Patriots - 25, Texans - 22
Q. (A question about trying a 56-yard field goal and calling a timeout to discuss the call.)
COACH CULLEY: No, the decision there was the fact that we felt like he was in his range. He's our kicker. Got the utmost confidence in him. He had a tough day up to that point but had made one. We felt if we made that field goal it's a two-score ball game. That's why I made the decision to kick.
Q. What about the penalty on the final Patriots scoring drive? You decided to decline -- accept the penalty and they had a few more plays after that and ground the clock down, did you give any thoughts in accepting that or declining the penalty, letting them score a touchdown having more time for your team?
COACH CULLEY: We thought about that. We did think about that.
Q. What ultimately went into your decision to do what you did?
COACH CULLEY: Because of what ended up happening obviously they threw the ball. They threw the ball at one time, which actually helped us. And had they ran the ball, there was a possibility that we were going to end up letting him score. We had talked about that.
Q. David, the punt that went into Terrance Brooks' back what was the call there for that? Why the little bit of trickery there, and what went into that call?
COACH CULLEY: That was a possibility that if we gave us the right look, when we did what we did there, that if it gave us the right look we were possibly going to fake it. They didn't give us the look. So we were going to back out and then just repunt. And it didn't work out. We end up having a leakage up the middle and ended up getting a block.
Q. (A question about Davis Mills and his performance.)
COACH CULLEY: Davis played well. Played well. The thing Davis did today, Davis protected the football. He was very good in the pocket. He ran our offense very well. He knew going into the game that the most important thing for him to do was to be able to protect the football and he did that today.
Q. (Question about timeouts.)
We thought about that, and again we felt that depending on what they were going to do -- we felt they were going to try to get a first down there, try to score and whatnot. But we had a little time. We felt like that. They threw the ball had an incomplete pass. Obviously that actually helped us.
Again as I said earlier, we thought about letting them score. But at that point when they did an incomplete pass, we knew -- we almost tried to let them score one time and there was a penalty.
Q. What changed from the offensive side that led to not being able to move the ball?
COACH CULLEY: Penalties. Penalties again. The same thing, penalties.
Q. Is there a feeling that maybe you guys wasted a really good bounce-back game given how well he played today?
COACH CULLEY: No waste at all. We lost the game. We lost the game. He played well enough for us to win the game. They kicked a field goal to win it. We missed two extra points. We missed a field goal.
Q. What did you think about Collins' penalty on that last drive?
COACH CULLEY: Well, we can't have that. And I think it was one of those things where it was one of those penalties that it could have went where we didn't make the call. But he ended up making the call. And I think he made the call because Maliek going down on the guy's knees, the reasons why the call got called. It wasn't a roughing from a standpoint of him roughing him.
Q. (Inaudible).
COACH CULLEY: He told us, once he went down on his knees, after the play he was down on his knees. Because it was called late. It wasn't called right away.
Q. I know you have yet to watch the tape but when you look at the big picture that second half collapse what went wrong?
COACH CULLEY: I don't think it was a collapse. We had penalties, again, offensively that kept us from being able to keep the ball moving along. We were doing that well. We were running the ball okay. But obviously when we get in those situations where we go second and long, first and long, I mean, it puts us behind the chains, and that's not how we're going to play.
Q. You all played so well and then...
COACH CULLEY: They made the plays and we didn't in the end.
Q. What went into the decision to inactivate Charles?
COACH CULLEY: We felt some other guys needed a chance -- they hadn't played. Jordan Jenkins hadn't played this year. Had been inactive for the most part. We felt he had a good week of practice. We wanted to give him an opportunity.
Q. Laremy?
COACH CULLEY: Laremy has a thumb. We don't know how bad it is. We'll know more tomorrow. The thing about his thumb is we'll get an MRI, X-ray on it to see about it. But it was so bad basically during the offense he really couldn't punch. We used him a little bit on the field goal and extra point team because all he had to do was just sit there and spread his hands out and not punch.
Q. What did you think about Jonathan Greenard, the performance he's had the last few weeks since he got here?
COACH CULLEY: He's playing very well. He's come back. And he's given us a little boost there. He's actually -- he was doing that before. He's one of those guys that he plays that way, he practices that way. And he actually gave us a big boost in the defensive line because of the way he's playing.
Q. What about Chris Moore?
COACH CULLEY: Chris is ready to play. He had opportunities, took advantage. Wish he had made that play in the back of the end zone. If he made that play that's probably seven points for us. He did well. First time he's been active from a standpoint of playing for us on offense. And he did a nice job of coming in there.
Q. The offense was working in the first half. Seemed like you all were coming out of some unpredictable ways and packages you've normally run. What went into opening the offense in certain situations in the first --
COACH CULLEY: Not knowing exactly how they were going to play us. We had seen in some ball games where certain people had done some things on them when they played a certain way. And we had some plays for them that did that. The flea flicker some things we had going there. Some of the screens, quick screens we had. And they were playing the scheme that we thought they were going to end up playing for those plays to work.
And we called them and they worked and Timmy did a nice job of taking advantage of that.
Q. [Question about being aggressive in the first half].
COACH CULLEY: Offense was playing well. Playing consistent. We didn't have those penalties. We were actually above the chains on everything. And I felt comfortable with that. And actually they did a nice job doing that.
Q. Why do you think you all commit so many penalties; it's an issue last week and this week?
COACH CULLEY: It's a fundamental thing. Fundamentals. Usually when you go back, watch the video and you see why did a guy hold or why did a guy jump offsides it's usually a focus thing or something we didn't do fundamentally, which we worked on that this week and we're going to continue to work on that. And basically individuals that do those things has got to quit doing those things.
Q. What can you all do on giving up those big plays on defense?
COACH CULLEY: Being at the right place at the right time. And sometimes those things happen. Just like we get big plays. We get the big plays simply because our guys did a nice job. They did a nice job a couple times attacking the coverage. When you're in certain coverages you're playing certain defenses, got a certain call, it's a tough deal. We had a few of those.
Q. (Inaudible)?
COACH CULLEY: I haven't even thought about that.
Q. Would you consider the four backup offensive linemen, dominating the line of scrimmage more, shutting down the run after (inaudible)?
COACH CULLEY: Are you talking about our defensive line?
Q. (Inaudible).
COACH CULLEY: Well, whoever is out there. We just play the game as if those same guys are out there. It really didn't matter to us who it was. We played the game as if it was the starters out there. It really didn't matter. And I thought our guys did a good job of doing what they did. They did a good enough job for us to win the game.
Q. [Question about the penalty at the two minute mark and wanting to run more plays left.]
COACH CULLEY: We had one time out left and we had the two-minute. We wanted to see how they were going to play it. Once they started, they ended up throwing a pass which actually helped us because we had talked about allowing them to go ahead and score where we'd have time to have a touchdown to be able to have a chance to win or to tie the game.
Q. (Inaudible)?
COACH CULLEY: No, we were not.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports