OPENING STATEMENT:"Alright, as far as the injuries go, Donnie Avery we know about. He had the surgery. He won't practice this week. Junior Hemingway strained his hamstring. We'll just have to see here. That's really a day to day injury and then Travis Kelce hurt his rib, sore rib and it's mostly up in the cartilage area there. We've just got to see how he does here, but I think he'll be okay as we go. Joe Mays is eligible for practice, but most likely we're not going to start practicing him this week. His clock starts when he starts to practice so I'm going to hold off until we get his arm rehabbed a little bit. He had the pins taken out of his wrist there and we just want to get the arm in better shape before he gets back out on the field and then Chris Owens is making progress, made big strides last week. We'll see how he does this week as we get closer there to Wednesday. Eric Berry is making progress. Again, we'll just see how he does. Eased him back in there a little bit last week and we'll gradually build it back up and see if it works for him, but it's not from lack of effort or not wanting to be out there for sure. Good team win against a good football team. Like I said, Mike (McCoy) has done a real nice job out there with the Chargers, but I was proud of our coaches, our players for the effort that they put into the game. The coaches had a good plan. Players played four quarters of good, tough, aggressive football. Proud of Jamaal (Charles) for the record that he broke. I don't think Jamaal nor the team had that in mind during the game, but what a great accomplishment when you step back and look at that from an individual standpoint to do that and I have mentioned before, the hard work that goes into that, you can't look over it, but the offseason training, the diet, in season, how hard he works at each practice and then Cairo Santos for the job he did right down there at the end. A young kicker coming in, big time situation and stuck that thing right down the middle. I was proud of him for that. The great part about this is there were a lot of people we could stand up here and mention. The great part about this is we still have a ton of room to improve as coaches and players to make ourselves a better football team. We've got a heck of football team coming in here this week. Jeff's (Fisher) done a nice job with the Rams. They are playing at a very high level, they're fast, they're aggressive. We've got to make sure that we get ourselves ready. I also just want to put in a shout at Andy Heck for the run game part of this thing. He puts a lot of time and effort into it along with Eugene Chung. I just want to point him out. The linemen normally get overlooked in a lot of things as do the line coaches. They've done a nice job there. Time's yours."
Q: Do you feel like the team was able to take from the Denver game and the San Francisco game when it was close in the clutch and learn from that to be able to execute in the final minutes yesterday?
REID:"Well every game is different so you learn from your mistakes, from that history that you develop there. We probably did learn a bit but every game presents you another situation that you've got to overcome. I was proud the way the guys handled that."
Q: In general how much of a confidence booster having a game winning drive like that can be for the whole team?
REID:"I think it's good, I think overall the whole picture is good. Yeah it came down to the last drive but there were a lot of people on both sides of the ball and special teams that put you in a position to be able to do that. But from an offensive standpoint, yeah, that can help. We had that last year against them but we didn't quite finish it all the way. You've got to be consistent with it game after game."
Q: You guys nearly doubled the time of possession the Chargers had. How big of a factor do you think that was in the game?
REID:"Well I think that's important. When you can look at a quarter and say, 'Hey listen, third quarter they had three opportunities,' that's a few less times that Philip Rivers and that offense can be on the field and that offense is playing at a very high level. Now to do that, that's not all offense involved there, they had an opportunity and our defense did a nice job with that opportunity that they were given in the third quarter of getting off the field. From an offensive standpoint if you can keep the defense fresh and keep their offense off the field, that's a positive."
Q: I'm sure you'll take a time consuming drive whenever you can take it. But you did the same thing with Peyton Manning on the other sideline as well. Is it more important the quarterback you're facing, if it's a Manning or a Rivers, to keep those guys on the other sideline? Maybe more so than other teams?
REID:"Well, it doesn't hurt. You should be trying to do that every week, quarterbacks in this league are so good. We have another good one coming up this week. This young kid who's playing for the Rams is playing well."
Q: It appeared defensively that you guys played a lot more off coverage than you had been, is that because of injuries or more specific to San Diego?
REID:"Well, giving up big plays there's factors there. One of the positives that I thought we did was we didn't give up big plays, Bob (Sutton) mixed it up. We did play a little bit more off coverage. I think when you play a Philip Rivers you have to have a nice blend of things that you throw at him. You can't give him a fast ball every time or it's going to go over the fence. You have to make sure you give him a few different looks."
Q: Does it surprise you with how many vicious shots Jamaal Charles takes in a game?
REID:"Yeah, he's dirty tough. There's a special category for those guys, and he's in that category. There are not a lot of those around, but he's a beast for sure."
Q: He took some head on blows during that game.
REID:"Yeah, he did. That's a tough position to play and he plays it real tough."
Q: What does it mean for you to see your plays come up with clutch plays in key situations?
REID:"Listen, I'm proud of the guys when they do those things. Often as a coach, you're a teacher, so you're going to tell them when they are not doing the right thing, complement when they are doing the right thing. So it's always good to give somebody a pat on the back for a job well done. You need big plays. When two good teams are playing each other, you're going to need those plays to take place."
Q: How about the pass from Alex Smith to Dwayne Bowe on the last possession? Was that a picture perfect idea of why you like Alex Smith as your quarterback?
REID:"Yeah, that was a good one. Second and long and he got flushed to his left, which is tough enough to make a throw back to the middle of the field. He and Dwayne have a nice chemistry, a lot of trust between each other there, between the two of them. But yeah, that's exactly why. Eyes down the field when you're moving around, need a big play, made a big play, huge part of the game, and both of them were reading each other's minds there."
Q: When you challenged the play and had only two timeouts left in the fourth quarter, you must have thought that you had a better view?
REID:"Well, we thought we did. It wasn't a very good thought in hindsight here."
Q: It must have been a difficult decision to challenge, considering it was the fourth quarter on the road and it would only leave you with one timeout.
REID:"That was a big one, that was a big one. That's why you have them. Can't put them on the plane and take them home."
Q: Did you figure there would be some growing pains with Cairo Santos at the beginning? REID:"Yeah, listen, when you study some of these great kickers that first year, a lot of them have struggled. There have been some highs and lows – let's put it that way – in their careers in that first year I'm saying. So I've got it, I understand that. We know what we saw. We chart every kick whether it's in a team period or whether he's doing it in an individual period, we're charting everything. He earned that job, won that job out. So you trust that, you trust your evaluation with it. Ok, he's going to have a blip here and there, young guy, see if he can work through it. We're not predicting the future here, that's not what we're doing. But you give him a chance to work through it and see what happens."
