Carolina Panthers - 24, Houston Texans - 9
Q. (No microphone.)
BRANDIN COOKS: I thought it was great. He came out first start, prime time. He handled himself well. Just like us all, we just got to continue to just get on the same page and get that chemistry going between us all. But at the end of the day, very proud of how he came out. There's no moral victories, so unfortunately we didn't get the win.
Q. Is there anything about how he played that maybe surprised you a little bit?
BRANDIN COOKS: No surprise at all. Nothing surprised me. I mean, I just, at the end of the day, I just knew what type of guy he was. He's calm and collective the way that he goes about his business in practice, the success that he had, the big-time throws that he had was not surprised at all.
Q. When you guys were in that fourth and four situation there, was there any advocation to go for it there? What was y'all's feeling in that moment?
BRANDIN COOKS: To be honest with you, that was one of those things that you just trust TK, you trust Coach Culley. Obviously, you ask the offensive player, we always want to go for it. But at the end of the day, you just got to play smart and trust in your coaches to put you in the best position.
Q. It seemed like the offense had good success at the end of the half kind of going no-huddle. Was that something that you were maybe hoping to see more of in the second half?
BRANDIN COOKS: At the end of the day, we do well playing fast and when we had that success at the end of that half, obviously the biggest thing is just tempo in general. From a receiver standpoint, got to get out of the huddle faster so we can dissect what's going on at the line. We got to get better at that even when we're not, I guess, in two-minute situations and that's more so us players having the tempo, getting out the huddle and getting ready to go.
Q. Within that touchdown drive that wasn't there and other places in this game that let you all move on offense?
BRANDIN COOKS: I think from a players's perspective you know it's too many, you know you got to get going, and like I said, we do great in that aspect. So we got to take that same mentality even when it's not two minutes, like I just said, to have that tempo, to have that sense of urgency, we just got to have that all game long.
Q. How much growth did you see in Davis from last week to where he had some time to prepare?
BRANDIN COOKS: I seen a lot of growth, just even throughout the practice week with a short week the way that he took command and got us receivers after practice on a short week to still go over stuff. His leadership really stood out in that aspect. So definitely got a lot of respect for him in that aspect and that's where I saw him grow within that last I guess week, really.
Q. How much did Anthony Miller, like, what did you see from him in this game and how he opened things up for you guys?
BRANDIN COOKS: Yeah, the guy's a playmaker. He's shown that throughout his career. And he's going to make plays and he's just another great weapon to have.
And the same thing with Chris, same thing with C-Mo. I think they all did a great job of that and we all, we got some weapons.
Q. Can you talk about this team right now, the way you guys have come back and handled adversity?
BRANDIN COOKS: I feel great. We got a long time to get, to break, get recovered, get the bodies right. There's no giving up. There's no negative energy in that locker room. We know what we got. We got something special. But at the end of the day, we got to put it together, be more disciplined as players, stop shooting ourself in the foot, get those little things right.
But very happy what's going forward and we're going to continue to work in that aspect.
Q. Coach Culley stressed how kind of unhappy he's been with the rushing attack. When the ground game's struggling a little bit, can you kind of sense how that affects the passing side of things?
BRANDIN COOKS: Yeah, I mean, it's the NFL. Some weeks that's going to happen. Maybe the pass game's struggling so you need the run game to step up, run game struggling you need the pass game to step.
But as far as sense of that, we didn't have our best day on the ground, but we got to find a way to get that going and we got to find a way to make up for that in other areas as well.
Q. Sometimes that short and quick passing game kind of makeup for the rushing game in there?
BRANDIN COOKS: Absolutely. Yeah.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports