*Indianapolis Head Coach Jim Caldwell *
(transcribed by Jessi Molohon)
(on keeping up in the first half) "In the first half, I thought we hung in there fairly well. I thought the guys did a decent job of converting some stop early. In the end of the first half, we might have given up 150 yards probably. In the second half, everybody came out to control the line of scrimmage. We have some things we need to work out, no question about that. "
(On Colts performance) "We're going to have to take a look at the film to see. We can't always determine what the situation was and what happened. One thing we do know is that they controlled that line of scrimmage. That's for certain."
(On Texans defense) "I have to give a lot of credit to them. Obviously, they did a very good job. They certainly were in command of the line of scrimmage. They had opportunities on both sides of the ball when they put a little pressure on QB Peyton (Manning). Hitting him one time is too many, but they got through to him a few times. It's pretty obvious what happens to our defense just in terms of up front. Those are the areas that we have to make certain we can control, that line of scrimmage and we certainly did not do a very good job. A lot of credit goes towards them."
(on S Bob Sanders' injury) "I'm not quite certain the extent of it yet. We'll have a sense of it later on."
(on if it was the same injured elbow) "My understanding is no."
(on Texans being a potential threat to the division) "I think it was a little bit of everything. They did a very good job of mixing it up. They gave us power; they gave us speed around the end. You name it. They had very decent coverage of that line. That's probably an understatement."
(on schematic of the game) "We don't think its schematic. Obviously, in coaching, you've got to look at everything. I think the same thing happened to us a few years back when we played Jacksonville down there. It was not a pretty scene either. We were able to hang in there and just do what we do a little bit better. That's all we have to do. We have a system in place that's proven and we just have to make certain we play better."
(on Texans victory) "Not anything we didn't anticipate; let's put it that way. They're a good team up front; a good solid group with veteran players. We had our chances on a couple runs here and there but just didn't get loosed up. Then we got to the point that we were behind where we had to obviously throw just to catch up. So that changes things dramatically."
(on Texans being an improving franchise) "It's been a steady progress in terms of their organization. They've got better each and every year but every year we've grown. Certainly, it fits. No matter how you shake it up, you look at the history of the two teams. The battle has gone down right to the wire where we had to come from behind and win. They're getting better all the time, just like everybody else in this league."
(on reality of first game lost) "It's 1-of-16. It's a marathon, not a sprint. We just have to look at the film and make the corrections we need to make. Lick our wounds a little bit and get back to work."
(on WR Pierre Garcon being frequently open against Texans CB Kareem Jackson) "We sprinted around pretty liberally. In most cases, (QB) Peyton (Manning) throws to the open guy and I think he was able to find some seams and some openings. But not nearly enough."
* *
IndianapolisColts RB Joseph Addai
(transcribed by Lance Jaramillo)
(on the loss to the Texans) "We're definitely going to go back and watch the film and learn from mistakes. It's the same thing when anybody loses. You have to move on from this."
(on offensive line injuries affecting the running game for Indy) "You want everybody healthy. Everybody's expected to play, so we go in to the game with the same game plan. Hopefully we can get everybody back."
(on throwing the ball 50 times) "It's whatever they give us. We fell behind so we had to go with the passing game more."
(on balancing emotions of an opening game) "You have to understand where you're at as a team and what you're doing wrong. The good thing is that the thing that needs to be fixed is fixable."
(on where the Colts are after the loss) "We made a lot of mistakes and we just have to go back and watch the film."
IndianapolisColts LB Gary Brackett
(transcribed by Joshua Moon)
(on how frustrating it was to not be able to stop the run in the 2nd half) "It was tough. I think we did a pretty good job in the first half. In the second half, they did a good job of cutting us off on the back side. They broke some long runs and we just have to get better."
(on the Texans being known as a passing team but running the ball for the majority of the game today) "I think (RB) Arian Foster did a great job. He is a physical back who is tough to tackle. We just have to get better."
(on them not being in the situation of losing their first game of the season very often) "It's never that good when you win and it's never that bad when you lose. We are just going to evaluate it and see where we can get better and continue to grow."
(on if it was frustrating knowing they had to make a play to get off the field in the 2nd half but couldn't) "I don't know what our third down percentage was but I know it wasn't good. We were on the field a long time. We just have to come up with a play."
(on if it was frustrating knowing a team is going to run the ball until they stop it) "That is tough. We didn't do a good job of stopping the run. It's up to us to man up and make a stop in that situation."
(on why it was tough to bring (RB) Arian Foster down) "He just did a good job of moving the pile. He had good vision and he ran hard."
(on if he felt that Houston was playing like they were desperate to beat them) "It is what it is. We were dying to get one too. They had no added motivation to beat us. We had the same motivation. They just out executed us today."
IndianapolisColts DB Melvin Bullitt
(transcribed by Joshua Moon)
(on how he thought the defense played) "You can probably say that we have a lot of things to work on, but it's better now than later. It's a marathon, not a sprint. We have a lot of time. We definitely need to get in there and see what is going on, because we had a lot of confusion. Maybe it wasn't confusion. Maybe we just didn't play as well as we are capable of, but we know the kind of defense and players we have. It's unfortunate that that is the way we played our game today."
(on if he is ready if (DB) Bob Sanders gets hurt again) "I just pray that (DB) Bob Sander can get healthy. It's an unfortunate situation and you never want to look forward to getting on the field in a situation like that. All of my prayers go out to him. I told him that I appreciate the way he came back, and the way he fought in training camp. It made me want to be a better player. Hopefully he can get back and get healthy."
(on how frustrating it was to get run on the way they did) "It's frustrating to lose not matter what the situation is. It's just frustrating all together."
IndianapolisColts TE Dallas Clark
(transcribed by Joshua Moon)
(on if he was frustrated on get dominated on both sides of the ball) "There were a lot of areas where we just didn't execute. Give credit to them. They played well and didn't make many mistakes. There were too many uncharacteristically mistakes that we made that we usually don't make. There are things that are correctable, so that is a positive, but this is a hard way to start the year."
(on if he felt that the Texans were playing as a desperate team) "They are definitely a team that has a lot to fight for and has a lot of pride for their team and organization. That is definitely not the reason they won the game. They just out executed us."
(on if this is where the team wants to be after the first game of the season) "This is definitely not where we want to be. We have a lot of work to do, but it is early. There are things that we need to correct and change. We have to give them the credit right now and we have to improve."
(on QB Peyton Manning getting knocked to the ground more than normal) "There are a lot of phases of the game that we have to improve on. Everyone has to be critical on themselves when they watch the film and be honest with themselves and do what we need to do to make the corrections. If everyone takes that mindset, we'll be alright."
IndianapolisColts QB Peyton Manning
(transcribed by Leah Shullenberger)
(on what went wrong in today's game) "There are a lot of things. We obviously didn't make enough plays on any phase of our game plan - offense, defense, and special teams. Houston made more plays and therefore they won. I can't really give you a lot of answers until we see the game film. It's obviously very disappointing and you always want to get the season started off on the right foot and we didn't do that today. We put ourselves in a hole a little bit and we have a lot to work on. We have a tough game next week so we'll learn from it. We obviously just didn't play well enough today to win. That's the bottom line."
(on how today's game compared to previous games against Texans) "Certainly we've had some crazy games here in the past where we've been down by a number of points and we've been able to come back. This wasn't totally unfamiliar territory but people are going to point to a certain play here or there. For me it's a 60-minute game. It's a 60-minute loss and I don't think the offense picked up the defense. The defense didn't pick up the special teams and special teams didn't pick up the offense. We didn't do enough as a group to help each other out when one unit was struggling, and that's something we've done in the past and it's something that we're going to need to do starting next week. So we'll work on it and I think we will improve on it."
(on how OL Charlie Johnson played being back from injury) "That's hard for me to answer. We'll see film tomorrow and coaches will make corrections and what not. (OL) Charlie (Johnson) went through a tough injury. I know he was in a lot of pain this week in practice, and it just shows his toughness to be out there battling, I appreciate his effort out there. 57 attempts is a lot of attempts. Certainly when the score got to a certain point, Houston knew how to play us sort of one sided, so somewhere in there we've got to find some more balance."
(on if they threw more to TE Dallas Clark because Texans LB Brian Cushing was out) "Not necessarily. (TE) Dallas (Clark) is a guy that will be featured in our offense no matter who's guarding him, whether they're playing zone or man. They were playing zone majority of the game today. Dallas is always going to be somewhere in our game plan, it's more about just trying to get the ball to your playmakers."
(on his feeling about losing the season opener) "It is what it is. It's one game, and it's disappointing. You put a lot of emphasis in to this first game to get the season started off right. We have won more opening season games than lost since I've been here, but it's not a fun plane ride. It's not a fun week of practice, but it's a fact. I think in practice this week we have to improve. We have a tough game coming up next Sunday night, so it's important to improve quickly."
(on WR Pierre Garcon's performance) "I don't think (WR) Pierre (Garcon) is ever going to have a confidence problem. He made a couple of big catches, a couple of one handed catches down the sideline. Certainly there are some plays we'd like to have back. Some plays that just didn't go in our favor and sort of went the other way. Those are plays we usually make. We have high standards and those are the plays we expect to make, so hopefully we can get those fixed. I think all of the mistakes that we made today are correctable, which is encouraging, but it's important for us to be a little more sound. I certainly give Houston full credit. Houston made some great plays, but I think we did some things that hurt ourselves."
(on if Houston caused them to force throws and rush on offense) "I'm always trying to play fast, trying to make fast, quick decisions. I play an up-tempo game trying to get the ball into our playmaker's hands. Houston really sat back and played a lot of zone coverage, keeping things in front. The short throws were what were going to be there today. I thought the runs after the catch was a place we could have improved on. I thought we could have gotten a few more yards. Our goal was to try and get 7 yards, and a couple of times we had the 2nd and 10 and 3rd and 2's. We'd like to go ahead and make those into first downs. There were a couple of 3rd and 2's we didn't convert. That was frustrating. We had that one series down in the red zone where we had good field position and then we had a penalty and ended up punting, which was disappointing. I thought we were surely getting points there. It's our job to stay in phase and stay out of those 3rd and longs. When we get 3rd downs, we've got to convert them. I don't think we converted enough of them today."
(on Houston being a threat in the AFC South) "I can't tell. Certainly they were the better team today. They beat us and that's really kind of the fact. At this point, we won't think about Houston until we play them in November back in Indy. I think we've got to think about the Colts these next two and a half days and how we can improve and then start our preparation on the Giants on Wednesday."
* *
IndianapolisColts DB Jerraud Powers
(transcribed by Lance Jaramillo)
(on giving up most rushing yards to one runner in Colts history) "He was reading his holes. The offensive line did a tremendous job for him, giving him the seams to run. We made a few mistakes on our end, but we're going to tip our hat to him. He got the best of us today. They did a tremendous job on offense."
(on importance of opening day loss) "Obviously we've got things we have to work on. Our main thing is stopping the run and obviously we didn't do that today. We need to go back to the drawing board and fix whatever we need to fix. Like a couple of vets say it's a marathon and not a sprint. We're going to prepare for next week's game and look to get better each week. This is where we're at now, but next week we should be a lot better."
IndianapolisColts LB Clint Session
(transcribed by Lance Jaramillo)
(on loss to the Texans) "I thought we were prepared for them. We've been having good weeks of practice. That's a good team over there. They've been building a good team with free agency and drafting. Their athletes came out and played harder than we played today. We'll take this and build from it. It's the first game of the season so if you're going to lose a game you better lose the first game so we can get it out of the way. We don't like the taste of it. I've never lost to Houston."
(on not stopping the running game) "Football is a game of momentum and it was on their side. We couldn't rise to the occasion. We failed to rise to the occasion which we don't normally do. We normally get out of these kinds of games but we couldn't do it."
(on importance of stopping the run) "Running is like stabbing you in the heart. That's the biggest part of football. Running the ball and making a team one dimensional."
