Q&A with HERM EDWARDS - 9/17

[Tribal Warfare]

Q&A with HERM EDWARDS - 9/17
Sep 17, 2008, 5:29:31 PM

Highlights

HERM EDWARDS: “Tyler Thigpen is going to be the starting quarterback going into this week. Damon Huard is going to be number two and Ingle Martin is number three.”

Q: Is the decision to play Tyler as your starter related in any way to Damon Huard’s health?

EDWARDS: “No.”

Q: Why then?

EDWARDS: “Cause that’s the way we’re going this week.”

Q: What makes him a better choice?

EDWARDS: “For what we’re trying to do. He’ll be limited in some things but we want to take a look at him. He’s another young player that we want to look at and see where he’s at. If he struggles obviously Damon comes in the game. Damon’s used to that.”

Q: If he’s successful then he’ll be the quarterback until Brodie comes back?

EDWARDS: “That’s what you’ve got to do. We’re trying to look at young players. You know that. He’s part of the process and we want to find out where he’s at. Is he a two, is he a one, is he always going to be a three. You don’t know until he plays and he’s going to have an opportunity to play.”

Q: This sounds that it’s more about an opportunity to look at him and develop him as opposed to try to beat the Falcons.

EDWARDS: “No, we’re trying to beat the Falcons. We feel that what we’re trying to do this week we’ll have a great chance to be successful.

Q: This is not then part of the overall plan to develop a young quarterback?

EDWARDS: “Well it is. He’s having a chance to play in the system. He’s got some talent. He hasn’t played a lot. We know that. We just felt we’d go with him this week. If he struggles a lot and it gets too big for him Damon’s always a guy who can come off the sideline and get the team going.”

Q: Was this the plan all along? Were you always going to start him?

EDWARDS: “I don’t know if it was the plan all along. It’s just where we’re at right now. It’s a decision we made as a staff. It’s week to week. Hopefully, he can hang in there and play well and get us a win and stay in there. That’s how we’re looking at it.”

Q: Why does he give you a better chance than Damon?

EDWARDS: “We just look at where we’re at as a football team. We’re constantly trying to evaluate players. We’re trying to grow a quarterback. Well, when do you grow em? They can’t grow unless they play. He needs to play. We know where Damon’s at. We know who he is. He’s a good quarterback.”

Q: You said last week it wouldn’t be fair to start Tyler last week in the home opener. Is he that much further along this week?

EDWARDS: “We just felt that Damon was number two and it was right for him to start at home. We had this situation last week where we were going to try to play a couple of quarterbacks. Damon got a little nicked and we couldn’t put him back in the game. Tyler played, took us down for a late touchdown, did some things pretty well at the end, so we decided to give him a shot this week.”

Q: Is Tyler more able to run some of the bootlegs?

EDWARDS: “He’s more mobile. He should be. He’s a younger guy. We know what Damon is. We want to look at this guy. That’s our intent.”

Q: Is he excited about it?

EDWARDS: “Yeah, I would think so. He’s very excited about it. All kids want to start and now he’s going to get a chance. When you look at where we’re at there are a lot of young guys playing. That’s where it’s at for us right now.”

Q: Are you thinking that Brodie will be out next week?

EDWARDS: “I don’t know. He’s better. We’ll see where he’s at. He hasn’t thrown the ball yet.”

Q: You plan to stand to stick with Thigpen, so there’s no Marques Hagans at quarterback this week?

EDWARDS: “He was more a case of what plays. What we’ve got to try and do is make some first downs and however we can make first downs and keep on the field and move the chains and that’s the most important thing. We’ve got to concentrate right now on getting a quarterback and letting him play.

Q: Are you going to try and do anything different up front to try and stop Atlanta’s run?

EDWARDS: “Play their gaps. If they don’t it’ll be a long day again. They’re going to try and run the ball and if they can run and get a lead they’re going to keep running. That’s what teams have done – especially Oakland. If they don’t think you can score they’re going to keep running the ball. They don’t have to throw and can run the clock out. We’ve got to get them in pass situations and hope we can get the quarterback.”

Q: Is it as simple as fundamentals?

EDWARDS: “Fundamentals, play your gap. Basic football. Doesn’t change. Now, these guys do a lot of shifting and motion and personnel groups and try to keep you off balance that way. That’s more mental.”

