shaneo69
08-23-2006, 03:36 PM
Q&A with HERM EDWARDS - 8/23
Aug 23, 2006, 3:59:25 PM
TRAINING CAMP
Q: You talked about the defense playing vanilla, but what about the offense? Are you going to open it up a bit?
HERM EDWARDS: “Umm, yeah. We need to get some rhythm obviously, but the only way you can open it up is to stay on the field. The last two games we haven’t done a good enough job of that. I’ve said it before: we had 11 possessions and we had six three plays and out the first game. The second game we had 10 possessions and we had six three plays and out. You can’t get any rhythm on offense doing that. So we need to get out early, get some plays and that’s been some of our problem.”
Q: Larry Johnson didn’t play much the last two games. Is he going to play more this time?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he’ll play more this game. He’ll touch the ball a little bit more. Our starters will go into the second quarter and some will go all the way and finish the quarter and maybe come into the third, depending on how we play.”
Q: What about your quarterback rotation?
EDWARDS: “Right now Trent is scheduled to start and we’ll go from there. We’ll see how long we keep him in there.”
Q: Will Croyle play after him?
EDWARDS: “Either Croyle or Huard. We’ll get ‘em both in there. We need to get Brodie some time obviously and Huard needs some time because he hasn’t played a whole lot either.”
Q: What about Tamba Hali? He seemed pretty excited about playing today.
EDWARDS: “Yeah, it’ll be interesting to watch him play and see how he’ll react in his first game. He kind of timed it out pretty good, missed all of camp, and comes home for the opener and gets to play. Hope he doesn’t exhaust himself after three plays and hyperventilate.”
Q: He’s just part of the rotation or is he a clear-cut starter?
EDWARDS: “We haven’t named any starters. I don’t worry about that. He’s part of the rotation and till opening day there are no starters.”
Q: Working out with the (play) cards for the first time today?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, and that was good. These guys need to learn how to play off cards. You have to be stunt men sometimes and that’s a part of it. We’re not a college football team where we have 100 players. Some of these guys have never run cards before, or since their freshman years. It’s kind of hard for some guys who have always been starters.”
Q: You doing that to get them in the routine?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, and this is a kind of in-season routine. This is kind of a Wednesday schedule. We’re going to be in the same kind of mode (next week) and the week is kind of short.
“The key that guys are going to learn about this schedule is they’re going to learn that they have to get here in the morning and eat breakfast. Lunch is not until (after 2 o’clock) so they have to change their way of thinking and eat breakfast and go out and practice.”
Q: With a couple of weeks before the start of the season are you confident of this team or do you expect to bring in a couple of players and take a look at them?
EDWARDS: “Obviously, there are going to be some cuts this week and I told the players that there are going to be from 14-16 cuts all through the National Football League. That’s why you have pro personnel guys and scouts. They go out and scout all the games and I’ve always been a big believer of this: you build your team on the front-side with the draft and you build you team on the backside right now.
“If you’re looking at your football team and you have to upgrade not only from one to 53 but from 53 the other way, you have to look at players now. There may be some guys come available that you feel may be better than your 53rd player and if they are and you can get ‘em you add them to your roster ‘cause you build your football team two ways.. You just can’t build it one way.”
Q: You’ve cut guys before. How tough is it?
EDWARDS: “It’s not that he can’t do it here. I always tell players that maybe they don’t fit here. I always tell them when they get in this situation you’re playing for 31 other teams, you’re just not playing for the Chiefs. You need to autograph your performance because everyone in the National Football League is looking for players from other teams.”
Q: Looking at it from this point, is this shaping up to be a hard cut this week or not so hard?
EDWARDS: “Well, it’s always hard cutting players, but you have to. That’s part of our business, but the thing you want to do is you have to make sure if it’s a veteran guy you’d rather cut him earlier than late so he can get some offers – so he can go get a job.”
Q: Not to say the exact number, are there a lot of spots on the roster up for grabs?
EDWARDS: “There will probably be at the end of the day 10 news faces here at least. I said that when I first got here. Most teams are going to turn over at least 10-12 guys; that’s what happens. As it looks right now, there will be some new faces here whether they came from (unrestricted) free agency, whether we drafted them, whether they were a free agent, they’re going to make the football team. That’s good, that’s a good thing. That means you upgraded your team.
“I said this in the spring: you want to have a competitive training camp, competitive off-season. We’ve had it very competitive at certain positions and I think we’ll be better for it. Some positions weren’t as competitive as we thought they would be. That’s when you gotta go see who’s going to get cut.”
Q: What have you gotten out of Ryan Sims and what are your thoughts on where he is?
EDWARDS: “Just staying consistent. He’s doing the best he can to be a consistent player and be a fundamentally better player. He has some talent and that’s why he was drafted that high. But you have to be consistent. He has to do things that he’s asked to do and he’s done that. He just wants to know where he stands like any player does. I said, ‘you stand on good ground right now. You just got to keep competing.’ There’s no starting roster right now; it doesn’t matter you’re running first team – you don’t have to look into that – because at the end of the day you’re still playing.
“That’s my obligation to players during the preseason and the way we do things around here. You want to get players who have been here since OTA’s and mini-camp the opportunity to play because that’s the only way you can evaluate them. I’m going to put them all out there; they need to play because I want to see if they can play or not.”
Q: Is he getting frustrated?
EDWARDS: “No, he’s not getting frustrated because he’s showing up every day and going to work and working on the things we’re asking him to do. I like when players come talk to me. I think it’s important that there’s communication between you and the player and I would hate for a player to feel that he could never walk up to me at any time and talk. The conversation we just had was a good one for me and for him. I know how he feels and he knows how I feel. We’re on the same page.”
Q: You’ve invested a lot in him as an organization. He’s not a guy to be worried about?
EDWARDS: “Nah, but players get worried. You should. You know it’s kind of funny to say that because if you’re going to play in this league or coach in this league you should always have some anxieties. You should have anxiety doing your job. If you lose anxiety doing your job you’re in trouble. I have anxiety every day after work. I’ve had anxiety for 27 years in this league. For 27 years. When I lose that anxiety you’ll find me in Monterrey (CA) and I’ll be retired.”
Q: He’s in better shape than he was?
EDWARDS: “He’s in great shape. He’s in great shape and he’s done everything we’ve asked him to do and he’s competitive and he keeps competing. He wants to know, he wants to know what it’s going to take for him to be a starter. I told him I don’t know because there aren’t any starters yet. It’s pre-season and we don’t have a starting lineup yet so he’s got to just keep battling. Just keep participating and don’t be a follower.
“I always tell people: choose your friends; don’t let them choose you, especially now. It’s very, very important because you can fall into that trap of ‘woe is me.’ You get a couple of other guys saying ‘woe is me’ and before you know, you’re right, it is ‘woe is you’ because you just followed someone you shouldn’t have been following. I just told them don’t be a follower, just keep continuing to be a good player.”
Q: Is he doing that, woe is me?
EDWARDS: “No, he’s not doing that all. But I know at this point in time players fall into that trap. All players are this way: you sit there and try to figure out what the coaches are thinking. You drive yourself crazy. You can’t do that. You just gotta go practice every day and perform. If you’re performing well you’ll be ok. When you start worrying about what the coach is thinking most of the time it’s over nothing because he’s not thinking about you, he’s thinking about other things. Just come out and participate.”
Q: Dustin Colquitt the other day during the Giants game. Is he the guy that maybe got an “A” for his performance?
EDWARDS: “He’s been our most valuable player the last two games. He’s a weapon and can create field position when you’ve lost some field possession When you’ve lost some and you feel like you’re penned in he gets you out of there and gives you a chance. I told him and our team, we really don’t want to use him a whole lot. You really don’t want to be punting a whole bunch. He’s punted 15 times already.”
http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2006/08/23/qa_with_herm_edwards__823/
Aug 23, 2006, 3:59:25 PM
TRAINING CAMP
Q: You talked about the defense playing vanilla, but what about the offense? Are you going to open it up a bit?
HERM EDWARDS: “Umm, yeah. We need to get some rhythm obviously, but the only way you can open it up is to stay on the field. The last two games we haven’t done a good enough job of that. I’ve said it before: we had 11 possessions and we had six three plays and out the first game. The second game we had 10 possessions and we had six three plays and out. You can’t get any rhythm on offense doing that. So we need to get out early, get some plays and that’s been some of our problem.”
Q: Larry Johnson didn’t play much the last two games. Is he going to play more this time?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he’ll play more this game. He’ll touch the ball a little bit more. Our starters will go into the second quarter and some will go all the way and finish the quarter and maybe come into the third, depending on how we play.”
Q: What about your quarterback rotation?
EDWARDS: “Right now Trent is scheduled to start and we’ll go from there. We’ll see how long we keep him in there.”
Q: Will Croyle play after him?
EDWARDS: “Either Croyle or Huard. We’ll get ‘em both in there. We need to get Brodie some time obviously and Huard needs some time because he hasn’t played a whole lot either.”
Q: What about Tamba Hali? He seemed pretty excited about playing today.
EDWARDS: “Yeah, it’ll be interesting to watch him play and see how he’ll react in his first game. He kind of timed it out pretty good, missed all of camp, and comes home for the opener and gets to play. Hope he doesn’t exhaust himself after three plays and hyperventilate.”
Q: He’s just part of the rotation or is he a clear-cut starter?
EDWARDS: “We haven’t named any starters. I don’t worry about that. He’s part of the rotation and till opening day there are no starters.”
Q: Working out with the (play) cards for the first time today?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, and that was good. These guys need to learn how to play off cards. You have to be stunt men sometimes and that’s a part of it. We’re not a college football team where we have 100 players. Some of these guys have never run cards before, or since their freshman years. It’s kind of hard for some guys who have always been starters.”
Q: You doing that to get them in the routine?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, and this is a kind of in-season routine. This is kind of a Wednesday schedule. We’re going to be in the same kind of mode (next week) and the week is kind of short.
“The key that guys are going to learn about this schedule is they’re going to learn that they have to get here in the morning and eat breakfast. Lunch is not until (after 2 o’clock) so they have to change their way of thinking and eat breakfast and go out and practice.”
Q: With a couple of weeks before the start of the season are you confident of this team or do you expect to bring in a couple of players and take a look at them?
EDWARDS: “Obviously, there are going to be some cuts this week and I told the players that there are going to be from 14-16 cuts all through the National Football League. That’s why you have pro personnel guys and scouts. They go out and scout all the games and I’ve always been a big believer of this: you build your team on the front-side with the draft and you build you team on the backside right now.
“If you’re looking at your football team and you have to upgrade not only from one to 53 but from 53 the other way, you have to look at players now. There may be some guys come available that you feel may be better than your 53rd player and if they are and you can get ‘em you add them to your roster ‘cause you build your football team two ways.. You just can’t build it one way.”
Q: You’ve cut guys before. How tough is it?
EDWARDS: “It’s not that he can’t do it here. I always tell players that maybe they don’t fit here. I always tell them when they get in this situation you’re playing for 31 other teams, you’re just not playing for the Chiefs. You need to autograph your performance because everyone in the National Football League is looking for players from other teams.”
Q: Looking at it from this point, is this shaping up to be a hard cut this week or not so hard?
EDWARDS: “Well, it’s always hard cutting players, but you have to. That’s part of our business, but the thing you want to do is you have to make sure if it’s a veteran guy you’d rather cut him earlier than late so he can get some offers – so he can go get a job.”
Q: Not to say the exact number, are there a lot of spots on the roster up for grabs?
