Houston Texans Media Conference

Sunday, September 20, 2020

Houston, Texas, USA

Calais Campbell

Press Conference


Ravens - 33, Texans - 16

Q. I know you're kind of new to the Ravens defense this year, but in just even when you're practicing with the team, do you get a sense of how focused they are as far as setting tempo and creating turnovers?

CALAIS CAMPBELL: Most definitely. We practice it every day. We have a lot of guys, coach says we call ourselves dogs. A lot of dogs that love to play football, love to hunt. Love to go out there and compete. It's fun to be part of it. Special room, special team and just keep it going. One day at a time.

Q. What does it do for you as a defensive player when you're watching your offense take the ball already with a ten-point lead and drive it almost nine minutes to start the third quarter?

CALAIS CAMPBELL: I love it. I love to see that kind of stuff. I mean, our team we haven't played our best ball yet. We have a lot of room for improvement but we go out there and find a way to grind out and make things happen and as a defensive player watching the offense take a nine minute drive and add to the lead, you can't ask for anything better than that. That's ideal. It's fun.

Q. When you were standing there on the sideline for that direct snap, do you know what's happening? What's it like to see Lamar wind up all the way at their wide receiver?

CALAIS CAMPBELL: I've been a competitor against a lot of teams that have done something similar to that wild cat type of feel. Honestly you have to guard him because he's a special talent, but I love the play call. I love the vision Mark had. He made the cut and just got downhill. Love seeing that we go for it on 4th and 1. 4th and 1 is such an underrated down and distance. When you get a stop, you change momentum or when you get the first down it really changes momentum. We had a big stop on fourth down earlier in the game which gave us some momentum going forward. And our offense, man, two big ones that came up. Real huge for us to win this game.

Q. Your thoughts on the Texans going for it on 4th and 1 early in the game. You guys got the stop deep in their territory. How big a boost do you feel like that gave you guys?

CALAIS CAMPBELL: It was a huge boost. I didn't really expect that to happen, but it makes sense. We did the same thing late in the game, 4th and 1, your mentality is let's go out and tackle, be aggressive and let's find a way to win the ballgame. And on defense we love that challenge. When somebody goes for it on 4th and 1 they're pretty much tell you we think we're better than you in this situation so we definitely want to go out there and win those matchups. That's the first one we got. I'm sure we'll get a lot more going in this season.

Q. Could you feel you guys were sucking the life out of Deshaun. He looked so dejected on the sideline?

CALAIS CAMPBELL: He's a true competitor. He went out there and competed, play in and play out, made a lot of plays to give his team a chance to win. But we have a lot of guys who are true competitors, too, and we just kept coming, found a way to keep them at the end zone and hold them when they made big plays, and that really showed up big at the end of the game. But he's a true competitor. I love playing against him. I respect his game so much, and he really gave his team a chance to win. But we just kept humming. Coach putting the blitz in there and just getting after them. And I respect him so much because he kept getting up and kept making big plays and making guys miss, but we finally started getting there and we finished the game.

Q. You guys got some star players on that defense, and one guy who probably doesn't get mentioned a lot is L. J. Fort. That play that he made and obviously Humphrey got it started with the punch-out. Your thoughts on that game-changing play right there.

CALAIS CAMPBELL: It was huge. He had a little bit of running back skills. He got the ball in there and he knew what to do with it. You could tell he played running back in high school. And great play by Marlon as well. But we practice that every day. The way we practice it shows up in the game. And it feels good to see practice carry over to game day. But we pick up every ball on the ground, and we try to score on defense. That's the mentality that we've established, and we gotta keep it going one play at a time.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
101752-1-1234 2020-09-21 00:17:00 GMT

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