Q: Is not playing the gaps just the product of a young mind?

EDWARDS: “Some of that has to do with it when you think about the young guys playing up there. The oldest guy is Tamba (Hali) starting and the others are two year players and one rookie. No different in the secondary. They’ve got to learn it and the only way to learn it is play. They’ve got to go play and they’ve got to get better every week.”

Q: How much would a win really change the team’s confidence?

EDWARDS: “No doubt. It’s been a long time. That’s what is so hard about it. Now we’re in a situation entirely different than last year. We need to win a game - for us especially, for the players and the coaches and obviously our fans. We’re trying and we’ll have an opportunity this week if we play correctly we’ll have a great chance.”

Q: In the midst of a losing streak is there such a thing as having a mental disadvantage?

EDWARDS: “I don’t know about that. This is the first time I’ve been on one. It’s new to me too. It’s not like I’m used to this. I’m not used to this at all. It’s something you go through if you coach long enough. It happens. There is nothing nice about it. It hurts you every day you wake up. But you can’t cry about it. You can’t give up hope. Every time you practice it gives you new life because it gives you a new opportunity to work that week and play a game. No one is worrying what’s ahead of us. We’ve got to prepare.”

Q: The longer it goes does it become more difficult to win?

EDWARDS: “I think it becomes a case of putting more pressure on yourself. All of a sudden you try to do things you really don’t need to try to do. That’s what kind of happened to us in the Raider game. I thought we put a lot of pressure on ourselves because we wanted to win so badly and we wanted to win at home. We thought if we got off to a fast start we could get the jump on them. It didn’t happen and then all of a sudden we tried to make things happen in the second half. When you look at the game it was a game of two halves, especially defensively. We hung in there with bad field position and held them to six points. Then the second half got away from us.”

Q: For a lot of these guys it’s only a two game losing streak. Is it good that you have a lot of young players for that reason?

EDWARDS: “What happened to this team last year has nothing to do with those guys. They don’t need to go through it. They have no idea.”

Q: So that’s something you’re not going to talk to them about?

EDWARDS: “Nah, talk to them about trying to win a game. Whether you won a bunch of games in the past or you didn’t win a bunch of games in the past is not going to help you. You’ve got deal with the present and the present is trying to get ready for Atlanta and trying to win a football game.”

“What they don’t understand yet is what it takes to win in this league. A lot of these kids are from college programs that have won. You have to have a whole different mentality of how to win in this league and how mentally you have to be into every play. You’re not playing some school that you have more talent than. You’re playing against pro football players that prepare and that don’t make mistakes. We have to be more disciplined.”

Q: You had talked at camp about Herb Taylor and how he might be getting some snaps on offense. Is he a player who could help you on that right side right now?

EDWARDS: “Like I said, the thing we’ve struggled with in the past is these guys playing together. Now they’re all healthy and we’d like them to play together for a while. I’m not going to say no to anything. It’s where we’re at with all these young guys. We want to try to get some cohesion with the offensive line. That helps everybody, that and the quarterback position. It’s kind of important to have a quarterback that can just play every week – just play.”

Q: You made the point in making a decision on quarterbacks that it’s important to take the players’ opinions into consideration as to who would be the best. You’re satisfied with that?

EDWARDS: “Damon understands. Damon is not at the beginning of his career. He understands that. Damon has heard this story before, it’s not like it’s a new story to Damon Huard. He’s heard this story many times.

“He had an opportunity last year to start. It’s really the first time someone ever gave him an opportunity to start in his career. And he started. This year we were going to go with Brodie and Brodie got hurt. We wanted to develop Tyler, who is a young guy too. So, Damon understands. He understands where he’s at. He gets that part, that’s what is good about him. He’s a pro.”

Q: But anyone out there who thinks the Chiefs are treating this as an exhibition game as a way to give a young quarterback a good look is wrong?

EDWARDS: “I don’t know who’s thinking that. I know the players aren’t thinking that. The coaches are thinking that. That’s not even in our thought process at all. You can say that because we’re playing all these rookies and that every game is an exhibition game. But that’s not the intent. The intent is to grow ‘em and develop them and get them better, make progress during the season, and win games.”

