Q. What did you see from Joey on the missed play there?
FRANK ROSS: He had a great pregame, had a great week of practice, especially as we worked towards the end of the week. Every one of our specialists you want to kind of hit those final clean ups as you get closer to game time. Just a little bit of a pull. But we got to fix our field goal protection in general we got to get all that together. If you guys -- we got to get those guys to make sure we know everything is stout and pure.
Q. Breaking down the punt return there. What happened there and how did that go?
FRANK ROSS: Yeah, obviously short kick, coming up into traffic, coming up at full speed, and listen, Roberts, every everybody knows this guy puts in the work, has done it time and time again, no secret to myself to him or anybody that we will play. But he knows he wants to -- nobody wants to get that right more than him. So we'll get that corrected.
Q. Did someone get a hand on that? Was it tipped?
FRANK ROSS: No, no, it was a good force and just a shorter punt.
Q. When a play like that happens can you speak to how much that can swing the momentum of the game?
FRANK ROSS: So it's our job as special teams to always get the ball back to the offense and make sure we maintain the flow of the game. Any play, whether it's a turnover, a sudden change in the game of football can happen at any point in time. Need our defense to stand up, we get a turnover on, we get a takeaway on defense, need our offense to generate points, etcetera. So it's the NFL, things do happen and we got to make sure that we just continue to play our game and not let any of those things kind of spiral and I think we did that.
Q. Desmond returned one kick, was that a function of a different look or because Andre had played wide receiver?
FRANK ROSS: No, that's correct. As far as the health and status and again just like anything else, we'll call the game to whoever we have available to us and Andre there going into an offensive role to help spare some of that, so that's why Desmond was back there for those situations.
Q. (Question about receivers.)
FRANK ROSS: There's always, and it's the blessing of having a deep returner room, there's always a chance we can have different bodies back there throughout any game on the season really. We have, I mean, Tremon Smith has a history of both returns. So we have multiple guys that can do it. If anybody at any point in time, if Desmond King is playing every single snap of defense we would try and lighten the load potentially in our kicking game phases.
Q. Did you do that by design, I'm sure you had some return guys, a bunch of return guys, in the past they have never done that, they just had the one.
FRANK ROSS: Yeah, I think every year we'll be different relative to who you have and how you're constructed. This, I would say, is a deeper year of having so many guys with experience, but, yeah, it's definitely it was a point when we got all got here together and we're creating the 2021 Texans saying like we need an emphasis on the return game. So having multiple players back there that can do it hopefully will continue to prove itself.
Q. What was Andre's mindset after he muffed the punt?
FRANK ROSS: Next play. If there's one thing about me and being -- maybe it's because I don't have that good of a memory, but I'm an in-the-moment guy. I'm not going to go win jeopardy any time soon, but we got to just be here now, got to be in the moment, and all I care about is the next play and I'm sure he's the exact same.
Q. With the injuries that are at wide receiver right now, is it more preparing Desmond King for perhaps another role out there?
FRANK ROSS: Sure. Same question, same answer. Saying whoever we have to take care of in an instance and -- but at the end of the day, this is the National Football League, we're about to play on Thursday night, the Carolina Panthers are sore, Houston Texans, whatever the injuries are coming out of this past Sunday's game, we'll handle those as they arise on the personnel available to us.
Q. How disappointing was it when Culley declined that penalty and then to put it in the end zone?
FRANK ROSS: Yeah, I think any time we go out to do our jobs we want to perform the best of our ability and if we go out for what we call a mid field or plus 50 punt, we want to go out and the goal was to pin those guys inside of the 10 or 15 yard line and create a long field for the defense. It's a big key to success when you're playing a team that can sustain drives. Didn't get that done, got to try and get that done here moving forward.
Q. You were standing next to David when he was making that decision. Do you generally, are you guys generally kind of talking through any of those 50/50 kind of calls?
FRANK ROSS: Coaches talk on every single play. We can communicate from anywhere. Just because I was near it, going into a potential fourth down or whatnot. We're talking on every situation and that's what special teams games is, we're preparing for situations and 90 percent of the time it either converts or it doesn't and then we just go back to our, hey, it's first down and we're rolling again. So we'll talk through every situation that comes up in any game.
Q. I know you say or you asked earlier if Desmond might play a similar role, given how things have changed, but given that the health situation at receiver and at corner and that's where you're returners primarily are, have you considered that you might have to rotate guys as returners just to given the situation?
FRANK ROSS: I think at the end of the day everybody has multiple hats in NFL games with 46 to 48, whatever it is, going into the game on game day. So I can't go back there and do it, so I think anybody will and want to. We got a lot of guys here that are mentally tough and we're have proven that and are continuing to show that. So that's not a concern. Whoever is asked to do it is going to go back there and do it and they're going to do it to the best of their abilities.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports