OPENING STATEMENT: "I don't really have any injuries for you right now. I'll have those later. The game kind of stands for itself -- it was a heck of a football game and both sides competed. We were able to get help from all three phases of our team. I thought the coaches had a good plan and I thought the players executed for the most part. Not that it was all pretty, but they sure worked hard. If there was a play made on them or a play wasn't successful on the offensive side, they didn't hang their heads. They stayed in there and kept battling. That mental toughness paid off down the stretch for them. With that, the time is yours."
Q:What was your message to the offense prior to the final drive when you were down eight?
REID:"We told them we were obviously in a two-minute mode and we went over more stuff as opposed to actual 'rah-rah' type stuff. It was more of a, 'Okay this is what we're going to come at you with. Just stay with it and we're going to hang in there. Something good is going to happen.'"
Q:Did Denver do anything different defensively in the final minutes? How comfortable is Alex Smith in the no-huddle offense?
REID:"He does a great job with it. I think he's very comfortable with it. Defensively, Denver was rolling their coverages. At the beginning, it was majority zone coverages and they worked a few mans in there. At the end, they zero blitzed us when things were on the line and they saw us driving down the field. They came after us and the one with [Travis] Kelce was a zero blitz -- which they do. It's all part of their package."
Q:Is there a good chance we see Jeremy Maclin and Dee Ford against Atlanta this week?
REID:"I have not met with Rick [Burkholder] today. I don't know that. It would be great though if they were there. I don't have an answer I feel comfortable giving you."
Q:What makes you so patient with Demetrius Harris that you felt comfortable dialing him up on the two-point conversion attempt?
REID:"He's done nothing but improve since he's been here. You have to give the kid credit, he hasn't played since high school and he was a basketball player. Since he's gotten here, he's continually improved. Tom Melvin has spent a lot of time with him. He takes everything in. If he's not our best special teams player, he's surely one of the best. I'd probably put him as our week-in and week-out best special teams guy -- not counting a kicker, punter or anything like that."
Q:Can you explain why we saw a little more of Charcandrick West this week?
REID:"We were able to get all three of them in which was a good thing. We had a lot of snaps there and we came in saying we were going to run the football a little bit. That was the idea. As far as Charcandrick goes, I think he felt better. Those high ankle-type sprains are crazy. They linger and for a running back, they can be a little rough. It looked like he was getting out of his breaks without having to do that pitter-patter type step over the last week. I suppose that's a good thing."
Q: There are a million things that you and Coach Gary Kubiak had to decide during that game – how much of your decision making comes down to what you're feeling in the game and how well you know your team?
REID:"Yeah, listen sometimes you're sitting there with three things that you can do. If they work, you're a hero, and if they don't, you're a goat or whatever. It used to be a goat, now a goat is a good thing, I guess. You've made the wrong decision if it doesn't work. That's one of those situations for him. Gary [Kubiak] – that was one of those where he had a couple things that you could probably do. If any of them work, then it's going to look good. And then if they don't, then it's not. You're given those a couple times a game. Maybe not the magnitude of that one, but you have certain things that you have to go off your gut, or tendencies, or something that you've seen before or whatever."
Q: You immediately put one finger up to go up 16-10 at the very end of the third quarter. No thought to going for two there on a play like that and how much of that is situational based on the defense?
REID:"Well, we have a card too that I trust. That was the situation for us. I thought that was the right thing to do. All the way around, I thought it was good. Anyways, that's what we did, yeah. That's one of those situations."
Q: I don't think I've ever seen a player hit as hard as Eric Berry did last night – can you just talk about what he's been through and the way that he's playing?
REID:"Yeah, he is a tough kid – number one. He came in with a purpose. Not that he doesn't every game, but I thought he really came in with a strong purpose in this game. He's been our leader all the way through, so it's just a matter of stepping up in this game here. It was one of those kind of games, and he clearly had something in mind there that he was going to bring to the table, and he did that."
Q: Can you speak from what you saw from the younger defensive line – Rakeem Nunez-Roches, Kendall Reyes and Chris Jones?
REID:"Yeah, they're playing hard. They're playing aggressive. They're young, but they're working the scheme – the way the scheme is supposed to be worked – and then, putting their own flavor to it. All three of them are different, and bring a little something different to the table, but they're doing it with energy. I'm not telling you that everything that they do is right, but the majority of the time, it is. When it's not – it's coming at you a 110 miles per hour, so sometimes you can compensate for a goof here or there with effort."
Q: Following up with [Rakeem] Nunez-Roches: Since he went down to the practice squad, are you seeing things differently with him now as opposed to maybe a couple of months ago?
REID: "We didn't want to do that whole practice squad. That whole thing was we got caught because of the numbers. Sometimes things happen there that are crazy. You can sit there and probably say the same thing about [Ramik] Wilson. The one thing that happens on the other hand is if you're out, you're on the street, you go through waivers and nobody claims you, it's kind of an eye opener. That can even give you a little more incentive. Nunez-Roches, he's been high octane since we've had him. It was just a matter of kind of working it within the system and figuring it out and I think he's done that. He's always been a high effort and energy guy. He comes every day. He's one of the funniest guys on the team but yet he'll bring it. He tries to [get after you] every play, he's a tough one."
Q: On D.J. Alexander:
REID: "He did well. He's been kind of up and down this year. I thought he played better this game and he had a chance to get in and he made a couple of nice plays on the defensive side. Teams have been keying on him on special teams and his performances haven't been graded as high as they have been in the past. He's having to adjust his game a little bit there. I thought he did that in this game and really played well."
Q: What went into the decision to give Tamba [Hali] and [Justin] Houston such a big work load -- especially since Tamba has been on a pitch count all year?
REID: "Well, he has and it's been driving him crazy. He's a guy, like he tells me – it's never been pretty. He needs to get into the flow of the game and he says that's a big part of his game. We wanted to help him out with that. I was constantly checking on him to see how he was doing and he was hanging in there pretty good. He's in good shape now and he has his knee under control pretty good. It's about that time of year where you can increase his reps a little bit. Justin [Houston], it would have taken an army to keep him out of there in this game. He started feeling better in that fourth quarter last week and he just felt like he could go. We've done this all along with him, just checking with him and seeing how he's doing. He kind of dinged up his shoulder a little bit, but he felt alright. He came back around and he did okay. We're constantly checking on both those two to answer your question and see how they're doing. We've been around them long enough to know [when] they're not quite right."
Q: Last week, [Kenneth] Acker got the nod for corner, this week [Phillip] Gaines took his spot back, what did you see?
REID: "With Gaines, that leg has kind of tweaked itself during the week the last few weeks. He's had a little setback here and there. We didn't have any of that this last week, so he was out there and he wanted to be in there. He was out there 100 miles per hour every day and so that's why. It wasn't anything either one of them did other than his leg feeling better."