Q: Do you make a conscious effort not to talk about a losing streak?

EDWARDS: “I don’t talk about it, never have. In my whole career as a player and a coach I don’t do that.”

Q: As far as last week?

EDWARDS: “You’ve got to play. I mean, I could go back and say we did this back in whenever and had this great win streak. It’s not going to do any good. You can’t talk about it. You have to go do it. We have to prepare again this week to win a football game and execute.”

Q: Is it hard to get the players, particularly the long ones, to not look back?

EDWARDS: “It’s easy because football players don’t think about that, athletes don’t think about that. They really don’t. If you’re an athlete you don’t think about that. You get ready for next week. That’s what the good ones always do. You don’t think about what happened in the past. It doesn’t do you any good. They think about it when people mention it to them and then they don’t want to talk about it.”

Q: Talk about Tyler Thigpen and what you like about him? What is that intangible that seems to be captivating you?

EDWARDS: “If you watched him in the preseason and you watched him last year when he played the thing the guy does is he always seems to move the team. He makes some mistakes. If you go back and think about when we put him in games he made some errors – he generally struggles early – and then all of a sudden he gets going and he makes some plays. That’s in every game the kid’s ever played in that he’s been here.

“This guy doesn’t have experience. He’s from Coastal Carolina. He’s from a small school that just started a football program when he went there. He’s a seventh round draft choice of the Minnesota Vikings. He played a quarter in the pre-season and they tried to hide him. He came here and was on the practice squad for the most part and we elevated him and he had to go play (vs. San Diego). If you remember, he drove the team down the field and threw a pick at the end. This year he’s done the same thing in the pre-season. He’s made some errors with the ball. He’s fumbled the ball; he’s thrown it to the other guys but guess what? Then he comes back and drives the team down the field and makes a play. The Chicago game. He didn’t play well right away. Then he takes the team down the field at the end of the game and scores. He does the same thing last week. He struggles for a while and struggles for a while and then all of a sudden with six minutes left he takes the team down on a nice drive and we score. He completes the two-point play. That’s what he brings to the table.

“The guy deserves to play. That’s what we’re going to do with the guy. We’re not looking at this game as a pre-season game. We’re trying to win and we’re trying to do everything we can. This kid deserves a chance. Period. End of story.

“Now, if he struggles guess what? We’ll do what we always do. We’ll bring Damon Huard off the bench and Damon Huard goes in the game. Damon Huard did it the first game of the year. It’s no big deal. That’s what we do with Damon. He always does that and Damon does what when he goes in the game off the bench? He generally plays pretty good. That’s what he does. That’s how Damon Huard really plays the best, in my opinion. He comes in off the bench. He plays pretty good. Every game that I’ve seen him come in off the bench he generally moves the football team.

“So, it’s not like we’re saying Damon can’t play. We’re trying to find out about young quarterbacks. We’re trying to find out about a lot of young players on this football team and we’re trying to win with them. We’re not trying to discard the season.

“I think if you change course now you really send the wrong message to everything we’ve done, from drafting young players. We’re the youngest team in football. We know that. We’re developing a plan. We’re trying to build a football team and it’s hard and it’s not a lot of fun. It gets ugly sometimes but you just can’t throw the plan away after two games. We’re not. We’re going to go all 16 games and we’re going to play these guys and they’ll get better and eventually they are going to win a game. When that is, hopefully it’s this week. That’s all we can do. We can’t do anything else.

“There is no quick, fix-it right now. We’re not doing that. We’re building and sometimes it’s tough. We understand that but that’s what we’re going through. I’m going through it with everybody else. I don’t like it but you know what? It’s the best thing for this organization.

Q: But you can take the reins off the quarterback eventually as time passes.

EDWARDS: “The best thing for success for a young quarterback and to protect him is you’ve got to run the ball. For heaven’s sake, the guy is not going to go back there and throw 50 passes. But he’s going to have to make some plays passing the ball to get the guys off the line of scrimmage. Any team is going to do that with a young quarterback. “Atlanta has the ability to run the football. You’ve got to be able to do that. If not it doesn’t matter who the quarterback is. It’s just a struggle then. That’s what the Raiders did against us. They’ve got a young quarterback and he threw maybe 15 passes. They ran the ball and they got a lead and we couldn’t score and they kept running the ball.”

Q: But you’re having trouble running the ball as well.

EDWARDS: “We sure are and that’s when the quarterback has to make some plays with the pass to get them off the line of scrimmage. Until you back them off with some plays in the passing game, you’re going to deal with what we had to deal with Sunday.”

[evolve27]

Q: In the midst of a losing streak is there such a thing as having a mental disadvantage?

EDWARDS: “I don’t know about that. This is the first time I’ve been on one. It’s new to me too. It’s not like I’m used to this. I’m not used to this at all. It’s something you go through if you coach long enough. It happens. There is nothing nice about it.]It hurts you every day you wake up. But you can’t cry about it. You can’t give up hope. Every time you practice it gives you new life because it gives you a new opportunity to work that week and play a game. No one is worrying what’s ahead of us. We’ve got to prepare.”

Hermshit is a fuggin liar. Go ruin some other team and complain there you fu**bag to someone who actually believes you.

[Red Dawg]

Just like I thought. This season is just a long evaluation of talent. He's obviously convinced. that Brodie can't take the punishment so instead of holding down the fort with DH he's looking at a rookie on the roster.

This will be a year that will live in infamy

[MIAdragon]

Originally Posted by Tuckdaddy

Just like I thought. This season is just a long evaluation of talent. He's obviously convinced. that Brodie can't take the punishment so instead of holding down the fort with DH he's looking at a rookie on the roster.

This will be a year that will live in infamy

Id like to see the other rookie QB.

[Iowanian]

Hey Herm.


The only way to find out if the young guys can play is to play them...right.

Well, McGashintosh is a journeyman with bad knees. He's NEVER going to get any better, and he's getting punked now.

Put in either Taylor or Richardson and find out if THEY can play, you know...because they *might* be in the future....McInGash won't be.

[Red Dawg]

Originally Posted by MIAdragon

Id like to see the other rookie QB.

I don't mind starting a rookie if it's one we drafted for the future. This team needs a win in a bad way and no matter what he says this is not playing win or he thinks DH is just plain done.

[Hammock Parties]

Starting Thigpen...while starting McIntosh...

WTF?

I can't wait to see our scaled-back offense this week.

[evolve27]

Originally Posted by Claythan

Starting Thigpen...while starting McIntosh...

WTF?

I can't wait to see our scaled-back offense this week.

Did you see the game?

[evolve27]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

Hey Herm.


The only way to find out if the young guys can play is to play them...right.

Well, McGinatosh is a journeyman with bad knees. He's NEVER going to get any better, and he's getting punked now.

Put in either Taylor or Richardson and find out if THEY can play, you know...because they *might* be in the future....McGinatosh won't be.

Corrected your post. Remember last year when he lashed out against fans that booed him or something like that.

[Iowanian]

Ingle can't even know the offense yet.

He might get a series or two, but I can't imagine he's even got a limited playbook yet.


The right side of the Oline is journeymen...who suck.
I don't understand, whatsoever why it makes a difference for a YOUNG RG or RT to get beat instead of those turds.

Its not like the right side of the Oline is opening any holes, or keeping the QB on his feet anyway.

[cabletech94]

If he struggles obviously Damon comes in the game. Damon’s used to that.”


LIAR!!! LIAR!!!! LIAR!!!!!

Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.

Said it before, say it again. Herm is a Liar!!!!

[MIAdragon]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

Ingle can't even know the offense yet.

He might get a series or two, but I can't imagine he's even got a limited playbook yet.

I agree, that being said Id like to see him get a few snaps in.

[SBK]

Why in the world will we see how a young QB is doing, as opposed to trying to win, but then we'll play the worst RG and RT in the league that are old farts?

Granted, I'd rather watch the young guys than see Horrid in there, but if you're going to see the young guys go all out, don't go 1/2 way.

[Chiefnj2]

I can't really think of any time that I've seen a team treat the first few games of the regular season like an extended preseason. 3 different starting QB's in three games and a novelty QB thrown in for good measure. Goodell cracks down on embarassing off field behavior, he should look at embarassing on field behavior.

[TinyEvel]

Do we hold the current record for regular season losing streak? (11 games)