EDWARDS: “There will probably be at the end of the day 10 news faces here at least. I said that when I first got here. Most teams are going to turn over at least 10-12 guys; that’s what happens. As it looks right now, there will be some new faces here whether they came from (unrestricted) free agency, whether we drafted them, whether they were a free agent, they’re going to make the football team. That’s good, that’s a good thing. That means you upgraded your team.
“I said this in the spring: you want to have a competitive training camp, competitive off-season. We’ve had it very competitive at certain positions and I think we’ll be better for it. Some positions weren’t as competitive as we thought they would be. That’s when you gotta go see who’s going to get cut.”
Q: What have you gotten out of Ryan Sims and what are your thoughts on where he is?
EDWARDS: “Just staying consistent. He’s doing the best he can to be a consistent player and be a fundamentally better player. He has some talent and that’s why he was drafted that high. But you have to be consistent. He has to do things that he’s asked to do and he’s done that. He just wants to know where he stands like any player does. I said, ‘you stand on good ground right now. You just got to keep competing.’ There’s no starting roster right now; it doesn’t matter you’re running first team – you don’t have to look into that – because at the end of the day you’re still playing.
“That’s my obligation to players during the preseason and the way we do things around here. You want to get players who have been here since OTA’s and mini-camp the opportunity to play because that’s the only way you can evaluate them. I’m going to put them all out there; they need to play because I want to see if they can play or not.”
Q: Is he getting frustrated?
EDWARDS: “No, he’s not getting frustrated because he’s showing up every day and going to work and working on the things we’re asking him to do. I like when players come talk to me. I think it’s important that there’s communication between you and the player and I would hate for a player to feel that he could never walk up to me at any time and talk. The conversation we just had was a good one for me and for him. I know how he feels and he knows how I feel. We’re on the same page.”
Q: You’ve invested a lot in him as an organization. He’s not a guy to be worried about?
EDWARDS: “Nah, but players get worried. You should. You know it’s kind of funny to say that because if you’re going to play in this league or coach in this league you should always have some anxieties. You should have anxiety doing your job. If you lose anxiety doing your job you’re in trouble. I have anxiety every day after work. I’ve had anxiety for 27 years in this league. For 27 years. When I lose that anxiety you’ll find me in Monterrey (CA) and I’ll be retired.”
Q: He’s in better shape than he was?
EDWARDS: “He’s in great shape. He’s in great shape and he’s done everything we’ve asked him to do and he’s competitive and he keeps competing. He wants to know, he wants to know what it’s going to take for him to be a starter. I told him I don’t know because there aren’t any starters yet. It’s pre-season and we don’t have a starting lineup yet so he’s got to just keep battling. Just keep participating and don’t be a follower.
“I always tell people: choose your friends; don’t let them choose you, especially now. It’s very, very important because you can fall into that trap of ‘woe is me.’ You get a couple of other guys saying ‘woe is me’ and before you know, you’re right, it is ‘woe is you’ because you just followed someone you shouldn’t have been following. I just told them don’t be a follower, just keep continuing to be a good player.”
Q: Is he doing that, woe is me?
EDWARDS: “No, he’s not doing that all. But I know at this point in time players fall into that trap. All players are this way: you sit there and try to figure out what the coaches are thinking. You drive yourself crazy. You can’t do that. You just gotta go practice every day and perform. If you’re performing well you’ll be ok. When you start worrying about what the coach is thinking most of the time it’s over nothing because he’s not thinking about you, he’s thinking about other things. Just come out and participate.”
Q: Dustin Colquitt the other day during the Giants game. Is he the guy that maybe got an “A” for his performance?
EDWARDS: “He’s been our most valuable player the last two games. He’s a weapon and can create field position when you’ve lost some field possession When you’ve lost some and you feel like you’re penned in he gets you out of there and gives you a chance. I told him and our team, we really don’t want to use him a whole lot. You really don’t want to be punting a whole bunch. He’s punted 15 times already.”
http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2006/08/23/qa_with_herm_edwards__823/