Dick Vermeil

[Wile_E_Coyote]

Dick Vermeil Show

Dec 15, 2004, 8:40:21 AM


KCFX-FM

DICK VERMEIL: “If you watch the tapes like I did today and watch how hard hey played – the defense went in there on that series after we fumbled the football and stopped them – you recognize how resilient they are. We stopped them on that third-and-two play to make them kick a field goal. Then we come back.

“You watch their effort and Trent’s (Green) concentration and you can see it was big-time play. It was big-time football from two teams not going anywhere in terms of playoffs but they had their hearts in the ball game.”

BOB GRETZ: Another play that gets forgotten from your defense is when the Titans got the ball back and their first play was a pass to Mason. Dexter McCleon just came up and blasts him and forces the ball out. It forced them to go to the hook-and-ladder on the next play and that turned out to be a disaster.

VERMEIL: “That’s right. There were a number of key defensive plays beyond the plays that weren’t very good. There was a nice sack by Jared Allen that was nullified by an illegal chuck. We had them stopped another time down there on the first touchdown and they called roughing the passer. They had the same thing go against them. In these tight ball games you just hope you have more of those things go in your favor.

“We were plus two in turnover margin and actually recovered four fumbles. We also were plus in the penalties. They had 13 and we had seven. Those things all make a difference in tight football games.”

GRETZ: You’ve been waiting all year for the fumbles to go your way. In the first 12 games you’ve only recovered two, then last night four.

VERMEIL: “You’ve heard me say: sooner or later those things start turning around. Just like the last two fourth quarters. Sooner or later things start going your way. Now, granted they didn’t go our way against non-playoff caliber teams like New Orleans and Tampa Bay. I don’t know how many teams in this league have gone on the road twice on Monday night, however, and won them both.”

MITCH HOLTHUS: Unsung heroes: Lional Dalton who makes a big play on the third-and-two. If they get a first down they can run the clock down and kick a field goal and you’ll never get the ball back. Second, John Browning who had a huge sack to prevent at least a field goal or you would go down two possessions early in the game.

VERMEIL: “On that third-and-two Shaunard Harts was a big factor in the play, too. Lional Dalton stopped him and Shaunard Harts prevented him from falling forward. John Browning we sometimes take for granted. Last week he got the game ball. The way we’re playing him and rotating him in there and keeping him fresh has helped him make dominating plays. He made a couple of other dominating plays that aren’t as spectacular as the sack, but every bit as critical.”

HOLTHUS: A play that may get lost on fans is Larry Johnson’s 46-yard run where Chris Horn’s downfield block helped put him into the endzone.
VERMEIL: “He did just what he’s supposed to do. That’s characteristic of Chris Horn. He does what you ask him to do and he does it well.”

HOLTHUS: Larry Johnson is now a sung hero. Not just his two runs, but he had some key pass protections a couple of times and what about his catch on the game winning drive?

VERMEIL: “Well, that was a nice catch. It was a low ball. Everything Larry is doing right now is positive. His attitude is positive, his work ethic is positive. I just can’t say enough good things about him right now.”

GRETZ: As much as it’s positive on that end your defensive problems on pass coverage in the first half just killed you in the game.

VERMEIL: “It’s not only the first half. We’ve had the problems all year in giving up the big play. We discussed it some more today and the amount of coverage we play – man coverage, press coverage up in the face of a wide receiver – is a lot. Then you add the blitzes, too, and there’s no underneath help. Right now we’re just putting too much pressure on our guys. We’ve got to look at that.”

GRETZ: So the use of the personnel in this game is everything.

VERMEIL: ‘When you’re doing what we’re doing everything’s wrong and everybody’s at fault.”

HOLTHUS: You mentioned today at the news conference that Derrick Blaylock’s is banged up and there is a possibility that you may start Larry Johnson. What would be the process of evaluation? When would you make that determination?

VERMEIL: “As of tomorrow, probably. I’ll get to see how he feels – Derrick Blaylock that is. I know he had an MRI and it’s a mild MCL sprain – very mild. He might be ready to go, but I think as of right now he’s questionable.”

On problems with the naked bootlegs:

VERMEIL: “It’s been a problem all year and Denver’s really good at it. What people do is each time they see a problem it gives them another idea and they add to the problem. But everybody has problems with those same kinds of plays and concepts. We’re not unique. We’re not a big bootleg team – that’s not our style of football. Denver will do a lot because of the mobile quarterback and it will be a problem.”

GRETZ: It seemed like last night your defensive ends reacted well to the boots.

VERMEIL: “They did but we made some mistakes in the coverage. The pass defender took his eyes off his receiver and then followed the quarterback and then had to regain vision of the receiver coming out late. He’d try to catch up and make the play. That was the number one problem.”

On continued struggles at the corner position:

VERMEIL: “We did struggle and it was the man coverage press and man coverage when we’re blitzing more than four people. The corners were then out there on an island by themselves. They hit us in a few blitzes. It wasn’t any one guy – everybody had a problem with it, as did Indianapolis the week before. We just have to do a better job, vary our coverages more. We played a lot more zone in the second half and it helped us.

“We actually sacked them six times and it’s been a while since the Chiefs have done that. We got credit for five because there was an illegal chuck called on one of them.”

On playing meaningful games at this point in the season:

VERMEIL: “There’s no such thing as a meaningless football game. If you’re a competitor and you care about your performance and take pride you’re going to compete. If you’re a team that doesn’t have great morale and leadership within the roster, sometimes they’ll fold the last part of the season and make it very miserable to coach. But this is certainly not that kind of team. What best demonstrated that was the defensive series before the end of the game and then our last offensive series. In fact, the one screen they broke for 31-yards. You know who the two guys were who were in on the tackle? John Browning and Eric Hicks and they had rushed the passer!”

On improvements to the defensive front:

VERMEIL: “There’s a lot of character there. We’re not good enough. We know that. But our players’ attitude is good enough, believe me.”

On the likelihood of seeing Kris Wilson:

VERMEIL: “Kris Wilson has receiving abilities comparable to a Tony Gonzalez. There’s a possibility you’ll see Kris Wilson in the lineup before the season is done. We could have suited him up last night. His ankle gets sore before the end of practice, but in a ball game he wouldn’t play that many snaps. He’s ready to go in and play.”

On Jared Allen:

VERMEIL: “Jared Allen will break Derrick Thomas’ record for sacks as a rookie which is 10. He actually has nine but had one called back last night. I believe he’ll get number 10 and 11 within the next three ball games. He’s a second pick in the fourth round from Idaho State, a lower division school. If we knew he was going be that good we would have drafted him earlier.”

On improving the team through free agency:

VERMEIL: “I think a percentage of improvement of this football team will come from the people who are here. It’ll come from improving our own coaching and it’ll come from the draft and possibly from free agency as well.

“Free agency is a little misleading as a tool for rebuilding your football team. We’ve done a great job with it, I think, especially on our offense. But not everybody wants to come to Kansas City. Everybody assumes you didn’t make a move or two to improve your defense or your offense or special teams because you didn’t sign somebody. They have to want to come here and you have to have the money in the salary cap to sign them. So, there are other factors other than just ignoring somebody. We don’t ignore anybody. We evaluate them and sometimes you just don’t have the money for them or you bring them in and recruit them and they don’t want to come here or someone else pays them a lot more money. Free agency isn’t free.

“You never remain status quo. You either get better or you get worse. Actually we’ve gotten better on offense and we’re going backwards in some areas – especially on pass defense. That’s been the major critical area all along.

“Offensively, I think we’re ahead of the game in every stat except for the win-loss record. We did not start out as good a football game as we should have the first three weeks of the season or we would be sitting here with a little better won-loss record. After that, we started going pretty good, but it took us a little while.”

On drafting defensive players next year:

VERMEIL: “You don’t know where you’re going to be or who’s going to be there when you’re drafting or what you’re going to have to do to jump to a defensive player. It’s most likely we would, but it’s so far in the future right now that I can’t give you a good answer.
“I think our defense will get better; I thought it would last year and it didn’t. So, I’m not sure I know what I’m talking about right now.”

On what you do like about your defense this year:

VERMEIL: “The defensive line play. I think we’ve been more aggressive. I was a little disappointed with the first half yesterday that we didn’t stop the run better. That all starts with the defensive line and we weren’t getting good fits. We were letting people off on our middle linebacker too easily. That makes it tough for him to get in there and make the play.”

[Wile_E_Coyote]

didn't disable the smilies

[Chiefnj]

He still has a good sense of humor:

“I think our defense will get better; I thought it would last year and it didn’t. So, I’m not sure I know what I’m talking about right now.”

[morphius]

Damn, I'm sooo tired of hearing how good Hicks is...

[Big Chief Homer]

Im so sick of vermiel and his "press talk"

either hes so senile he doent remember what he says from one day to another or he' so full of shit his eyes are brown.

he says to madden that there will be major upgrades at cb and lb and that the players arent good enough and then say 2 days later that the team will get better with the player we have.

i hope to god hes just blowing smoke,he cant be that stupid and blind can he?

i was a huge dv supporter,but my patience with his empathy for the d players is running REALLY thin.

[MichaelH]

Dick just doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. He's not stupid, a little senile maybe. He seems to care about the players and even if they're getting cut on January 3rd, he does his best not to speak bad about them. JMO

[morphius]

Originally Posted by MichaelH

Dick just doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. He's not stupid, a little senile maybe. He seems to care about the players and even if they're getting cut on January 3rd, he does his best not to speak bad about them. JMO

Yup, that is my take as well. Plust they just don't know who they are going to be able to actually get. Its obvious that DV knows these guys are not getting it done. I hope that Gun can bring in some of his own coaches next year, 'cause you just have to figure that is going to help.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Wile_E_Coyote

On improvements to the defensive front:

VERMEIL: “There’s a lot of character there. We’re not good enough. We know that. But our players’ attitude is good enough, believe me.”

I think I can, I think I can.

[Deberg_1990]

Originally Posted by morphius

Yup, that is my take as well. Plust they just don't know who they are going to be able to actually get. Its obvious that DV knows these guys are not getting it done. I hope that Gun can bring in some of his own coaches next year, 'cause you just have to figure that is going to help.

Its always been Vermeils biggest downfall and one of his best qualities IMO. His loyalty to his coaches and players. It nearly killed him in St Louie before he was forced to aquire Martz and Faulk. While his loyalty is admirable, it has a tendacy at times to cloud his judgement and hang on to players that should be cut. The secondary should have been completely retooled after the 2002 season. We all knew it was bad then. Does anyone think that a coach like Bellicheck would have settled for a defense like we had after that 2002 season??? or 2003 season?? No, of course not, but thats why he has 2 superbowl rings and is headed for a 3rd.

[Logical]

“I think our defense will get better; I thought it would last year and it didn’t. So, I’m not sure I know what I’m talking about right now.”

Trust me, we know you don't know what you are talking about when it comes to the defensive talent.

[HolmeZz]

Originally Posted by Wile_E_Coyote

On Jared Allen:

VERMEIL: “Jared Allen will break Derrick Thomas’ record for sacks as a rookie which is 10. He actually has nine but had one called back last night. I believe he’ll get number 10 and 11 within the next three ball games. He’s a second pick in the fourth round from Idaho State, a lower division school. If we knew he was going be that good we would have drafted him earlier.”

Why would you have drafted him earlier if you still could've taken him in the 4th?

Clearly we have no clue when it comes to draft strategy.

[Crush]

Note to Vermeil: Hicks is a POS.

[Branden Albert's Huge Balls]

Vermeil admitting he is clueless...good start.

I'd like to see Allen blast Plummer right in the face on the first bootleg. Ignore the run fake and just go for the QB. Keep doing it until they stop that bullshit.

[Dr. Facebook Fever]

Originally Posted by MichaelH

Dick just doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. He's not stupid, a little senile maybe. He seems to care about the players and even if they're getting cut on January 3rd, he does his best not to speak bad about them. JMO

Yea....just ask Larry Johnson and Jason Baker. Baker's a waste...but Johnson could be our future and Dick still bagged on him.

I just don't think he's really that smart.