HEAD COACH ANDY REID
Opening Statement:"Alright, I don't have injuries for you yet. But, as far as the game goes, I would just reiterate what I mentioned last night – way too many mistakes against a good football team to come out on the top end of that. Anytime you have three fumbles, you have about a 25 percent chance of winning the football game, so you put yourself in a big time bind there. We had three turnovers; they got 10 points off of that, nine penalties for 77-yards and it continues –our kickoff out of bounds and they get three points from that. You know, you probably equal out the third down percentages. Both teams, I didn't think, were very good at it, neither was offense in the red zone percentage – we're about the same. So, time of possession, we have to do a better job of keeping the football. So, offensively we have to pick it up. We did some things that I thought were uncharacteristic – between dropped balls, penalties and assignments. It's not the way we normally operate. We have to put an end to that. I thought there was some individuals on our team that played well – mostly on the defensive side of the football. I thought there were some good things done there – things we can build on. Then, Tyreek [Hill] and his return, which I think if it was basketball, it probably would have been ruled a flop. So, I think that was one thing that got away from us there on the touchdown. Anyway, time's yours."
Q: What explanation did you get on the play in the first quarter where Houston had an offsides, and also later on the fumble were there was the unsportsmanlike conduct?
REID: "So, because they intercepted it and it happened after the interception, then you can either take the five-yard penalty, or they could have the ball and you can take the penalty for unsportsmanlike. So, decided to keep the ball and take the five-yard penalty."
Q: So, you were satisfied that they couldn't give you the unsportsmanlike penalty on top of that?
REID: "Yeah, I wish I had it. The rules are the rules, so I had to go with it."
Q: So, they enforced the rule right?
REID: "They enforced the rule right, yeah."
Q: Based on what you know, where's Jamaal Charles at right now?
REID: "Yeah, so I thought he practiced better last week. I haven't even gotten that far with the doctors, or Rick [Burkholder] yet, or Jamaal [Charles] for that matter. I can't give you accurate information on that."
Q: Tyreek Hill tends to go a little more negative in the returns before he goes positive sometimes. Is that something that you live with when a guy is that fast?
REID: "Well, you don't want him to do that – that's stating the obvious. He's young. He'll get all that worked out. But, to answer your other part of that, yeah – he's fast. You don't want negative plays."
Q: Regarding the penalty called on the Tyreek Hill return.
REID: "The kid knew, he was out-flanked, so he literally flopped. I mean if you look at it close [Steven] Nelson put his hands out and put him down and the kid just kind of jumped into his body. From the officials perspective, obviously it didn't look like that. That official has been doing it a long time, is a pretty good official. That one if it had been considered the NBA would have probably been considered a flop."
Q: On Jamaal Charles, could you imagine the scenario of when he could play?
REID: "No, I wouldn't rule it out I just don't have enough information for you to put that out there. I won't do that today."
Q: Were you good with the pass-rush yesterday? You guys got [Brock] Osweiler out a few times?
REID: "Yeah, I thought we were around him, we hit him quite a few times, and then we sacked him a couple times. I thought Dee [Ford] had some pressure, I thought [Dontari] Poe had his best game of the year and maybe I'd consider one of his better games from the last two years. When Tamba [Hali] was working, when he was able to get in on first and second down plays, I thought he had a couple of nice rushes too."
Q: Do you think Tamba [Hali] is close to being at least somewhat back to what he was before?
REID: "I think he's back, I think it's just a matter of monitoring the number of reps. He hasn't gotten younger, he's got a lot of snaps under his belt, so I think how we manage him is important for the duration of the season and so I think we have a good little thing going, how we're doing it. I'll know more today when I see him. They are coming in here at noon."
Q: Regarding Jamaal Charles, you talked all along about you're going to take it slow, you're going to be cautious, what tells you that he's ready? How will you know when he is ready?
REID: "So I think you meet with Jamaal [Charles], you keep communication with him, with the doctors, with Rick [Burkholder] and just make sure he's in a position where he's safe. You don't want to take a step backwards, he's a pretty good player and you can't rush yourself and you don't want to do that. You want to take caution as much as you possibly can, we're not playing tiddlywinks, it's a violent sport. We want to make sure he's fully recovered."
Q: What's he [Jamaal Charles] told you in that regard?
REID: "Last week he wasn't ready, he wasn't quite there, but he's getting there. He said he felt like he made a lot of improvement last week, and that was earlier in the week."
Q: Because of that, would you probably put him on that Tamba Hali pitch count, at least early, just to be safe?
REID:"Yeah we would definitely have the flexibility to do that with the running backs that we have."
Q:What type of mindset did Dontari Poe need going into the game, knowing he was going to face a lot of double-teams against a talented offensive line?REID:"That's a rough spot to be in -- you're going to get double-teamed just about every play. I thought he did an exceptional job of penetrating and splitting the doubles. He played relentless football. Not that he normally doesn't, I just thought he went beyond that yesterday and continually provided pressure up the middle. That added pressure makes it tougher when the quarterback needs to move up in the pocket and it allows your outside rushers to get a tighter lane going."
Q:With regards to Jamaal Charles, coming back from an ACL for a second time and at his age, can we expect to see the same Jamaal we're accustomed to?REID:"Yeah, I think so. He looked good last week and you could see him getting in and out of his cuts well. He looked like 'Jamaal'. It's a matter of the endurance, his security and how he feels about it. And then of course what the doctors say."
Q:You can see firsthand that he's still 'got it'?"REID:"Yeah. He can still scoot. He can do that."
Q:Particularly this past Sunday, do you think your receivers have been creating enough separation? REID:"I thought [the Texans] did a pretty good job covering us yesterday. I could have helped them out with some of the play calls."
Q:Do you look around this team for a different spark on offense? Maybe other guys such as De'Anthony Thomas for answers? REID:"We look at everything and go through all of that."
Q:What's the reason for the fumbles on Sunday? Was it rare? REID:"It was uncharacteristic. That's just not how we normally roll. I was seeing things I'm not used to seeing. We've got to go back and correct these fundamental things. They're things we can control and fix. To even think that we still had a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter with that, it should tell you a little bit. We need to protect the football, keep ourselves onside, eliminate the holding calls, downfield blocking and eliminate the things we can control. These are things that we're normally very good at and we can use to our advantage if we come in with the right mindset."
Q:What were the different factors that led to an improved run defense this week?REID:"I thought we did a respectable job there. Are there a few calls we'd like to have back? Yeah. I thought we played on the other side of the ball. The linebackers filled the gaps well and we tackled well. In regards to Justin March-Lillard, I thought he took another step forward. He was a little more patient in certain situations, which was good. There were some good things we saw and I'll agree that they're a pretty good run team."
