dirk digler
11-15-2006, 08:33 PM
http://kcchiefs.com/news/2006/11/15/qa_with_herm_edwards__1115/
Q&A with HERM EDWARDS - 11/15
Nov 15, 2006, 4:38:55 PM
EDWARDS: “G Brian Waters is still out, TE Tony Gonzalez is doubtful, LB Derrick Johnson is out, T Kevin Sampson is out, S Greg Wesley is questionable at this point in time and DE Tamba Hali is probably questionable. S Sammy Knight is really questionable, I held him out today, but he should be fine tomorrow. It’s his ankle, nothing really bad. I anticipate he is going to play, I just held him out. Tamba practiced.”
Q: How long will Derrick Johnson be out?
EDWARDS: “I don’t know, obviously he is out this week. His ankle is getting better, but it’s not 100 percent, he can’t run on it yet. He is (walking) very gingerly on his ankle.”
“In the quarterback situation, QB Trent Green is going to start this week. I had a good talk with him last night and had a talk with QB Damon Huard today. I think both of them are aware of the situation. You can’t say enough about Damon Huard and what he has meant to our football team. He had to come in the first game of the season and really keep us alive and he did that. I thought the team really rallied around him. Obviously Trent is now going to get an opportunity to play. After watching his progress over the last three weeks, I just feel that it is time for him to play again. He’s excited about playing, but him alone and him coming back, he can’t do it by himself. This whole football team is going to have to rally around Trent Green and play a lot better then we did last week. Hopefully we will see that this week at home. This is an important division game for us against the Raiders and our players are going to have to play a lot better then they did last week if we are going to win.”
Q: Did you make the decision on Trent once he was cleared or did you know that all along? Two weeks ago you said that Trent was your starter, but last week you opened it up for discussion.
EDWARDS: “I do what I do for a reason. It was my reasoning, I know why I did what I did, and it was for a purpose.”
Q: What was its purpose?
EDWARDS: “It served its purpose for later.”
Q: A few weeks ago you talked about that shot of adrenaline that the team would get when Trent came back. Did you see that shot of adrenaline today?
EDWARDS: “I felt it, but I felt it last week when he was practicing. I think the players just kind of watched him and were excited about what he was doing. I’m not to take anything away from Damon. He’s been practicing for three weeks, so it’s not like he hasn’t been practicing. Eventually you have to make a decision and he had to get cleared by the doctors. The doctors cleared him last night, Trent came over around 8:30 PM and we had a good talk. I waited until this morning to talk to Damon. Damon was very good about the situation and now we are going to go with Trent.”
Q: How well do you expect Trent to play?
EDWARDS: “He’s going to play well. I told him that he doesn’t have to put the team on his shoulders by any stretch of the imagination. We are going to have to play the kind of football that we are capable of playing; we’ve got to be able to run the ball and be a balanced offense. I told him that he needs to just go out and have fun. He’s going to have fun playing quarterback and he hasn’t played in some amount of time, but I expect him to go out and play well.”
Q: With the way that Damon played, did that cause you to think over this decision any harder?
EDWARDS: “I anticipated that this was the way I was going to go. I have a good feel for Trent and what he’s done for this football team. He’s won a lot of games. I think the only guy who has won more games at quarterback in this organization is Lenny Dawson. You talk about games and things of that nature, he’s won a lot of games for this football team and Damon did a great job of keeping us in the race. Now Trent has to go out, not by himself, the team has to help him; he can’t do it by himself. We have to win games down the stretch.”
Q: Was there anything Huard could have done to keep this job?
EDWARDS: “He did everything that he could do. He did everything required and maybe more than what people would anticipate. I think it was good for him, it was good for this football team in the way that he performed and I think that his status as a back-up quarterback goes way up. You feel really good, now you feel like you have two really good quarterbacks where if something should happen Damon has been in there, has been successful here and has won some games for us and that is important. At the end you weigh everything and you just have a feel for your football team, you have a feel for your players and Trent has been the quarterback. It’s his job and he’s going to have an opportunity to play again. He’s been wanting to play again for the last couple of weeks, he’s finally gotten released and it’s time for him to play.”
