Carolina Panthers - 24, Houston Texans - 9
DAVID CULLEY: We didn't run the ball very well and we have to be able to do that. I think the team we played had a little bit to do with that also. That's a very good defensive football team. They kind of knew that with a new quarterback in that things were going to be a little bit different than what they had seen previously in the first two ball games of, game and a half anyway. And I just got to look at the video just to see exactly what happened, but I know that was a pretty good defensive team.
Q. (Question about Davis Mills.)
DAVID CULLEY: I thought he did very well. He did not turn the ball over at all, which was a big thing going into the game. I thought he threw the ball very well. I thought when our two-minute offense right before half he did an excellent job of taking us down the field making some nice throws and I thought he did a nice job for us.
Q. (No microphone.)
DAVID CULLEY: I think if we would have got anything on that play at all, we got it down to fourth and two or fourth and one, we would have went for it. But with fourth and five I wanted to back them up and felt like we would get them backed up and get a stop and then get them off the field and get good field position.
Q. (No microphone.)
DAVID CULLEY: No, not at that time. It had nothing to do with Davis.
Q. (No microphone.)
DAVID CULLEY: I felt confident in the defense. I felt good. They played really well in the first half. I think what happened in the second half is the fact that we weren't able to maintain any drives in the second half offensively, and obviously they were on the field.
And now I felt like that there was some big plays that we gave up on defense that normally we haven't been giving up that kept drives alive, but for the most part, I felt like they played very well other than the fact that we gave up some big plays when we felt like we would be able to get them off the field and we didn't do that.
Q. (No microphone.)
DAVID CULLEY: Lonnie's been there before. Obviously Justin's a good player. But, again, I go back to that mentality. It's the next man up. Lonnie's been there and done that also. I don't think that really had any affect at all on what happened in the ball game.
Q. (No microphone.)
DAVID CULLEY: When we came out in the second half we just basic wanted to kind of establish the run again, just to kind of get something going and we weren't able to do that. We wasn't able to keep the ball and from that standpoint then they end up having a long drive. They kept it for awhile. We came back on another possession and really didn't get anything out of that and then at that point they got a touchdown and then at that point we felt like that we needed to up-tempo it a little bit more.
But as far as going no-huddle in that situation and going two-minute type deal we didn't feel like we needed to do that.
Q. (No microphone.)
DAVID CULLEY: Well, I think obviously with a rookie quarterback you want to make sure that you, he hasn't been there, and there's certain things that we wanted to make sure that we kept him comfortable and I think the start of the game we did that. I don't think it was being conservative. It was just that going into the game we had some plays we wanted to run with him to make sure he got the ball out and make sure that he was comfortable and getting his rhythm and he did a good job of doing that.
Q. (No microphone.)
DAVID CULLEY: That's a big thing with us. We have to be able to do that. That's who we are and I think offensively our biggest ills of the night was the fact that we could not establish any consistency in our run game and we have got to be able to do that to be successful, to be able to become better in the pass game and to be consistent and stay on the field and we weren't able to do that tonight.
Q. (No microphone.)
DAVID CULLEY: We just got to be better. We got to play better. And when we go back and look at the video, I think we'll go back and see that there were some things that we could have done better to make that more consistent in what we were doing offensively and we just got to look at it and see from there and go from there with it.
Q. (No microphone.)
DAVID CULLEY: We're just taking it just like we're going week-to-week.
Q. (No microphone.)
DAVID CULLEY: Basically what I told them was keep doing what they were doing. Keep protecting the football. Just keep doing what you're doing. We weren't in any rush. We still had time to be able to run our offensive and be able to get something going. We just wasn't able to do that. But I just didn't want him to think that he had to go make a play or make a throw to try to get something going on offense and he didn't do that. He did a really good job of doing what we asked him to do in the offense. We just weren't very good tonight on offense and being consistent and doing what we need to do because we weren't able to run the ball.
Q. It seemed like the defense struggled to get off the field in the second half. How would you assess their play?
DAVID CULLEY: Well, the big plays. We got to eliminate the big plays. We had some third and longs again that we felt like that we would get them off the field. We weren't able to get them off field and that's something we got to look at and make sure we do because that's kind of happened to us before and just, we just got to look at it and just make sure that we do what we need to do to be able to get out of those situations.
That's what we want them in. We want them in third and long and we feel good about when they're in third and long about getting off the field and we weren't able to do that tonight.
Q. That first drive of the first half you had the opportunity to kick a field goal potentially, go for four yards. You decided to give the ball away. Why not one of those other options?
DAVID CULLEY: Well, at that point, we're still just playing the game right there. I just felt like that what we did, we needed to do what we did to be able to just continue to be able to have some momentum and we didn't get any. We didn't have any.
Q. Even though you had only been in Carolina territory once the drive previously throughout the game at that point and it was a scoring opportunity?
DAVID CULLEY: Well, I know it was a scoring opportunity but I just felt like at that time that's what we needed to do and we did it.
Q. What is Joey's range? Were you not comfortable in his kicking it from that far out?
DAVID CULLEY: Well, we were not at that point. We just didn't feel like in practice, that it hadn't gone quite as well as it had been and we felt like we had a range for him and we kept him in his range and obviously the one that he hit tonight was the max that we had for him.
Q. (Question about Davis Mills.)
DAVID CULLEY: I did. I really did. The fact that he was not turning the ball over in that kind of ball game I thought was very good on his part, because there were some situations right there where they had a couple of times where they put some pressure on him that ball could have been out, he did a good job of ball security there and I thought a couple of times when we got out of the pocket when he was sprinting out that he tried to run a couple of times when I would like to have seen him just to throw the ball down the field and not take a hit.
Q. How do you feel on special teams on this, after two weeks, particularly Andre Roberts, two muffs and the fumble today, are there reassessments there at punt return?
DAVID CULLEY: No, he's a veteran player. It just hasn't been two good games from him at that standpoint. But, no, I got the utmost confidence in him.
Q. You made some changes at the defensive line, what did you think of Devon Kennard and Jacob Martin and playing more snaps?
DAVID CULLEY: Well they played hard, they played hard, they always play hard, that entire defensive line plays hard. They do it every day in practice, they have done it the first two ball games and went into this ball game and they did the same thing, just that we weren't able to get off the field today and it had nothing to do with what so much they were doing as the fact that we just didn't execute the way we need to execute on defense to get them off the field.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports