Broncos 18, Texans 15
DEMECO RYANS: All right, good afternoon.
Q. Hey, Coach. You all had six plays inside the two yard line and didn't score. How do you grapple with that fact?
DEMECO RYANS: At the start for us it wasn't good enough. We were in the red zone multiple times as an offense there at the one yard line. Had multiple opportunities to get it in it. That's just about sheer willpower to me. It's the one yard line. We got to find a way to displace at the line of scrimmage and punch the football in.
That is what it takes in that situation. We didn't get it done. Multiple other opportunities in the red zone where we came up short. We made it in the red zone three times. Like to see us convert and get in the end zone versus really good Denver team.
Credit to those guys. They did an outstanding job. Defensively they did a good job getting stops when they needed to get stops. We didn't play well in the red zone and on third down.
If you don't win in those situational, critical moments of the game it's going to be hard to win it.
Q. How disappointing was it that your defense was able to get three straight stops before the last drive and you guys weren't able to get anything going on offense?
DEMECO RYANS: It's disappointing as a team we didn't finish the game. The defense, they did a good job getting stops multiple times. We just sputtered there offensively. We lacked just some -- just lacked being able to move the ball; lacked being able to sustain drives in the second half.
It just wasn't good enough. We kind of sputtered along. Had quick three and outs. It's not good enough. We need to be able to move the ball there.
Q. From your vantage point, just take us through the (regarding CJ) play.
DEMECO RYANS: Yeah, CJ scrambled. Of course he tried to -- he slid and the guy, you know, came up and hit him. As I see it, unnecessary roughness when you hit the quarterback when he's sliding and giving himself up. If I'm incorrect on the rule, I've seen that happen multiple times with our guys.
We get the penalty, but for some reason, it just didn't happen there. So we'll look at the film and see what actually happened there. At the end of the day we lost our starting quarterback because of the play, and any time you lose your starting quarterback it's always tough.
Davis battled. Tried to do a good job there. Just didn't do well offensively once we lost CJ.
Q. I know you always talk about next man up and you guys are always ready. Talk about losing not only CJ Tytus Titus and Christian.
DEMECO RYANS: Yeah, a lot of guys went down, Kim, and it's easy to stand up here and make excuses. At the end of the day I truly believe that happens all across the league all the time. You don't make excuses about who is in the game or not in the game.
We still had an opportunity there to close the game out and win it. It was just a matter of, man, are you remaining disciplined in the moment? Are you playing the way you're supposed to play doing the things you needed do to win the game?
Everybody has to pull their weight. No matter who you are, when you get your opportunity, if you suit up, you have to be ready to go out and execute and play good football.
Q. Coach, on that last offensive possession you had, was there any thought to maybe running the clock down a little bit more, especially with the Broncos having two timeouts left?
DEMECO RYANS: Yeah, the thought there, we wanted to get some quick passes to get us moving. We're trying to drive down and of course try to get in field goal range. But to have couple quick incompletions, it was not the plan at all for us.
Q. Was there something that they adjusted or changed? Davis came out and was running the ball okay. Felt like they were adjusting to it a little bit. Something you saw that they changed or did to get to him?
DEMECO RYANS: I thought Vance did what he always does: Mixed up his coverages a lot. Some drop eight coverages that he's shown on tape. So he did a good job mixing it up.
We just have to -- again, have to be able to make the plays we need to make. We got to run the ball better. We just got to be able to finish drives.
It's third down for me. You go 3-17 on third down, that's not winning football.
Q. Coach, right before the half I think Hutchinson, the play right there by the 35 yard line, went out and he wasn't tackled. Kept the clock running. What did the official tell you?
DEMECO RYANS: He said that his knee was down.
Q. How do you weigh not having your quarterback for most of the game and continued inefficiency of the offense?
DEMECO RYANS: Yeah, for me, again, I go back to if you're in, it's all about just doing your job. Whatever your job entails, it really to me -- yeah, you want your best players in all the time. Yeah, if I could draw it up that way, I would make sure CJ didn't get hurt, the guy didn't hit CJ like that and we were in a good spot to continue to press forward and drive the football.
But we don't control that. So what do you control? Whoever steps in, are you doing your job, what you're supposed to do to help the team win the game?
Q. Can you just talk about that play? Bo Nix being able to take off? Was it just a broken coverage play or...
DEMECO RYANS: I mean, Bo made a great play there. We held him in check for most of the game. In a critical moment, there it is. Their guy stepped up and he made a play. That's what the NFL is about. He scrambled, got out on us. We knew that was the case, but our game plan this week was about remaining disciplined for four quarters.
That's how we rush the quarterback, how we operate in coverage, being where we're supposed to be, and in the fourth quarter, right, we had a lack of discipline there and some other times throughout the game lack the discipline allowed them to get in scoring position and also score a couple times on us.
Q. You mentioned second half you guys sputtered when CJ wasn't out there. How much do you feel like the offense kind of missed having their starting quarterback?
DEMECO RYANS: Every offense is going to miss their starting quarterback in the game. At any given time we want him in the game. That's why he's the starting quarterback.
It's no excuses. A lot of teams won games with backup quarterbacks before. We had our opportunity. We had our chance.
The Broncos and Coach Payton did a great job. Those guys made great plays. Vance did a great job defensively. They're a well-coached team. Their young quarterback stepped up and made a play when he needed to make a play.
We had our opportunities there in the fourth quarter. We didn't make the play. That's NFL football right there. We got to be on the other side of that: make a play, get the ball out, get a drive going there to get us in field goal range, and we're standing here looking a little different.
Q. (Regarding turning things around for the offense.)
DEMECO RYANS: Yeah, for us offensively, again, it always goes back to it's in the red zone. We got to do a better job of finding way to get in the end zone. Like if we can't get it the end zone and score points it's going to be hard.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports