OPENING STATEMENT: "Injury-wise, (Raheem) Mostert has an ankle. He'll be evaluated in the morning. Marlon Moore was diagnosed with a concussion. Those are the only two. I'm extremely proud of the group, I told them that afterwards. I think a lot of teams fall behind on the road to a team in a tough environment, to a team that's likely going to be in the playoffs. We were down 17-3, given our circumstances, very easily could have packed it in and just slept-walked through the second half and gone to the buses. That's not who we are. That's why as a staff, I told them just how proud we were of the effort, how we finished that game, competitive, the mental toughness, dealing with adversity, no quit, caring, all those things. I talked earlier this week about planting seeds for moving forward and I think that second half was an indication. It's one of those, you look at the scoreboard and you lost, but in some senses you feel like you just ran out of time. Really a tale of two halves for us but I thought we made some great adjustments at halftime just circulating among the coaches. Players were very interactive. I thought we had a great plan going out, went out and executed it. Unfortunately, just couldn't make one more play at the end. I'll open it up."
Seemed like in the second half, Duke Johnson Jr. just ran a lot. That was the extent of your offense? "We'll take yards and points however we can get them. They were dropping into some deeper zones and doing a good job. We had to hit some throws underneath. I thought with the lead they started to soften their coverage some. Just like Alex Smith did to us, that he (Manziel) was able to do it to them."
What did you think of Manziel's effort overall? "He battled. The play that he made on the bootleg where the end didn't bite and when he turned and that guy was in his face and delivered a strike to Gary (Barnidge) for a huge first down, I just thought that was indicative of him – he took a major shot, delivered the ball on the money. He's a competitor. There's a couple throws he'd want to have back, some reads that he missed. Obviously I have to look at the tape but you can see the competitiveness, the fire in the kid, wanting to get it done. Overall I think he took a step forward."
You were driving for the tying score and Manziel threw that pass to an offensive lineman. Talk about how that might have taken the wind out of the sails, possibly, or did it? "Yeah, he was just trying to make a play, he was trapped, he wanted to get rid of the ball. I don't know whether he thought Mitchell (Schwartz) was – I don't know how you mistake Mitchell for an eligible receiver – but he was just trying to make a play, trying to get rid of it."
What accounted for the defensive turnaround in the second half? "Well, one I think we tackled better. I know we missed some tackles in the first half. I felt we were pretty dialed in once we got to halftime just kind of their plan and how they were playing us. I just heard the guys communicating some of the pre-snap information. I thought (defensive coordinator) Jimmy (O'Neil) did a good job of the halftime adjustment stuff, putting our guys in a little bit better positions once we had a good sense of what their plan of attack was."
This is the second week in a row with Johnny Manziel coming into a hostile environment – noise, a good defense. Would you say he's stringing together some pretty encouraging performances? "He is. He is. But he'll be the first one to tell you bottom line is finding a way to get the W. But this is on-the-job training, there's no substitute for this. This will only just be a positive when we look back at the foundation and know that he came into Kansas City and wasn't fazed by the defense or the crowd, went into Seattle, two teams that are more than likely playoff teams playing well at the end of the year, less than ideal weather. Not a lot of quarterbacks can say that, especially coming into these environments for the first time."
Was there a miscommunication on the 4th and 8 where the pass went into the end zone and there wasn't anyone there? "Yeah I'm not sure. I just heard the guys on the headset that Gary (Barnidge) was the first read. I don't know whether he was screened and didn't see him. I don't know if he thought we were going to have takeoff on the outside. I'm just not sure."