Q: I thought you weren’t going to make your decision until Sunday?
EDWARDS: “I changed my mind last night, because, to be quite honest, what I didn’t want to happen was for you people to go into the locker room and ask, ‘who do you think should start?’ It becomes a distraction and I didn’t want it to become a distraction. We have to focus on the Raiders. I don’t think that it is fair for the football team if they have to sit here and hold out who is going to be the quarterback or who’s not. I don’t even know if the player’s knew. This is the first time I’ve told anybody really besides the media. I didn’t announce it to the players in the meeting this morning. I just think it is a matter of fact that this is what we are doing. It was better for the football team, so I changed my mind last night and decided I’d say it this morning, but I wanted to talk with Damon before I said anything, that was important.”
Q: How did Damon take the news?
EDWARDS: “He was good, he’s a pro. He’s a pro and that’s what I like about him. He’s a pro, he’s a professional and he understood. I told him if it were reversed and it was Damon Huard instead of Trent Green, the same thing would have happened and he understood that, he was fine.”
Q: Do you think it is going to be comfortable for the players having Trent Green back in there?
EDWARDS: “I think they have played a lot of football with Trent, but I think they also respect what Damon has done at quarterback. Trent has won a lot of games here and I think that players feel comfortable with him in the pocket, they feel comfortable with him in the huddle, he has command in the huddle and they feel comfortable with him on the sidelines. I think he can rally those guys together when it’s time to talk to them and he’s been a leader here and he is going to assume that role. It’s hard to be a leader when you aren’t playing. It is very difficult to ask a guy to do that and now he has the opportunity to do that.”
Q: Will Trent really get a feel for what is going to be like until he gets that first hit?
EDWARDS: “He’ll probably get knocked down and he’ll get back up, have to get back and go to the huddle. Hopefully he doesn’t get knocked down on a third down and it’s an incomplete pass, hopefully it’s complete and he can play some more. He’s ready to play and eventually he’s got to play. Eventually you have to go play; you can’t just sit back here and say that you are waiting on more tests. He’s taken more tests then the astronauts, probably.”
Q: Did you test him in any way to know if he’s ready to play quarterback again?
EDWARDS: “Our test when I played it was (holding up fingers), ‘is it one or two?’ If it was two then you could play. If you said three then the doctor said to sit back down and when you could count to two then they put you back in. They never tried to trick you. It’s different and he’s taken every test that he can possibly take. He feels good about it; the doctors feel good about it, now let’s get out there and play.”
Q: He had nothing to prove to you physically with his head?
EDWARDS: “No, I’ve talked to him every day since he’s been here. I ask him how he feels and he tells me that he’s feeling good.”
Q: I saw him at Tony Gonzalez’s football clinic and he looked giddy and like a kid in a candy store. Was that the type of feeling you got from him?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he was excited about being able to play football again. I said finally now before a game when I give you a hug before a game, you can actually go play instead of standing by me.”
Q: Was he bugging you on the sidelines?
EDWARDS: “No, he wasn’t bugging me. We talked, but I didn’t want to talk to him. I hate talking to quarterbacks when our offense is out there, I want him playing. He needs to play and it will be good for him and it’s good for our football team. It’s good for the league too, good for the National Football League. It really is, he has been a standup guy in this league, he has been a true professional and a lot of people in the league are glad to see him playing again.”
Q: It’s not exactly an ideal situation for Trent to come back with the injuries to the line; did you consider that at all in your decision?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, but it is no different then if Damon is the quarterback. Whoever is quarterback is facing the same thing and that’s just the way that it is. I anticipate that our line is going to play well. Jason Dunn has played a lot of tight end and he is going to play tight end. We’re just going to play and that’s what you have to do. That wouldn’t be real nice if I said all off a sudden that I’m not going to put Trent out there, but I’m going to put Damon out there because I’m worried about players. That’s not good, that’s not good at all. Those guys are professionals, they are going to go out there and they are going to play well.”
Q: Is there any way that this can be a blessing in disguise that his body hasn’t taken a beating during his time off?
EDWARDS: “Well the one thing about is he is a young quarterback because he was hurt before and then he didn’t play a lot. He hasn’t, for his age; he hasn’t played like he’s been playing for all those years. He got hurt when he was with the Rams and he (injured) his leg in the preseason and was able to come here the following year. He’s missed some time and he still has a live arm, he still has good rhythm in the way that he throws and you’re right, he hasn’t played since opening day and it’s been a long time. That’s one thing that he brings to the table that he’s fresh and he’s watched a lot of games all of a sudden on the sidelines. Probably more then he anticipated and more then anybody anticipated, no one thought it would be this long, but obviously it is. He’s done a lot of testing and the doctors have cleared him and that’s good.”
Q: Do you expect the Raiders to blitz him and come at him right away?
EDWARDS: “They might do that, but they’ve been good enough without having to do a whole lot of that on defense. They are playing very well on defense, but I would think they may come at him a little bit. That’s Raiders and Chiefs, that’s just how it is. It’s just one for those games and that’s part of the process. He’s got to play now, he can’t do anything else, and he’s got to go play.”
Q: How much does taking those mental reps from the sideline help him?
EDWARDS: “I think it helps him because he is a guy who is very visual. He can see things and he is in the game even though he’s not playing. He had the thing in his ear, he heard all of the calls and he was processing when he looked on the field what defenses were doing. In that way he has played the game in his mind. He hasn’t played it physically, but it’s time for him to play. We worry about rust, but that’s with any player. It’s the same thing when G Brian Waters comes back. Brian is going to miss a couple of games, is he going to be rusty? Yeah, because he hasn’t played. Is Tony Gonzalez going to be rusty when he comes back? Yeah, because he hasn’t played. Rust is rust, whatever you want to call it. You can’t say that he’s going to be a little rusty, they all are. That’s what happens when you get injured. You miss time and you have to go back and play. You might not play as good as you would like the first time, but good players find a sense of balance when they start playing and they only way to get the rust off is to play.”
Q: Would the decision have been any harder had you guys rolled up big numbers on offense last week?
EDWARDS: “No, not in my mind. That’s what I said from the beginning. I have a pretty good feel for this football team, this situation and what I was going to do and it just turned out this week that this is what happened. He got cleared and it’s time to play.”
Q&A with HERM EDWARDS - 11/15
Nov 15, 2006, 4:38:55 PM
EDWARDS: “G Brian Waters is still out, TE Tony Gonzalez is doubtful, LB Derrick Johnson is out, T Kevin Sampson is out, S Greg Wesley is questionable at this point in time and DE Tamba Hali is probably questionable. S Sammy Knight is really questionable, I held him out today, but he should be fine tomorrow. It’s his ankle, nothing really bad. I anticipate he is going to play, I just held him out. Tamba practiced.”
Q: How long will Derrick Johnson be out?
EDWARDS: “I don’t know, obviously he is out this week. His ankle is getting better, but it’s not 100 percent, he can’t run on it yet. He is (walking) very gingerly on his ankle.”
“In the quarterback situation, QB Trent Green is going to start this week. I had a good talk with him last night and had a talk with QB Damon Huard today. I think both of them are aware of the situation. You can’t say enough about Damon Huard and what he has meant to our football team. He had to come in the first game of the season and really keep us alive and he did that. I thought the team really rallied around him. Obviously Trent is now going to get an opportunity to play. After watching his progress over the last three weeks, I just feel that it is time for him to play again. He’s excited about playing, but him alone and him coming back, he can’t do it by himself. This whole football team is going to have to rally around Trent Green and play a lot better then we did last week. Hopefully we will see that this week at home. This is an important division game for us against the Raiders and our players are going to have to play a lot better then they did last week if we are going to win.”
Q: Did you make the decision on Trent once he was cleared or did you know that all along? Two weeks ago you said that Trent was your starter, but last week you opened it up for discussion.
EDWARDS: “I do what I do for a reason. It was my reasoning, I know why I did what I did, and it was for a purpose.”
Q: What was its purpose?
EDWARDS: “It served its purpose for later.”
Q: A few weeks ago you talked about that shot of adrenaline that the team would get when Trent came back. Did you see that shot of adrenaline today?
