Houston Texans Media Conference

Monday, August 16, 2021

Houston, Texas, USA

David Culley

Press Conference


DAVID CULLEY: I thought in the second half, we were a little bit better with it than we were in the first half. We wanted to be able to establish that a little bit earlier and a little bit more. The way we had it set up and the way we were playing the game, Tyrod just got the first series and when Davis came in, we wanted to see him in all kind of situations, and basically we wanted to see him at this point kind of handle the passing game and kind of do both.

Q. Do you feel Anthony Miller --

DAVID CULLEY: Not really sure. He had a slight dislocation in his shoulder. He had a previous injury before but we're not really sure right now.

Q. Did it seem like something --

DAVID CULLEY: Well, we anticipate him being back. It's something he's dealt with in the past before. We'll see.

Nothing has changed from last week. We're not going to talk about what we did with personnel each day in practice. We haven't done it all fall and we're not going to do it now.

Q. When you start a preseason game, like the third preseason game --

DAVID CULLEY: A little bit differently. We had a bunch of guys that didn't play in this one, that we held out. Hopefully we're going to get those guys some playing time and some guys that didn't get to play we'll play a little bit more. Not really sure yet how much but they will play a little bit more.

Q. Did you have a preference between all the cuts coming at once versus staggered?

DAVID CULLEY: It is what it is. We've got to deal with it however it is. We'll just take it as it is.

Q. Do you have an update on Bernard?

DAVID CULLEY: He's doing fine right now. We expect him to be back out here pretty soon.

Q. Inaudible.

DAVID CULLEY: As Nick does and we've always done, this everything we do we feel like is best for the football team. The situation came up where we could make the move that we did and we did, and we felt like that was best for what we needed.

Q. Active at times in Green Bay -- where is he in his development?

DAVID CULLEY: He's coming long fine and the reason that's happening is because of the competition that those guys have right there. That's a deep group, and you know, all those guys, along with him, have really were excellent from the standpoint of trying to put pressure and handling the running game and they did an excellent job. I think they maybe rushed from less than 50 yards during the whole night and that's a redid I tell to those up-front guys.

Q. What did you see within those red zone changes?

DAVID CULLEY: Well, you know what, it's one of those situations where we have had inconsistency all during training camp right now and it showed up in the game a little bit, and when we had the first time we was down there with Tyrod's group, third down and two, we basically, if we had got one yard on that play we were going to go for it and not getting that yard right there is something we've got to be able to do because this football team is going to be identified with what happens up front with our offensive line and defensive line, and that was a situation right there where we didn't want to kick a field goal.

We wanted to go for it in two downs if we had gotten one yard there. We have to be more consistent there and we're going to work on that more.

Q. What was your assessment of the offensive line?

DAVID CULLEY: I thought they played hard. I thought they did a nice job in the running game of getting our backs to the line of scrimmage. I thought the protection was good. What I saw in those guys is what we have been seeing all training camp. They have been working very hard and the thing about it is those guys have been switching around, as I mentioned before, all over the place and they kind of got solidified right there and not having a bunch of those guys playing, I thought they did a great job of protecting the pocket and giving us a chance to run the ball.

Q. The run blocking --

DAVID CULLEY: We've got to run it more and we'll run it more and we'll be able to see. That's the only way we'll find out.

Q. At aggressiveness on fourth down, how do you feel about that in general?

DAVID CULLEY: I think that comes with how you feel, a feel during the game and has something to do with how you were playing and has something to do with how we were playing. We took that ball down the field and they were doing very well and I told Timmy when it got down to third and two, I said, Timmy, you've got two downs to get this if we can get a yard. I had a feeling at that point that we were going to go for it in that particular situation with where we are on the field.

Q. Will you get --

DAVID CULLEY: We'll get some guys back this week. There's still a couple of days left for those guys that are out now but they will be back in practice.

Thompson will not be back right now. He actually tested, so he's going to be out a little bit longer..

Q. Is there anything you saw that surprised you?

DAVID CULLEY: No. The effort was excellent. Two, we've been preaching all along about on defense of getting turnovers, those guys did that and the one thing that I was a little bit surprised with was the fact that we had some third downs right there on defense, third-and-longs that I felt like all training camp we had been getting off the field in practice on those. They made a couple of big third downs on us and I think we need to improve there. Other than that, I thought they did a nice job.

Q. On the fourth downs throughout your, career, what have you built your philosophy on.

DAVID CULLEY: We practice those situations where obviously if we get in two-down territory so to speak, any time you get in the red zone and you feel like you've got a third down and short, there's a pretty good chance that we're going to tell the offense that you've got two downs to get this, unless the score or time of game dictates that you go ahead and take the field goal. Gearing to be aggressive that way. We'll be aggressive that way.

Q. Will you have someone in your headset or a sheet with the probability?

DAVID CULLEY: Well, it's not so much the probability. It will be more how I feel at that point about going for it. I know analytics has those things out there and we do have access to all of that but I'm old school in a way that when we're playing, if I'm not feeling it, we're not doing it regardless of what that chart says.

Q. What do you think about special teams --

DAVID CULLEY: It was more it was a good situation for our football team that Nick felt like giving some draft picks for next year and it was a situation where we have depth there and felt like our football team got better by being in that situation and doing what we did.

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111570-1-1003 2021-08-16 22:07:00 GMT

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