Houston Texans Media Conference

Sunday, October 15, 2023

Houston, Texas, USA

Derek Carr

Visitors Postgame Press Conference


Houston - 20, New Orleans - 13

Q. First of all, probably a disappointing outcome with the final points considering all the yards you guys had. What's your assessment coming right out of there?

DEREK CARR: Very disappointed. I was livid coming off the field. I was angry coming off the field. I had to calm down a little bit. We as an offense had too many details -- and you know I'm not going to tell you what happened. Yes, we know, and yes, we know what it was and all of those things. I won't say it.

But there's these little details, if we just do those things right, you're looking at, oh, my gosh, we score 28 points or we -- you know. I just want to win, man. Like the yards are awesome, great, thanks, yes, but couldn't care less. I just want to win. That's all I care about is winning football games.

If we don't do those details right every single time -- especially when the game's on the line. That's when it matters most -- then we're going to have this feeling more often than not.

Q. I know you're not going to detail exactly what happened, but are we correct to assume that the one to Rasheed, maybe the second to last pass of the game, you were throwing it to a different spot than what you expected? I mean, that looked like a wrong page thing.

DEREK CARR: Yeah, that one, we were on the wrong page. That's on me. The communication of it, I've got to clean that up for him and make it better for him.

Q. Was there too much of that tonight? Were there several examples of those tonight?

DEREK CARR: We had a couple of those. We did some things very well. We did some things explosively and all those things, but just having a few explosives or a lot of yards doesn't win football games. What wins football games is doing the right thing at the right moment every single time.

Houston, give them so much credit. They're such a good team. Such a great young team that flies around, they play fast, tough defense. If you are not on your details, especially against this scheme, they're going to be on theirs, and it cost us today.

Q. Is it surprising or unacceptable this many weeks into the season?

DEREK CARR: I would say unacceptable. Today was unacceptable. And that's up to us as players to make sure we're on our details when the game is on the line for sure.

Q. Derek, was that fourth down play to Alvin, was that designed to go to him?

DEREK CARR: I was going to try to throw it to Mike, but the backer was pushing. I didn't want to throw obviously a pick. My option there against that zone is give Alvin a chance to go make a play at the sticks, similar to what we did last week against New England.

Q. Do you feel like in the end zone there's too many mistakes going on, like a lack of communication?

DEREK CARR: Yeah, for sure, bro, absolutely. It's like we were talking about. It's the details of our assignments, making sure we do those things right, and we did not do that right today for sure.

Q. How would you evaluate the pace of the offense? Were you out of sync?

DEREK CARR: I felt like -- I didn't feel that. I didn't feel like we were out of sync or anything like that. I felt like everything we want is there in the run game, pass game, looks. There's a couple times we got in there, and I had to throw them way earlier than I wanted to, but great designs. Guys running open and having to check them down for certain things and reasons.

I think that that was more of the feeling, them making plays, rather than like a bad feeling like, oh, we can't do this or can't do that. We felt like we were doing some good things.

Q. You guys felt like you had the answer, you got the result. How can you get this ship righted? You have more than enough talent.

DEREK CARR: Yeah, absolutely. It's going to take each man every time you break the huddle. Like I said before the game, when you break the huddle, it's going to take every man just focusing that much harder on what is my assignment? When they present the look, what is my assignment now?

If we do that as players, we definitely have enough pieces to go do that, everything we want to do.

Q. What's your self-evaluation of where you wanted to be first time joining a new team, six weeks into it, and how it's going?

DEREK CARR: I didn't want to be 3-3. I think we've let a couple of these get away from us. It's early in the season. You play four quarters and then one more. We always break it down that way.

What we've earned -- Coach Del Rio always said you are what you've earned, and we've earned 3-3. That isn't what we wanted. That's not what I wanted. It's not what I expected, but it's what we've earned.

So you look in the mirror and really push the envelope to everybody else. Demario was saying it too, look in the mirror. Did you do what you did last week this week, or did you just enjoy the week too much or whatever?

Whatever the case may be, we're going to -- we have a lot of problem solvers, not a lot of problem creators in that locker room. And Mickey and Dave have done a great job of bringing those kind of guys in. They've done a great job of bringing the right guys.

It's up to us as leaders to make sure we're solving problems that we know need to be solved and can be solved.

Q. Short week after a game like this better in a sense? You can really flush it really quickly?

DEREK CARR: Yes, absolutely, because I'm going to get on the bus, I'm going to get on the plane, and I'm going to begin my preparation for the next game. You don't really get time -- whether we won this game or lost it, you don't get time to enjoy it or feel sorry for yourself.

Like I said at the end, nobody cares how you feel. You've got to get ready for the next one. That's what I'll be doing on the plane is preparing, making sure everything I do in six, seven days, get it done in three, four days. That's what I have to do this week for sure.

Q. Have you reached the throwing without thinking stage with the shoulder?

DEREK CARR: Today was the best I've felt since it happened. For sure, yeah.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
138125-1-1182 2023-10-15 21:13:00 GMT

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