today. I don’t foresee any reason why I won’t be doing it."

(on the decision to release FS Ed Reed) "It all gets back to football. Obviously, I know there’s a lot said and this and that. I talked to Ed yesterday. We’re playing young guys and we really like the way D.J. (Swearinger) and Shiloh (Keo’s) playing. His role became diminished, especially the last few weeks. In all fairness to him, like I told him, in respect to his career and what he’s done, and for us to be in a situation where we’re playing him 8-to-10 plays and that was going to continue with the way we’re doing it right now. I thought it was fair to him to give him an opportunity to play somewhere else, whatever he wanted to do. That’s how we came to the conclusion. He and I talked about it yesterday and we’ll continue with these young guys. They’ve been doing a good job."

(on if he’s concerned that the perception is that FS Ed Reed was released because he was critical of the coaches) "No, that’s just part of it. When you’re sitting here in the position we’re in right now, obviously, there’s a lot of disappointment. Everything little thing gets magnified, but the bottom line is it gets down to playing football. We’ve got some challenges on our hands right now as a team. We had what five new faces out there today trying to teach them how we practice and what we do. We’ve just got to stay focused on that as coaches and find a way to get ourselves going back in a positive direction. We’re doing a lot of good things. We’re playing extremely hard. We’ve lost some close football games and it’s tough to handle. We’ve got to find a way to get over that."

(on if he’ll use the rest of the year to see if QB Case Keenum can start each week and be a starter in the NFL) "No, I wouldn’t say that. I’m going to keep going week-to-week. Matt’s (Schaub) working really hard. I know what Matt wants back on the field. I think Case has played really well and done a lot of good things. He has made a lot of mistakes too that he’s got to correct. We’ve been in some close ball games with the ball in his hand at the end of the game and we’ve got to get over the hump there. I think we just keep going. I think he needs a little pressure on him to continue to have to play well and stay in there. I’m not going to give anybody anything, much less a quarterback."

(on the roster moves) "We brought Jawanza Starling back, (a) safety who was with us in camp. He’s on our active roster. We’ve got D.J. Smith, who was last with the Chargers as a linebacker that we brought in. He will play special teams and be back up linebacker. We have a couple of practice squad young men, wide receiver (Rico) Richardson, a young man here from Houston, (Loyce) Means. So we added four new faces today."

(on RB Ben Tate’s status) "Ben basically did what he did last Wednesday. I don’t know how he’s listed on the report, but he did all of the individual, took a few reps. He’ll be monitored every week."

Although his quotes are contained in that link, I'm going to have a separate post about what Andre Johnson had to say about Ed Reed's release hopefully later this afternoon.

Raiders vs Texans coverage
Silver And Black Pride