HEAD COACH CHAN GAILEY
POSTGAME PRESS CONFERENCE
November 11, 2012
CG: After all the talk that I gave about finishing, we couldn't finish. Had the opportunity and could not finish. There were a lot of ups and downs, good and bad in that ballgame, but that's the bottom line. We had the chance to finish and we didn't.
Q: Was T.J. Graham supposed to come across his face on that?
CG: Depends on the depth of that thing and yeah, sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't, on the look that he gets. And I'll have to watch the film and see what the depth of that thing was, I don't know.
Q: What is your confidence level when you get the ball back?
CG: I had every idea we were going to score and win the ballgame by one. I mean, that was my total thought. I just knew we were going to do that.
Q: It was unfortunate to lose Donald Jones, but did losing those timeouts change how you reacted?
CG: Sure it does. You could have run the ball; you could have run a screen; you could have dumped it underneath and let 'em run; you could have done some things like that. But, you get leery of that too much. If you can get it and run it out of bounds, it's great, but all of sudden you get an eight-yard gain and the seconds that it costs you for an eight-yard gain, sometimes you worry about that. So, yeah, it does. It affects you.
Q: Thirty five first downs, almost 500 yards, but again, 31 points wasn't enough to win. Where are you with this defense right now?
CG: Well, you turn it over on the one, you turn it over on your own – I don't remember what it was, but they got a short touchdown out of it, whatever it was – we just can't turn it over. We are not good enough yet to not play extremely well and win. We've got to play extremely well to win. We are not there yet. There are some other teams that can do that; we're not. We're not one of those teams. I think we are capable of getting there, but we have not gotten there and it is my job to get us there. But we're not good enough. We can't turn it over three times and win ball games most of the time.
Q: Can you talk about the penalties? There were a few that were questionable.
CG: I don't know. You can sit here and talk about them. Should there be calls, shouldn't there be calls. You've got to look at the film and decide. You always have questions about them.
Q: It would seem like today, on the basis of what happened, that the Patriots are one of those teams that are good enough to win when they are not playing their best.
CG: Well, I mean, they got three turnovers, so they made some things happen.
Q: You couldn't get the ball in the end zone in Houston. Today, you had 35 first downs and almost 500 yards. How do you do that, what's the difference?
CG: A lot of different things. Our play action pass stuff was better today, you know. I felt like our pass protection was really good today after about the first series and a half. I thought our pass protection was really good. And so, little things like that make a big difference. I do think that Houston's defense is one of the strongest defenses we played this year, by far.
Q: How hard is it emotionally knowing what it meant to win this game in terms of turning it around the season where nine and seven could make the playoffs.
CG: Still a chance, still can get there. World Champions were 9-7 last year, so it makes our goal harder. It does. If we could have won this one, could have made our goal easier. But, it makes our goal harder. I think we will get there. I know I am in the minority, but thank goodness I've got a group of guys in there that, I think, think the same thing.
Q: About Ryan Fitzpatrick, this was a game where he seemed to be answering his critics and then, in the end, it was like 'Yeah, well, he is going to throw that late interception.'
CG: Yep, I hate it for him. He played so good and then to have that happen. I've got to help him. I've got to make a couple better calls at the end there that might help him. So, if I do a little bit better of a job, then maybe he doesn't have to do that by himself.
Q: Just the way you used C.J. Spiller and Fred Jackson in this game, not only handing them the ball, but throwing them the ball. Can you just talk about the plan there going in?
CG: That's the plan every week, we just don't get it executed like that every week, but that's the plan every week: to use them extensively. They are two of our biggest weapons offensively. The thing about it is Donald [Jones] is starting to emerge as another weapon for us, so as you get Stevie and Donald and Scott and we are starting to develop some diversity. Where they just can't look at one thing and stop one thing, which is where we need to be.
Q: Is there an update on Fred Jackson?
CG: I don't know if they are calling it a concussion. I don't know what the word is. I don't know if it's a concussion or not. I don't know if they said that. They didn't tell me.
Q: With the penalties, whether you agree or disagree, how costly were they in terms of the rhythm and momentum on third downs?
CG: A couple of them, we had half of them offense, defense. I don't know, I think there were a couple special teams in there as well. I mean, they hurt. The one where we had to punt from our own three-yard line and we get the 15-yarder for running out of bounds, that really hurts because they take the ball over there in the third quarter at the 42-yard line or something like that. Hard to give those guys short field and expect to hold them out.
