Bill O'Brien Press Conference: Updates On D.J. Swearinger And Johnathan Joseph Injuries, Praise For Derek Newton And J.J. Watt, More

Bill O'Brien had his weekly press conference earlier this afternoon, and while it may have lacked the excitement of his in-game reactions, it still had plenty of good stuff. You can find a full transcript here; in the meantime, I've copied some snippets for your immediate review below.

(on RB Arian Foster’s patience as a runner compared to other backs that he has seen) "He’s different from any back that I’ve ever coached. No doubt about it. Every back I’ve coached has been very unique in his own skill set and what Arian brings to the table is he’s got size, he’s got really good vision and he’s got the ability to make one cut and get north and south quickly, and then make second cut and get north and south again. The thing that really makes him a good back is that he can catch the ball. He’s a good receiver out of the backfield. All of those things are what make him a good back. You see that over the last two games, his ability to do that."

(on if he fears Arian Foster will wear out as the season progresses) "I think at the end of the day, like I said, we’ve got to look at what we need to do to win the game. Certainly when you look at one player getting a ton of carries, that’s something that you have to pay attention to as a staff. We do that, but we also do what’s necessary to win the game on both sides of the ball and on special teams. At the end of the day though, we will probably as we move forward spread the carries around a little bit more than we have. But right now, we’re doing what we think is necessary to win the football game."

(on CB Johnathan Joseph leaving the Oakland game early and an update on his condition) "He’s fine. He’s fine. He’ll be out there this week practicing."

(on S D.J. Swearinger saying he hyperextended his elbow and his status going into the week) "He’ll be fine. Right now; I would say that any time you come out of these games, I mean yesterday I think in the NFL there were like over 50 injuries of guys that were starters on teams or big-time contributors, so injuries occur. I think with D.J. and with anybody else that was hurt in the game it will be day-to-day. We’ll just follow the injury report as it goes. Could that change from today to tomorrow? It certainly could. Just like the weather changes, injuries changes, things like that. It will always be a day-to-day report that we’ll give out to you guys."

(on QB Ryan Fitzpatrick saying tight ends coach John Perry wanted a mention for coaching up DE J.J. Watt as a tight end) "You know the whole connection there right? So John Perry’s older brother was a quarterback at Harvard long before Ryan Fitzpatrick. There’s a little bit of a Harvard thing there. I mean you have to ask Ryan Fitzpatrick about that."

(on coaching up DE J.J. Watt as a tight end) "There’s a lot of coaching that goes into telling a six-foot-seven, 290-pound guy with a fantastic reach how to catch the ball, how to jump up and catch it. I think we should just thank J.J.’s parents is what we should do."

(on the play of T Derek Newton and his play considering Washington’s Ryan Kerrigan had four sacks against Jacksonville and none against Houston) "He has worked extremely hard since I’ve been here. He had a very good offseason. He was here the whole time. He became stronger, he came back in better condition, he’s athletic. He’s the guy that if we wanted him over to left tackle, he would really be the left tackle and right now we’d put somebody else at right tackle like (Tyson) Clabo or somebody like that because we feel strongly that Derek would be able to do that, too. I watched the tape last year. Certainly, all of those guys struggled at times last year. But again, that’s why last year is over. This is a new year. On April 7 we started a new year here and Derek’s been a guy that’s worked extremely hard and so far he’s played well. He’s played very, very well in the first two games and hopefully he can continue to do that."

(on the possibility of going against 0-2 Giants being a trap game) "A trap game? For the Houston Texans? I certainly hope not. I appreciate the question, but I certainly hope that we don’t think about any traps or back doors or I don’t even know. I mean, I understand what you’re saying. One thing that’s always stood out to me about this league is that every week is a challenge. Like, every week there is a great coaching staff on the other side line and really, really top level, the best players in the world at what they do. And so if you fall into any type of trap thinking, ‘OK, we beat the Oakland Raiders, so naturally we’re going to go out there and beat the New York Giants.’ That’s crazy. That’s absolutely crazy. I don’t believe that’s the case with our guys. Our guys were very attentive in the meeting here this afternoon. I think they’ll practice hard and we’ll put together a good game plan, but it will be a big time challenge for us. I think that’s the one thing when I started in this league whatever six or seven years ago, whatever it was, 2007, every week was such a huge challenge. That was always something that stood out to me."

You really need to watch the video of O'Brien answering that last question, which you can find here. His incredulity about a team coming off a 2-14 season having a trap game in Week 3 is priceless.

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