Jaguars - 31, Texans - 3
COACH SMITH: ... gotta tackle better. That's been a tough spot for us a lot of the year. Had opportunities, established the run. Pass-wise, for protection to just the entire passing game, it wasn't our day today. Kind of as simple as that.
Q. One of your goals was to win a home game (indiscernible). How disappointing is it to -- if that hadn't happened previously (indiscernible)?
COACH SMITH: Disappointing. I mean, whenever you talk about a first-time, something that's never been done, you know, as I said, the plan, of course, was to play a lot better. When you play like that, it's not going to happen. We're not going to win one.
So there's nothing else to really say on that. When you got to score some points, gotta be able to keep them out of the end zone. We didn't do that today.
Q. You mentioned this wasn't your day today offensively, passing game, you guys have been playing (indiscernible) recently. What changed today from what you could see and with Mills throwing the ball down the field?
COACH SMITH: First off, I think we probably need to give the Jaguars credit. They've been playing outstanding ball. The pressure was good on their part today. Coverage was really good. So if you throw that back on us, I didn't think our protection was as good as it needs to be, and Davis would be the first guy to tell you, whenever we're talking about passing game not being effective, it's about throwing and catching. We weren't able to do that today.
Q. What was the most (indiscernible)?
COACH SMITH: Everything, most disappointing, the loss. No win at home this year. All of that. Game-wise, we didn't do many things well today. For the most part we're fairly healthy. Just didn't really see us -- I saw us playing a lot better today.
Q. With one game left, how do you regroup to end the season on a positive note?
COACH SMITH: It's just that. We talked a lot about trying to finish with a great record of course in our division. We've split with a couple of teams. The other team we've tied them. There's an opportunity for us to get a win.
I know they need one as much as we do. We have one more game on our season. We've gone through some tough times. If I'm a betting man, I'll say the guys are going to really show up and play well against the Colts.
Q. You mentioned there were (indiscernible) today. Felt like at moments Jalen and Christian had (indiscernible) tackles in the game. When they're showing improvements as rookies and they progress, is that a little bit of frustration (indiscernible)?
COACH SMITH: Well, I would say mental mistakes -- it's a good running back. He's been playing good ball, but part of our job is to get him down. The one play you're talking about you have two missed tackles. Normally that's going to lead to a big play. Eventually we've got to eliminate that.
You talk about run defense, that's what run defense is about. Great running backs get to the second level. You've got to be able to get them down from there. Today those ones we didn't get them down led to big scores.
Q. (Indiscernible) the red zone (indiscernible). How rough was that to not get any points there, and what was supposed to be (indiscernible) the first option?
COACH SMITH: I can't go into all the details there. In the end, we had a wheel route with Rex and we didn't complete it. When you get down in the red zone, that's been an issue for us a little bit this year. When you get down into the red zone you've got to be able to cash it in, not with just a field goal. Just felt like we needed a touchdown to stay up with them then.
Q. Over the course of the whole year you're now (indiscernible) this game, do you look at this offense and feel like today represents what it is, or do you feel like there's a game left where you also have questions to answer?
COACH SMITH: Whenever you have another game to play, you've got to play it, let guys -- one more opportunity to show us something we haven't seen. But there's a body of work now that we have to go with. And the body of work hasn't been good enough. It's as simple as that.
But, yes, we're going to take this last game -- I mean, I think there's something about finishing with a good taste in your mouth and we're excited by it. After you have a game like this you want one more opportunity as much as anything and that's what we're going to get.
Q. The comment about the taste in your mouth, you talk about players getting something back into the season. With some of the feelings on the team, with the players (indiscernible) frustrated game, what happened there?
COACH SMITH: I can't tell you what happened there. Was Jerry frustrated? Jerry, you gonna keep going? I was. There's a lot of us frustrated on the sideline.
When you give up a big play, you don't play your best, yeah, there's going to be frustration. It normally starts from the leaders of the team. What I know about Jerry he was in there the last play, coaching up guys doing the best he could at the end, trying to give us a spark or whatever we needed. There was a lot of frustration on the sideline today for sure.
Q. Your first season, the record is what it is, how would you evaluate how you've coached this season?
COACH SMITH: I don't quite know how to answer that. We've won two games. Coaching -- when I talk about what the players haven't done, I mean, we're leading them. I'm leading the team. So it's pretty simple on how I've done this year. Haven't done as good enough of a job to win games.
So sometimes I mean it ends up like that for whatever reason. I know we showed up, we've been trying hard we didn't get it done right now. What I'm focusing on as much as anything is we have one more opportunity to get a win. And then after that you can look at the body of work and what we've done with what we've been working with.
Q. You mentioned this just a second ago about how you have one more game to play. For a lot of players that are looking for future contracts or extensions or anything of that matter for this team or somewhere else, do you find more about your team when your backs are against the wall or when the it matters the most?
COACH SMITH: You definitely learn about your team and when we're going through adversity. It's not just this last game or this game today, we've been doing that for a period of time.
We've been out of the playoffs for a while. Normally once the team is out of the playoffs then you kind of see what they're about. Our guys have been showing up playing and practicing hard, trying to win games.
We didn't play well enough today. I'm looking at this, we didn't play well enough today. We played a lot better than that. And if I'm a betting man I would say we're going to play a lot better next week.
Q. (Indiscernible) avoided losses like this, this one overshadow what you have --
COACH SMITH: No, we're really disappointed in how we played today. I don't think it's any more than that. We've got to look at what we did today. And this team that we're playing, the last four weeks we played against a team that's in first place in the division. And this team we played today has been playing very good football. They're a good team. They have a chance to represent our division next week.
But for us, our play, this was not good enough in any phase. And all that, of course, starts with me as the head football coach. We have to do a better job. We have one more chance to get this bad taste out of our mouths.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports