Crashride
11-24-2006, 05:34 PM
Q&A with HERM EDWARDS - 11/24
Nov 24, 2006, 4:46:51 PM
HERM EDWARDS: “We left some points on the field last night. We didn’t do a very good job in the Red area offensively. We were forced to kick four field goals. The penalty hurt us on the interception when we had gotten the turnover and we would have had the ball on the 17 and had to give it back to them. The pick we threw hurt us and that maybe nullified some more points we should have had.
“For the most part the game was a physical game against a very good football team. They got a little bit out of rhythm, kind of what happened to us when we went to Miami. (Denver) ended up in a place where they didn’t want to be. They had to throw the all a lot on the road and you don’t want to do that. When you look at the stats that’s a big indicator: in they only ran the ball 22 times and threw it 39. That doesn’t add up when you go on the road. That’s what kind of happened to us when we lost to Miami. I want to say we only ran it 19 times, or something like that. The time of possession gets away from you and you get into a game you don’t want to get into.
“We were fortunate to get the lead early, continued to run the ball which takes clock time off and when you play like that you have a chance to win.”
Q: Is Michael Bennett what you expected of him as a backup?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, it’s good to have him in there. He’s a nice change-of-pace guy and what he showed last night is he’s a very explosive player. Once he gets to the second level he can really run. He’s got good vision, quick-footed guy – a very elusive guy – who has speed. He can make a big play; he can make a big play if he hits a seam in the defense and he did that last night on the one he made a great cut-back. It helped us to get a two-score (lead).”
Q: But the other running back (Johnson) owes you some carries, right?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he only had 19 in Miami, so he’s maybe 15 short right now. (laughs). We’ll find a way to get it for him.”
Q: Do you find it kind of amazing what he’s done in the last few games, finding the hole, his patience?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, I think what he’s done is he’s allowed himself to show people he’s not just a power runner, that he does have cut-back ability and he can make you miss in space. He did that last night, I think, on a couple of runs.
“If you watch him, he has the ability to do that, but I just think people label him as a power runner and he’s more than that. He’s an all-around runner; he can run power but he can also make guys miss. He needs to be able to do that for his own sake because he just can’t run over everybody. The good runners as they get older and they run the ball more they understand that. He’s using that arsenal even more. But the only way he can do all that is he has to touch the football. That’s important and he’s going to have to touch the football for us.
“Our line did a great job of blocking; we were patient with the run; he was patient and made some good runs. Our defense allowed us to run the ball because it kept the score low and when you do that and you’re not playing from behind you can control the game and we’re playing from behind.”
Q: Is that’s where he’s improved over last year: his patience?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, I think so. I just think this comes with running the ball even more, getting more chances to run it. There are obviously some plays that are designed where he’s going to have to make one guy miss because you can’t block them all the time. When we design a run we try to design it where there’s one guy that Larry’s going to have to make miss. He can do that. He doesn’t have to run over everybody like most people think. He has the ability to make people miss.”
Q: Or he can do it either way.
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he has a choice. I think he’s doing it both ways: at times he knows he has to get the hard yards and at times he knows he has to jump-cut and stop and make the guy miss.”
Q: Anything you can put your finger on the Red Zone problems you had last night?
EDWARDS: “First downs not making any yards. That always makes it tough because it puts you in second down and long and that’s tough. We didn’t do a very good job after being number one in the Red Zone offense in scoring. Got to give Denver credit ‘cause they’re one of the better defenses in the Red Zone.”
Q: You haven’t got a whole lot out of your passing game the last two weeks but you’ve won both games. Can you keep winning this way throwing 18 or 20 passes a game?
EDWARDS: “I don’t want to throw over 30. If you throw over 30 I think you’re losing. Then again we’re in the Red Zone five times and only score one touchdown. So, if you score three touchdowns in the Red Zone instead of kicking we’re not even asking this question.
“It’s the same amount of passes, but you score touchdowns. So, it’s a 30-point game rather than a 19-point game. If we’re looking for us to throw 35-40 passes a game, we’re probably losing. I don’t think you need to do that. We’ve been fortunate to win two games, but we’ve won them in a style in how the game was played.
“The one week we only threw 15 or 16 passes against the Rams and scored 30 points. If we score in the Red Zone in this game it could be a 30-point game and no one’s asking that question.
“I think people just like to see passes. People like the quarterback to drop back and throw passes. Well, they did. They saw Jake (Plummer) go back and throw 39 times. They got their passes.”
Q: Getting back to Larry is it a concern of wearing him out. Does he ever say he’s tired or do you worry about that or think about that?
EDWARDS: “No, I’m not going to worry about that. I coached Curtis Martin for five years. I didn’t wear Curtis Martin out. He carried the ball 25 or 28 times a game and five or six passes and he’s not as big as Larry. No.
“That’s what good runners want. They want the ball. Matter of fact, Larry made the statement early in the season that he doesn’t get warmed up until after about 25 carries. He said that at the beginning of the year, a blank statement.”
Q: During the off-season you said he couldn’t handle the whole load and you needed two guys and traded for Bennett. Earlier in the season Johnson was on a pace for 400 (carries), now you kind of have backed off. Is it a case where he is maybe more equipped to handle this load than even you thought?”
EDWARDS: “No, I think at the pace he’s going at if he only carries the ball 20 times the next five games he’s going to get 400 carries. So, I can’t stop that number from happening unless you just want to keep him under 400. We can do that: we can only give him the ball 10 times a game. Ok, that will make everybody happy who’s worrying about the number of carries Larry Johnson gets.
“If Larry Johnson is not hurt, Larry Johnson will carry the football. Now, do I sit here and say he’ll carry it 30 times or 34 times? No, we’re just playing the game. You play the game with the mindset you’re going to run, try to be a balanced offense, but when you’re running and you’re making almost five yards a run why wouldn’t you continue to run? Why would I sit there and say, ‘well, I’ve got to throw passes?’ I’ll throw passes when it’s time to throw passes. But if I can run the ball for five yards a crack – which basically we were getting last night – why wouldn’t you continue to run? That doesn’t make any sense to stop running. Why? Because I’m worried about Larry carrying the ball 30 times? I’m not worried about Larry? Larry’s fine. He wants the ball that many times. It’s not like he’s walking about saying I’m carrying the ball too much. He’s carrying the ball 30 times a game. Big deal.”
Q: But what I’m asking is he better equipped to getting the ball over the course of the season 420 or 430 times better than you thought in the off-season?
EDWARDS: “No, because he’s a big powerful runner. He’s more equipped because he’s not only using his power game but because he’s making guys miss. That has a lot to do with it, too. If you’re a power guy and you’re running, running and always getting hit, well, he avoids tackles. So, that being said, he’s not getting hit hard every time he gets the football. He’s avoiding guys and putting himself in situations where he’s elusive in the field.”
Q: One of your New York teams started 2-5, but are there any parallels with this team that got off to a 0-2 start. Did you learn any lessons from that time?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, it was real simple: don’t listen to anybody but me. Don’t believe what people are saying. Don’t believe that you can’t win or that we’re going to struggle this year ‘cause we lost the quarterback, we lost Willie Roaf, we lost this player or that player. Don’t believe that.
“I said we’re going to be fine. All we have to do is continue to improve and that’s what we have to do. To a man these guys believed that and they’ve gotten better. I said at the beginning of the year that what you want to try to do in football is your team needs to get better as the season goes on. November’s an important month, I said. If you can win in November you can set yourself up to have a chance to go to the playoffs.
“The players understood that. November’s over with. We’ve won some games in November and that helps us. But these guys never gave up when we were 0-2 and that’s a credit to the players and the staff, believing that this is how we’re going to do it; we’re not going to get in a panic mode.”
Q: Was there ever a time in September where you worried they weren’t buying into it?
EDWARDS: “No, not at all. I just think that starting the season off I didn’t feel good because I knew what we went through in the pre-season. We were juggling the offensive line, we weren’t very rhythmic on offense. So I knew we weren’t ready to go yet. And the quarterback got hurt. Then in the (first) Denver game we had to play a style that a lot of people probably thought was obsolete to play. But it was the best way for us to play in Denver at that point, in my estimation. We lost the game but the next week we came out and got ahead of the 49ers early and why: because we got three turnovers right away. We gave the offense a short field and scored on some touchdowns.
“If you look at us when we get turnovers we do a good job of capitalizing on them. Then our offense at times has scored a lot of points. There was a three-game series where we scored 90 points. So, it wasn’t what they saw last night. That’s what’s kind of amazing. The 90 points and everybody was, ‘oh boy, we’re back to Chiefs ball. That’s great.’
“Now, we’ve scored 19 points and we still won. To me, that demonstrates that you have a team that if it’s a shoot-out game we’ve won some shoot-outs; if it’s a low scoring game – defensive games – that you can win those too. This team has done both. It’s won some low-scoring games; it’s lost some low-scoring games; it’s won some high-scoring games. What’s wrong with that? You’re not going to win every game the same way. The thing is to win and I don’t want people to portray that this is a team that doesn’t want to score any points. Now, it’s two games where we haven’t scored over 20 and everybody’s saying, ‘well, can you win like that?’ I don’t care how we win. I really don’t.
“I just want to play good defense. I don’t want to turn the ball over on offense. I want to be able to run the ball and control the clock. And, if we have to throw over 30 passes a game we’re probably going to be in trouble.”
Q: Comment on your defense’s improvement?
EDWARDS: “I think the last four weeks what they’ve done a great job of is they’ve kept the points down. They’re headed in the direction as far as points; they haven’t allowed a lot of points. We still need to improve on third down. Last night we were pretty good on third downs.
“They still have to take the ball away. We only took it away twice last night; I’m always looking for three a game. So, they’re getting better. They played in a big game against a good team. They had to stop the run last night and they knew that. They did and put Denver in a place where they don’t want to be - no one wants to be. If you ask Mike Shanahan today he’ll say, we threw the ball 39 times and it’s hard to do on the road and win.”
Q: Are you upset that that the outcome from the media was not so much about Larry game or the defense but was this Jake Plummer’s last game?
EDWARDS: “It doesn’t matter. The less they talk about us the better, to be quite honest. There’s a lot of better teams than us and they need to talk about those teams and those players.”
Q: Think it’s better you’re a little under the radar?
EDWARDS: “I think it’s fantastic. I like being that way. Best way to play. Just keep winning games.”
Q: Your next game is on the road and the next three of five are on the road. You’ve talked about this team’s ability or inability to win on the road. Do you feel better about this team’s ability to win on the road?
EDWARDS: “I think they’ve got a mindset on how to do it. Now, we haven’t won all of them on the road. We had the one – whatever it was – in Pittsburgh, but the other ones have been where we’ve had a chance. The two others we lost we had the ball at the end to win. So, that’s a good feeling that they know out of the five games we’ve played on the road we’ve won two and competed in the other two to have a chance to win.”
Q: Your last five games are in December and do you have a good feeling of where this team is?
EDWARDS: “Well, I think we can continue to improve and some of the guys that are still nicked have to get healthier and that helps you. But I think they know what it takes and are starting to realize how we play.
“The thing I like about this team right now is I think is we’re starting to learn how to play with mental toughness. I think we’re physically a tough football team. We’ve played some physical games the last three weeks and have stood the test of that. But mentally I think we’re becoming more tough and that’s a good thing.”
Discuss
Nov 24, 2006, 4:46:51 PM
HERM EDWARDS: “We left some points on the field last night. We didn’t do a very good job in the Red area offensively. We were forced to kick four field goals. The penalty hurt us on the interception when we had gotten the turnover and we would have had the ball on the 17 and had to give it back to them. The pick we threw hurt us and that maybe nullified some more points we should have had.
“For the most part the game was a physical game against a very good football team. They got a little bit out of rhythm, kind of what happened to us when we went to Miami. (Denver) ended up in a place where they didn’t want to be. They had to throw the all a lot on the road and you don’t want to do that. When you look at the stats that’s a big indicator: in they only ran the ball 22 times and threw it 39. That doesn’t add up when you go on the road. That’s what kind of happened to us when we lost to Miami. I want to say we only ran it 19 times, or something like that. The time of possession gets away from you and you get into a game you don’t want to get into.
“We were fortunate to get the lead early, continued to run the ball which takes clock time off and when you play like that you have a chance to win.”
Q: Is Michael Bennett what you expected of him as a backup?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, it’s good to have him in there. He’s a nice change-of-pace guy and what he showed last night is he’s a very explosive player. Once he gets to the second level he can really run. He’s got good vision, quick-footed guy – a very elusive guy – who has speed. He can make a big play; he can make a big play if he hits a seam in the defense and he did that last night on the one he made a great cut-back. It helped us to get a two-score (lead).”
Q: But the other running back (Johnson) owes you some carries, right?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he only had 19 in Miami, so he’s maybe 15 short right now. (laughs). We’ll find a way to get it for him.”
Q: Do you find it kind of amazing what he’s done in the last few games, finding the hole, his patience?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, I think what he’s done is he’s allowed himself to show people he’s not just a power runner, that he does have cut-back ability and he can make you miss in space. He did that last night, I think, on a couple of runs.
“If you watch him, he has the ability to do that, but I just think people label him as a power runner and he’s more than that. He’s an all-around runner; he can run power but he can also make guys miss. He needs to be able to do that for his own sake because he just can’t run over everybody. The good runners as they get older and they run the ball more they understand that. He’s using that arsenal even more. But the only way he can do all that is he has to touch the football. That’s important and he’s going to have to touch the football for us.