EDWARDS: “I felt it, but I felt it last week when he was practicing. I think the players just kind of watched him and were excited about what he was doing. I’m not to take anything away from Damon. He’s been practicing for three weeks, so it’s not like he hasn’t been practicing. Eventually you have to make a decision and he had to get cleared by the doctors. The doctors cleared him last night, Trent came over around 8:30 PM and we had a good talk. I waited until this morning to talk to Damon. Damon was very good about the situation and now we are going to go with Trent.”
Q: How well do you expect Trent to play?
EDWARDS: “He’s going to play well. I told him that he doesn’t have to put the team on his shoulders by any stretch of the imagination. We are going to have to play the kind of football that we are capable of playing; we’ve got to be able to run the ball and be a balanced offense. I told him that he needs to just go out and have fun. He’s going to have fun playing quarterback and he hasn’t played in some amount of time, but I expect him to go out and play well.”
Q: With the way that Damon played, did that cause you to think over this decision any harder?
EDWARDS: “I anticipated that this was the way I was going to go. I have a good feel for Trent and what he’s done for this football team. He’s won a lot of games. I think the only guy who has won more games at quarterback in this organization is Lenny Dawson. You talk about games and things of that nature, he’s won a lot of games for this football team and Damon did a great job of keeping us in the race. Now Trent has to go out, not by himself, the team has to help him; he can’t do it by himself. We have to win games down the stretch.”
Q: Was there anything Huard could have done to keep this job?
EDWARDS: “He did everything that he could do. He did everything required and maybe more than what people would anticipate. I think it was good for him, it was good for this football team in the way that he performed and I think that his status as a back-up quarterback goes way up. You feel really good, now you feel like you have two really good quarterbacks where if something should happen Damon has been in there, has been successful here and has won some games for us and that is important. At the end you weigh everything and you just have a feel for your football team, you have a feel for your players and Trent has been the quarterback. It’s his job and he’s going to have an opportunity to play again. He’s been wanting to play again for the last couple of weeks, he’s finally gotten released and it’s time for him to play.”
Q: I thought you weren’t going to make your decision until Sunday?
EDWARDS: “I changed my mind last night, because, to be quite honest, what I didn’t want to happen was for you people to go into the locker room and ask, ‘who do you think should start?’ It becomes a distraction and I didn’t want it to become a distraction. We have to focus on the Raiders. I don’t think that it is fair for the football team if they have to sit here and hold out who is going to be the quarterback or who’s not. I don’t even know if the player’s knew. This is the first time I’ve told anybody really besides the media. I didn’t announce it to the players in the meeting this morning. I just think it is a matter of fact that this is what we are doing. It was better for the football team, so I changed my mind last night and decided I’d say it this morning, but I wanted to talk with Damon before I said anything, that was important.”
Q: How did Damon take the news?
EDWARDS: “He was good, he’s a pro. He’s a pro and that’s what I like about him. He’s a pro, he’s a professional and he understood. I told him if it were reversed and it was Damon Huard instead of Trent Green, the same thing would have happened and he understood that, he was fine.”
Q: Do you think it is going to be comfortable for the players having Trent Green back in there?
EDWARDS: “I think they have played a lot of football with Trent, but I think they also respect what Damon has done at quarterback. Trent has won a lot of games here and I think that players feel comfortable with him in the pocket, they feel comfortable with him in the huddle, he has command in the huddle and they feel comfortable with him on the sidelines. I think he can rally those guys together when it’s time to talk to them and he’s been a leader here and he is going to assume that role. It’s hard to be a leader when you aren’t playing. It is very difficult to ask a guy to do that and now he has the opportunity to do that.”
Q: Will Trent really get a feel for what is going to be like until he gets that first hit?
EDWARDS: “He’ll probably get knocked down and he’ll get back up, have to get back and go to the huddle. Hopefully he doesn’t get knocked down on a third down and it’s an incomplete pass, hopefully it’s complete and he can play some more. He’s ready to play and eventually he’s got to play. Eventually you have to go play; you can’t just sit back here and say that you are waiting on more tests. He’s taken more tests then the astronauts, probably.”
Q: Did you test him in any way to know if he’s ready to play quarterback again?
