Despite holding the Jets running game to just 27 total yards Sunday, the Houston Texans were unable to contain Chad Pennington. The Marshall alum broke out of a mild slump to pass for nearly 300 yards and complete close to 75% of his passing attempts.
“Pennington had a heck of a day,” said Houston head coach Gary Kubiak. “He was 24 of 31. We did stop the run, but he does a great job of picking you apart if you give him time. Without looking at the film, I would think that once again pressure is an issue. When we do pressure people, we play pretty good in the secondary, and I’m not sure we did that today.”
Read below for Coach Gary Kubiak’s complete press conference transcript
Texans Head Coach Gary Kubiak
On how the Texans performed today…
We had a horrible third quarter. It was a good football game but in the third quarter we didn’t make any plays on the offensive side of the ball to get us down the field and make a difference. Give the Jets credit, they did a great job.
On how the offense played…
We made some big mistakes in the third quarter that were inexcusable. We were going the wrong way trying to hand the ball off. Some alignment things we did didn’t make sense. That’s on us as coaches, and it was the difference in the game. We had a good football game, our defense played well. We needed a play in the third quarter to make a difference and they made every play and we made absolutely none.
On if he considered benching QB David Carr…
No I didn’t. Anyway, Sage has a busted up hand, so he probably couldn’t have went in and thrown anyway. I wanted to see Carr fight through it
On Sage Rosenfels tackling Justin Miller on the missed FG return…
I thought it was a hell of a play. We were in trouble and they have the best return man in football. He did a heck of job going down there and making a play.
On the Texans play in recent weeks…
In a lot of ways this stretch of football has been a lot like our first half of football was today. The defense has been pretty good. Last week our offense was very good in the first half. We’ve been in some close football games and you have to make a play or two that’s the difference between winning and losing. Then when you’re on the brink, you’re on the road and it’s 9-3 in the third quarter. You get the ball to start the third quarter, it’s third and three and you come up about six inches short. We get off a good punt, we have them pinned back there and they go 87 or 88 yards. Right there is a big momentum swing in the football game and it can get away from you real quick.
On the running game…
We did not run the ball well today and in all honesty, I don’t know how hard we tried to run the ball. I have to go back and look at myself from that standpoint and see what we are doing calling plays because we were out of wack as far as way too many throws compared to runs. Our team can’t play that way, we have to keep our third downs manageable. Even if we are struggling running the ball, we have to find a way to pound it to stay on schedule.
On losing despite stopping the Jets running game…
Pennington had a heck of a day. He was 24-31. We did stop the run, but he does a great job of picking you apart if you give him time. Without looking at the film, I would think that once again pressure is an issue. When we do pressure people, we play pretty good in the secondary and I’m not sure we did that today.
On the amount of called blitzes…
I think we took our shots. They picked up some of them. They also called plays at the line of scrimmage. I thought we did a good job of managing our personnel against them, we weren’t out of wack. They did a good job of picking up some of our blitzes and checking out of some bad plays.
On if Rosenfels would have played if healthy…
No. Carr has to play through it. He made a bad decision on the interception, but he has to play through it.
On his reaction after playing a bad game late in the season…
I don’t want to say we had a bad game; we had a horrible third quarter. Our defense played extremely well in the first half. We moved the ball in the first half and didn’t have anything to show for it but it was 9-3 football game. That’s the NFL. You can’t panic. But when you come out in the third quarter and have three “3 and outs” and you get them pinned back there and they go 88 yards, any football game kind of gets away from you, especially on the road. The third quarter was brutal from our standpoint. We have to come out of the locker room better than that.
On if they were affected by the Jets no huddle offense…
We knew they were going to do that. I don’t we did a hell of a job in playing in our base and nickel defenses and not doing much substituting and not panicking. The game got slowed down a bit because we tried to go to the no huddle early but the officials slowed that down and said they were going to give both teams a chance to substitute.
On throwing short passes…
Well, teams have played us that way this year. They say, “You’re not going to make any big plays on us”. They came after us a few times and we had our chances to make big plays, but for the most part the way they played against us is to play two deep and three man rushes. They made us “dink and dunk” the ball around, and we’ve had to play that way a lot this year.
On Mario Williams injured foot…
It’s bothering him, but everyone in the locker room has something wrong with them right now. That’s the NFL, that’s part of the season, the kid has to play through it and his teammates expect him to play through it.
