Carolina - 15, Houston - 13
Q. What do you take from the game being close, but not being able to finish?
C.J. STROUD: First of all, I want to give all glory and praise to my Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
That's not good enough. I feel like we did some good things here and there. We've got to be more consistent all the way around and got to reward our defense for getting good stops and getting sacks and getting things like that. Plus territory, we've got to get points, field goals or touchdowns.
Just something we can learn from. It's still early, but those are the ones you've got to pull out with. It is what it is, and we've got to go back to the drawing board.
Q. With so much made of you playing your friend Bryce Young, going 1-2, is it relief to have it over with? How special was it to play and catch up with him?
C.J. STROUD: It's cool. It was a normal game for me. I feel like for him too. I feel like it's just playing football. We're friends off the field, and that's a blessing, but I come to play hard and want to win.
Happy for him in his first win. I think that's big for him. Hopefully he catches some momentum. I'm a Texan. So my focus is there.
Q. What did they do defensively to maybe make it more difficult to get deeper?
C.J. STROUD: They didn't really do much other than just kind of taking away the short stuff and not rushing, and jumping down and knocking balls down. We've got to be better at taking advantage of that and try to push the ball down the field some more. But it is what it is.
I feel like we match up against them well. We knew they were a good team overall, but for us, I don't really think that they did anything that stopped us. We kind of stopped ourselves.
They made plays when we didn't. More power to them. Respect to those guys.
Q. With such a young team that's had so many impactful plays, how do you get over a loss like this?
C.J. STROUD: You've got to. It's the NFL. You win and lose some. It's not the end of the world, thank God. You're not going to the playoffs next week.
We've got a lot of football left to play. And I think we've showed our potential, but we've got to stay there. We can't keep going back. I think maybe the bye week maybe slowed us down. Hopefully we just keep momentum.
We play really good one week and play off the next. We can't do that if we want to be consistent and want to be playoff contenders and win the division. We've got to come and bring it every week.
Q. Your line of passing -- you had about three passes knocked down, particularly the first half. Did they affect your line of sight, your delivery sight line?
C.J. STROUD: No, they didn't. They just made plays. I feel I threw the ball well, and they made some plays. They were sitting there trying to knock down the short stuff. No, it didn't mess me up much.
Q. What did you feel like happened on the third and five delay of game penalty?
C.J. STROUD: I could have sworn I seen it go down to 2. At 1, I snapped it, and they called it. I'm a player. I can't go back and try to combat that. That's a penalty that right when it happens, it happens.
We've got to get better getting in and out of the huddle. I've got to spit the players out better and snap the ball.
The motion was so long, and it's tough to have that type of motion in such a long drive because I was tired and stuff. I've got to send them quicker and be better there.
I thought I got it off, but it is what it is.
Q. The locker room is surprisingly upbeat right now after a tough loss. They're saying it's because they know you're better than what you showed today. Can you talk about the mentality of the team despite the loss here?
C.J. STROUD: What's the point of holding your head down? Of course you're not happy about it, but we're not that type of team that's just going to tuck our shell and not have swagger and confidence no more just because we took a hit.
I feel like we showed our potential, and we're going to keep doing it. I think next week is really big for us. I think we have Tampa Bay, and that's a really good defense and a good challenge for us. We've got to go back to work and practice really good.
I think now we've got the bye week jitters out, and now it's time to play some real ball. Now it's going into division play and things like that. So we've got to be a lot better.
Q. You mentioned a lot about the potential that you guys have. What do you think that's been the biggest issue in terms of being able to consistently get that potential?
C.J. STROUD: You can point the finger everywhere, but me personally, I point the thumb. I'm not saying that I'm playing terrible, but I'm not making the plays I want to make. Sometimes I have to take what's there.
A lot of teams are being smart and playing back. Even when I do take a checkdown, this team was knocking it down. I thought we could have gotten some firsts from that.
It is what it is. I feel like the talent we have, we've got to use it, and we've got to like be explosive like we want to be. That starts up front running the ball. I think those guys did a good job there. On top of that, we've got to take some shots. We've got to be more explosive and do some things down the field. We can't just let people dictate what we do just because we're not throwing the ball short.
I mean, that's me getting more trust from the coaches and the guys getting their depth in the routes. It's a whole team thing.
Man, I definitely think we have the talent to be explosive, and I think we've shown that we're, if not a top five offense, top ten offense, we've showed it, and we can do it. We've just got to go out there and call it and run it and execute.
I feel like that's why we haven't been consistent. Too many taking the ball short and not having enough explosives. It's hard to play on third down too. I think Bobby's done a great job calling it, trying to be better with us and getting used to how we like calls and things like that. Hopefully we start being a little more explosive.
Q. Is that something you'll sit down with Bobby this week and talk about because, as an offensive unit, they do take your input in, and they value your input?
C.J. STROUD: We have some talks here and there. I'll sit down with those guys. I always do. I'm not talking about Bobby. I'm not talking about anybody specific. I'm just saying as a whole offense, to reward our defense for getting stops and things like that, we have to be explosive and like make plays.
You can't live on third down. It's unfortunate that we had to take a hit today, but we'll learn from this.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports