TITANS INTERIM HEAD COACH MIKE MULARKEY PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT - November 30, 2015
(on if he discussed the defensive holding call in question with the NFL)
I did, yes I did. I vented my frustration over the call, or I should say, lack of calls. There was a false start to start the play on (Michael) Crabtree and then there was OPI (offensive pass interference) in the end zone on (Andre) Holmes on both of our defenders. So I vented my frustration about that and they said if you guys had any questions on that, call them. They said it was a poorly officiated play. It should've never even started. The play should have never started.
(on clarifying what the league said in regards to the defensive holding call in question)
I said, 'What am I supposed to say to the team or how do I address this?' Not to the team, but I said, 'I'm about to stand in front of the media,' and they said if there are any questions on it, they'd be glad to talk to you.
(on if calling it a poorly officiated play was strong wording from the league office)
No, I have not heard that (before), no.
(on if talking to the league about the calls in question made him feel better or worse)
I don't feel better about it. It's frustrating for our team. I have to come in here and talk to these guys about what we have to do to win these close games, and it comes down to things like that. There were other plays, don't get me wrong. There were multiple plays in all phases of our team that would have made a difference before that play ever came up. That play just happens to be the one that sticks out, but we had multiple chances to make a difference in that game before that happened.
(on if officials should be disciplined for missing calls)
I don't think I need to get into that. I know how we feel as coaches and players and organizations and owners. I know how we feel the emotional letdown. Do they ever feel how we feel? Do they understand what is affected? That's what I want to know.
(on if B.W. Webb made contact between two players on the play in question)
I saw the same thing that you guys saw. I didn't see it and there's no restriction, so I couldn't see it on tape.
(on if the game coming down to missed calls makes it harder to move beyond)
No. I think it's tougher to take when you do lose closer games. When they're right there in your reach, I think it's harder. It's more frustrating and more disappointing when you went out there and you actually got beat. So I think that's the emotion that we have going on, but the one thing that our guys know is that we have a chance to win these games. Regardless of who it is, or where it is or any of that, we've had chances to win these games. We just have not, us coaches included, we're all in this together, there's no pointing fingers at anybody, it's all of us. We've had chances to win these games and that's what you want when you step on the field.
(on if the defensive holding call against B.W. Webb was made away from the play)
From my understanding, typically if it's not part of the play, or you don't think it's going to be, I think that was the case with some of ours. I thought there were some other holding calls that could have been called, but they were away from the play and I just felt like, 'Hey, they didn't call them because they weren't primary receivers.' So I think that's the case, but I can't say that's the absolute rule about it.
(on if B.W. Webb has been taught to do anything different than he did on that play)
I don't think so, no.
(on trying to gear up emotionally to stop a team again after already coming back to take the lead and stopping them originally on fourth down before the penalty)
You have to, but there is an emotional draw out of you. It's like, I said this, especially to our coaching staff, when we scored the touchdown and then we got an extra point blocked, you're talking about a change of emotion and a momentum change like that. That's very similar to that, you felt like you won the game. You saw the emotion on the sideline and on the field, now they've got to get back and get locked in and get focused again because now they have a fresh set of downs. That's a good offense, especially in the red zone with the weapons they have, and what they did, we were prepared for. We had practiced the move that they hit to hit the touchdown.
(on if he took another look at the two interceptions)
Yeah, I did. I want to apologize to DGB (Dorial Green-Beckham) because I said something last night about him not converting the route. He shouldn't have converted the route. Again, when you don't watch the tape and you don't get a chance to review things, I misspoke. He did the right thing, he ran and stopped right when he was supposed to, based on the coverage. On that one, again, Kendall (Wright) does have to continue on the route and really, after looking at it, Marcus (Mariota) doesn't want to throw it, so it was really a combination of the two. It was an unfortunate decision, but we do want Kendall to continue the route. With that hurry-up process of the two-minute, their coverage was not as clean as it should have been, as you'd like to see. It got a little bit gray and (Marcus) took a chance with Kendall. Kendall is not going to run any different based on any one of the coverages. That's when he should have been in that hole. Then the other one on the third-and-19 play, he just kind of got caught, Marcus. The corner's back was turned, he thought he was going to carry Harry (Douglas) up the sideline, and as he was getting ready to pull the trigger, they're playing cover-2. Like I said last night, the first thing he said was, 'That's on me.' Those are things this guy is not going to do a lot of times. He learns a lot from his mistakes.
(on Marcus Mariota's decision to throw on the second interception)
There was contact, and again, I looked at the tape just to make sure that it wasn't illegal contact on Kendall (Wright). I felt like it was in legal bounds, but Kendall can't stop on the contact. He's got to avoid the contact and when he's running full speed and avoids it, whether we know he's going to be there or not, that's where he should have been.
(on if Kendall Wright could have physically gotten there on the second interception)
I don't think so.
(on if the ball might have hit the ground on the second interception)
I've looked at it, I just looked at it again. It was a quick review, that's what kind of shocked me. It was quicker than I think I've ever experienced, but they must have seen something. There's enough there to take a good, long look at it, at least from our framework there was.
(on if he considered calling a timeout after the big gain before the second interception happened)
No, I felt like we hit a big play to Delanie (Walker). We were trying to come back and basically hit the same play on the other side because they ran the same coverage numerous times in a row. Again, give them credit, they changed the coverage up. But we were in a good mode to keep hitting them.
