TITANS VS TEXANS
Sunday, Oct. 18, 2020
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Q. Justin, the touchdown, Romeo was saying that you guys had prepared for the Wildcat, which they've done before with him, including throwing it. From your vantage on that play what did you see and just generally your thoughts on how it went against him. Obviously had a lot of yards and success late in the game.
JUSTIN REID: You talking about the Wildcat play, the final play of the game? Yeah, the Wildcat, quarterback went out to the right. I tried to switch where me and my teammates did switch, I went to go guard the quarterback and moved me on No. 11. It was just power. Threw the ball to 22, rather than trying to force it in.
Q. You guys talked all week. Everybody knows what he's capable of. You talked about days ago. What makes him so tough to stop?
JUSTIN REID: Yeah. He's a special talent, man. One of the biggest -- he's the biggest back in the league, but still has speed to him whenever he gets out in open space. Tough challenge for us. The guys fought hard throughout the whole game, brought it to overtime. We just came up short. So just disappointed in the end result, but we're a team that's going to keep on fighting.
Q. How much more painful is this loss the way it developed, it was right there to win. You gave up 600 yards to their offense. How much more painful was this loss than maybe some others?
JUSTIN REID: The ones that are close like this that come down to the wire always hurt a little bit more. We had opportunities to win, and we just came up short. Couldn't get that last stop on defense, give our offense another shot to go out there and go drive the ball and score and win for us. So definitely disappointed. We're just going to get back to the drawing board. This team has a lot of fight, and we just have to do better.
Q. J.J. said as the leader of the defense I put that squarely on my shoulders. What do you think about that?
JUSTIN REID: I think J.J. had a great game. Made a lot of plays, really stepped up his leadership role. But it's on all of us. It's on all of us, the defense. It can't just be on one person. We're a team, and we all could have done a couple things a little bit better. I know there's a couple plays that I'm going to look back on in the game that, you know, would have, could have, should have. But that's not the way the game turned out.
Q. Is it difficult to deal with the fact that you all did have some good plays and you all stopped them several times, but then there was just that inconsistency where you weren't able to do it at all times? Does that make it more upsetting that you know you can do it but sometimes you weren't consistent?
JUSTIN REID: Yeah. Definitely gotta be more consistent. It just hurts a little more when the game comes down to the wire like that. We had an opportunity to win. We were up late in the game. And those guys, give them credit. They're a talented team, still undefeated. They came and they won the game. We had opportunities to win, and we didn't take advantage of them all. So we gotta just move on forward to Green Bay and just move forward.
Q. On the final play of regulation, the touchdown that he threw to A.J. Brown, how prepared were you guys for him not to spike it? Obviously Roby had good coverage, but were you expecting him to clock it?
JUSTIN REID: Yeah, I was a little disappointed in the call, especially seeing the replay with his knee being out of bounds. But when it's that close and you leave it up to the officials, you might not always get the result that you want. So it's just a disappointing ending to the game. Roby had a hell of a game, made a fantastic interception, had a couple other PBUs. So just a tough way to end it.
Q. What did you think of Romeo's decision to go for two after your offense's last touchdown?
JUSTIN REID: Yeah. I don't feel bad about it at all. We wanted to win the game. And I support that aggressiveness. It worked out for us last week. And had we converted on the 2-point conversion, this would be a totally different conversation. So it is what it is.
Q. Consistency, if you guys knew how to achieve it, obviously you would have already done so. But to look forward for the rest of the season, do you feel like this defense, having made a few plays, is capable of putting something together and reversing the trend that you've had in the first five weeks?
JUSTIN REID: Yeah. We have the ability to make plays. We have good players. We just gotta do it not some of the time. We gotta do it all the time. And that's going to be the challenge that I'm going to put on myself and a lot of other guys in the locker room is to be consistent. Do it every play. Not just some plays, not just the second half, but from the start of the game to the end of the game.
Q. How tough is it for you to take when you hear that Derrick had 212 yards rushing and 52 yards receiving?
JUSTIN REID: Yeah. Yeah. Like I say, he's a great player. He had 94 on one run. You know what I mean? So he's just a special back, man, and we just gotta do a better job containing him. Give him credit, man. He's a top-tier talent in the league. We look forward to playing them every year, and we're going to have another crack at him coming up in a couple weeks.
