Texans - 23, Raiders - 21
Q. Geno, you've been singing the praises of Ashton all year, and several times today when he was making big plays, you were the first one there. Will you just talk about watching the maturation of a guy who really looks up to you.
GENO SMITH: Ashton is, I will continue to say it, not only a great player, but an outstanding human being. The way that he works every day, the way that he puts his head down -- we've dealt with a lot this season, but he's been so mature about it.
Games like today are the norm for him. That's what we expect from him, and he had a great game.
Q. Obviously you had a week off last week and you had to watch what happened and you guys bounced back. How proud are you of the effort of the team today, hanging against a great defense?
GENO SMITH: I was extremely proud, especially of our young guys. Just the development of those guys throughout the season, the course of the season, seeing Jack go out there and make a bunch of catches, and the way Ashton played today, Caleb up front getting his reps, and even DP on the defensive side. Just those guys in their development really speaks to the coaches really being committed to that.
All season long, like I said, it's been a lot of things we wish we could have done better, but what I'm really proud of is just the way we continue to fight. The spirit of this team, the spirit of the locker room, guys are continuing to hold the rope. That's really all you can ask of the guys. You can see where we're getting better, but it's still not enough. I'm not the guy who really harps on moral victories, but I really appreciate the way these guys fight.
Q. There was a moment today where Caleb was walking off of the field, probably made a little bit of a mistake. You walked off the field and walked off with him. Could you talk about his ability to be teachable?
GENO SMITH: I love Caleb. Extremely, extremely great young man. Like you said, extremely coachable. He wants to do the right things. He's growing, he's learning. Up front, I thought he battled his butt off. It was a really good defensive line they had. I thought he competed well with those guys and gave us a chance to go out and score points.
Caleb is continuing to get better throughout the weeks. I continue to preach life into those guys, breathe life into them, and speak positivity into those guys.
Q. You said there's no such thing as moral victories. There's a lot of things that happen in a loss. If it's not necessarily a good loss, how would you describe what happened today?
GENO SMITH: I think we ran out of time. We ran out of time. Hat's off to the Texans. They've had a really good season. Have a really good team, really good defense as well. Obviously we want to win games. We don't want to just come close.
I've never been the guy who just said, oh, man, we came close, that's great. That's not enough. But really happy with the effort of the guys.
Q. What happened on the interception?
GENO SMITH: On that play, I just have to throw it away. They had a better call than us at that time. I think we had kind of worn out the roll pass. Those guys, they played Cover 2 on third and short. We've got to have an out to get to a run or something lie that. We can't run that play. I tried to put it on Ashton. He kind of kept running, and the corner made a good play. I've got to throw it away and live to play another down.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports