HEAD COACH ANDY REID
Opening Statement:"Again, there's no injuries to report on. The guys are just coming in now. Really a game of two halves, which is stating a little bit of the obvious. After looking at the tape, kind of what I felt after the game that first half, really at any phase, didn't execute as well as they should, and that held up. Offensively, way too many mistakes at every position. Defensively, the same way. I take responsibility for that. I felt like guys, it wasn't that they weren't playing hard, but maybe too hard, trying to do things that they normally wouldn't do – taking that extra effort to do them and that threw them out of some of their fundamentals and techniques. The second half, everything kind of settled down, and we played better football. From an offensive standpoint, the play calling settled down, the players settled down and all of us did a better job. I would tell you the same thing on special teams and how that worked."
Q: What does it do in the locker room for Alex Smith with a win like this?
REID: "Well, he is one of the most respected guys on the team. We're fortunate enough to have so many guys who are very well respected, and he's one of them. You saw the love for him when he came in – that was obvious. They're happy for him. Not only did he have a big day, he was able to score that last touchdown, which he called – that check he put in to win the game. I think everybody was happy for him that way. He's a humble guy on top of that, so everybody roots for him. They know what he's been through, kept his head high and took the high road with things during the tough times."
Q: What he did yesterday, what does that do in your eyes and the other offensive coaches?
REID: "I think anytime someone reaches a level that they haven't reached before that it proves to everybody – the whole room, including himself – that nothing's impossible. Hard work, dedication and you can always better yourself, that's the way Alex [Smith] approaches things and guys see that. Not only does it help him in his game and his confidence, but it also helps the players around him. You see that with the great quarterbacks. They make everybody around them better, and you saw that with Alex yesterday. I would match his second half with anybody that I've ever been around and seen in this league. So, he really made some phenomenal, phenomenal plays. It's a tribute to him."
Q: Did you ever think about going for two in that last touchdown?
REID: "I don't think I probably would have done that there – no."
Q: Why not?
REID: "I thought we had momentum going. We get into overtime, I figured we would be okay there."
Q: It's not ideal to be in a situation where you have to come back, but seeing a team, seeing your team actually go out and do it in the second half, isn't that an encouraging sign for the season that they have that capability?
REID: "Yeah, I think it's a positive. I mentioned it's one out of 16, so it is, but as long as you can build on it, you can't take the other side and lay back on it and say 'hey listen we can always come back' you can't do that. You have to learn from that first half on what took place and why and build on the second half, understand that you need to take it up a notch as you go on here and everybody kind of settles down in the NFL, these teams settle down, you're not going to be able to get away with that."
Q: If it would have gotten to fourth down, would you have gone for it?
REID: "Yeah, there I would have gone for it."
Q: Did Spencer Ware show you something you hadn't seen before, his pass catching ability was on display?
REID: "Yeah, he made a couple of nice adjustments there, nice catches too. There were a couple of adjustments he made off of his routes when Alex [Smith] was moving around. I wouldn't say that it was different from what I've seen. He's a tough runner, physical runner and he's got good hands. He was a baseball player. He's got good hands, that hasn't been a problem for him. I'll tell you the energy he brought I thought was a good thing. He just kept bringing it and bringing it. He was really one of the positives in the first and seconds halves. He had a pretty good all-around game."
Q: When you see how far Alex [Smith] has come under you in four years, does a comeback like that happen when you first received him?
REID: "I would say yes. He persevered through all of those different coordinators, he'd probably make a great coach because he knows just about every offense that there is. I think if he would have been in the system that we run here when he came out of college, it just kind of fit his style, game, and abilities and all of that. I don't think you would be asking that question right now. I think if it would have been more consistent for him early that we probably wouldn't have been lucky enough to get him here."
Q: So you guys kept six receivers, one surprising inactive was De'Anthony [Thomas], what went into the situation for him to be inactive?
REID: "Well there's some things that he does, there's some things that 10 was doing yesterday and so De'Anthony does some of those things not only on the return game, but also the offensive scheme stuff that we do. I only needed one of them yesterday, and De'Anthony has come off of a good camp. We have full confidence in De'Anthony. It doesn't have anything to do with his work effort or anything else. We used 10 in those situations."
Q: So depending on the game plan some weeks you may need two of those guys?
REID: "Yeah, absolutely."
Q: Is there a chance Tamba [Hali] will get some more work next week, or is it going slow, how's that going to work?
REID: "Well I wanted to see how he came out of this. There were a couple of guys on that, 29, 23, 35, all those guys that hadn't been in much. I wanted to see how they came out of this game. I'll see how he is today and we'll go from there."
Q:When you're trying to win 'this year', what's the biggest benefit to playing a rookie like Parker Ehinger? How does it pay off at the end of the season?REID:"You hope those guys grow each game. You saw him do that during the game. Plays he got beat on early, he came back and shut off later. As you work through the season, you get a better player later on than you started with. They've got to have the talent to begin with."
Q:How did Tamba [Hali] look as a football player? Was it the same Tamba we all know?REID:"I thought he looked the part. He had enough reps in there, even in base situations. We put him in on first and second downs in the first few series, and he wanted to get in there. It was killing him to stand there and watch. He did a pretty good job for the most part."
Q:Do you find yourself wondering how the team fell behind early on?REID:"As a coach, you go back and beat yourself up about it -- that's what you do. If you're going to get better, you need to figure out why it wasn't a smooth operation there at the beginning. That's what took place up to this point. You're going back and evaluating. I did some of that last night and a little more this morning."
Q:What were your thoughts on Phillip Gaines' performance and how he came out?REID:"I thought he did a pretty good job. He came out healthy and that was one of the big things. We'll see how he feels today and maybe he'll get a little more next week. I thought he did a nice job. One thing that's improved from the last time he was playing was his physicality when tackling. He had some really good tackles for us."
Q:On the fourth and short and you spent the first timeout when they almost went for it, how valuable was it to have the timeout and stop them from potentially converting off a mismatch?REID:"They kind of did a 'switch-a-rooney' on us. Our punt team was getting out there and then they ran those guys out on us. They had guys coming and going so it was kind of hard to tell what they were doing. They got us on that one. I thought it was important to shut it down with a timeout. Normally that doesn't happen, but it was one of those crazy situations and I wanted to make sure we were right and not wrong in who we had out there."
Q:Do you have a sense Jamaal Charles will be ready to play by Sunday?REID:"I don't know that. I thought he made a little improvement last week and we'll see how he does this week. He worked with the scout team a little bit last week. I'll get eyes on him and talk with him, our doctors and Rick [Burkholder] to see where he's at." Q:What were your thoughts on Dee Ford versus the run and as a pass rusher?* REID:*
"I thought he did a pretty good job setting the point. People got down on him early on, and rightfully so. But he's gotten better and he's worked hard at it. I thought he did a real nice job yesterday, keeping everything back inside of him and squeezing the tackle. A lot of times they'll have a big guy in on him and I thought he did well there. Overall he had a pretty good game and came through with the big sack at the end."