EDWARDS: “Our test when I played it was (holding up fingers), ‘is it one or two?’ If it was two then you could play. If you said three then the doctor said to sit back down and when you could count to two then they put you back in. They never tried to trick you. It’s different and he’s taken every test that he can possibly take. He feels good about it; the doctors feel good about it, now let’s get out there and play.”
Q: He had nothing to prove to you physically with his head?
EDWARDS: “No, I’ve talked to him every day since he’s been here. I ask him how he feels and he tells me that he’s feeling good.”
Q: I saw him at Tony Gonzalez’s football clinic and he looked giddy and like a kid in a candy store. Was that the type of feeling you got from him?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he was excited about being able to play football again. I said finally now before a game when I give you a hug before a game, you can actually go play instead of standing by me.”
Q: Was he bugging you on the sidelines?
EDWARDS: “No, he wasn’t bugging me. We talked, but I didn’t want to talk to him. I hate talking to quarterbacks when our offense is out there, I want him playing. He needs to play and it will be good for him and it’s good for our football team. It’s good for the league too, good for the National Football League. It really is, he has been a standup guy in this league, he has been a true professional and a lot of people in the league are glad to see him playing again.”
Q: It’s not exactly an ideal situation for Trent to come back with the injuries to the line; did you consider that at all in your decision?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, but it is no different then if Damon is the quarterback. Whoever is quarterback is facing the same thing and that’s just the way that it is. I anticipate that our line is going to play well. Jason Dunn has played a lot of tight end and he is going to play tight end. We’re just going to play and that’s what you have to do. That wouldn’t be real nice if I said all off a sudden that I’m not going to put Trent out there, but I’m going to put Damon out there because I’m worried about players. That’s not good, that’s not good at all. Those guys are professionals, they are going to go out there and they are going to play well.”
Q: Is there any way that this can be a blessing in disguise that his body hasn’t taken a beating during his time off?
EDWARDS: “Well the one thing about is he is a young quarterback because he was hurt before and then he didn’t play a lot. He hasn’t, for his age; he hasn’t played like he’s been playing for all those years. He got hurt when he was with the Rams and he (injured) his leg in the preseason and was able to come here the following year. He’s missed some time and he still has a live arm, he still has good rhythm in the way that he throws and you’re right, he hasn’t played since opening day and it’s been a long time. That’s one thing that he brings to the table that he’s fresh and he’s watched a lot of games all of a sudden on the sidelines. Probably more then he anticipated and more then anybody anticipated, no one thought it would be this long, but obviously it is. He’s done a lot of testing and the doctors have cleared him and that’s good.”
Q: Do you expect the Raiders to blitz him and come at him right away?
EDWARDS: “They might do that, but they’ve been good enough without having to do a whole lot of that on defense. They are playing very well on defense, but I would think they may come at him a little bit. That’s Raiders and Chiefs, that’s just how it is. It’s just one for those games and that’s part of the process. He’s got to play now, he can’t do anything else, and he’s got to go play.”
Q: How much does taking those mental reps from the sideline help him?
EDWARDS: “I think it helps him because he is a guy who is very visual. He can see things and he is in the game even though he’s not playing. He had the thing in his ear, he heard all of the calls and he was processing when he looked on the field what defenses were doing. In that way he has played the game in his mind. He hasn’t played it physically, but it’s time for him to play. We worry about rust, but that’s with any player. It’s the same thing when G Brian Waters comes back. Brian is going to miss a couple of games, is he going to be rusty? Yeah, because he hasn’t played. Is Tony Gonzalez going to be rusty when he comes back? Yeah, because he hasn’t played. Rust is rust, whatever you want to call it. You can’t say that he’s going to be a little rusty, they all are. That’s what happens when you get injured. You miss time and you have to go back and play. You might not play as good as you would like the first time, but good players find a sense of balance when they start playing and they only way to get the rust off is to play.”
Q: Would the decision have been any harder had you guys rolled up big numbers on offense last week?
EDWARDS: “No, not in my mind. That’s what I said from the beginning. I have a pretty good feel for this football team, this situation and what I was going to do and it just turned out this week that this is what happened. He got cleared and it’s time to play.”