“Our line did a great job of blocking; we were patient with the run; he was patient and made some good runs. Our defense allowed us to run the ball because it kept the score low and when you do that and you’re not playing from behind you can control the game and we’re playing from behind.”
Q: Is that’s where he’s improved over last year: his patience?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, I think so. I just think this comes with running the ball even more, getting more chances to run it. There are obviously some plays that are designed where he’s going to have to make one guy miss because you can’t block them all the time. When we design a run we try to design it where there’s one guy that Larry’s going to have to make miss. He can do that. He doesn’t have to run over everybody like most people think. He has the ability to make people miss.”
Q: Or he can do it either way.
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he has a choice. I think he’s doing it both ways: at times he knows he has to get the hard yards and at times he knows he has to jump-cut and stop and make the guy miss.”
Q: Anything you can put your finger on the Red Zone problems you had last night?
EDWARDS: “First downs not making any yards. That always makes it tough because it puts you in second down and long and that’s tough. We didn’t do a very good job after being number one in the Red Zone offense in scoring. Got to give Denver credit ‘cause they’re one of the better defenses in the Red Zone.”
Q: You haven’t got a whole lot out of your passing game the last two weeks but you’ve won both games. Can you keep winning this way throwing 18 or 20 passes a game?
EDWARDS: “I don’t want to throw over 30. If you throw over 30 I think you’re losing. Then again we’re in the Red Zone five times and only score one touchdown. So, if you score three touchdowns in the Red Zone instead of kicking we’re not even asking this question.
“It’s the same amount of passes, but you score touchdowns. So, it’s a 30-point game rather than a 19-point game. If we’re looking for us to throw 35-40 passes a game, we’re probably losing. I don’t think you need to do that. We’ve been fortunate to win two games, but we’ve won them in a style in how the game was played.
“The one week we only threw 15 or 16 passes against the Rams and scored 30 points. If we score in the Red Zone in this game it could be a 30-point game and no one’s asking that question.
“I think people just like to see passes. People like the quarterback to drop back and throw passes. Well, they did. They saw Jake (Plummer) go back and throw 39 times. They got their passes.”
Q: Getting back to Larry is it a concern of wearing him out. Does he ever say he’s tired or do you worry about that or think about that?
EDWARDS: “No, I’m not going to worry about that. I coached Curtis Martin for five years. I didn’t wear Curtis Martin out. He carried the ball 25 or 28 times a game and five or six passes and he’s not as big as Larry. No.
“That’s what good runners want. They want the ball. Matter of fact, Larry made the statement early in the season that he doesn’t get warmed up until after about 25 carries. He said that at the beginning of the year, a blank statement.”
Q: During the off-season you said he couldn’t handle the whole load and you needed two guys and traded for Bennett. Earlier in the season Johnson was on a pace for 400 (carries), now you kind of have backed off. Is it a case where he is maybe more equipped to handle this load than even you thought?”
EDWARDS: “No, I think at the pace he’s going at if he only carries the ball 20 times the next five games he’s going to get 400 carries. So, I can’t stop that number from happening unless you just want to keep him under 400. We can do that: we can only give him the ball 10 times a game. Ok, that will make everybody happy who’s worrying about the number of carries Larry Johnson gets.
“If Larry Johnson is not hurt, Larry Johnson will carry the football. Now, do I sit here and say he’ll carry it 30 times or 34 times? No, we’re just playing the game. You play the game with the mindset you’re going to run, try to be a balanced offense, but when you’re running and you’re making almost five yards a run why wouldn’t you continue to run? Why would I sit there and say, ‘well, I’ve got to throw passes?’ I’ll throw passes when it’s time to throw passes. But if I can run the ball for five yards a crack – which basically we were getting last night – why wouldn’t you continue to run? That doesn’t make any sense to stop running. Why? Because I’m worried about Larry carrying the ball 30 times? I’m not worried about Larry? Larry’s fine. He wants the ball that many times. It’s not like he’s walking about saying I’m carrying the ball too much. He’s carrying the ball 30 times a game. Big deal.”
Q: But what I’m asking is he better equipped to getting the ball over the course of the season 420 or 430 times better than you thought in the off-season?
EDWARDS: “No, because he’s a big powerful runner. He’s more equipped because he’s not only using his power game but because he’s making guys miss. That has a lot to do with it, too. If you’re a power guy and you’re running, running and always getting hit, well, he avoids tackles. So, that being said, he’s not getting hit hard every time he gets the football. He’s avoiding guys and putting himself in situations where he’s elusive in the field.”
Q: One of your New York teams started 2-5, but are there any parallels with this team that got off to a 0-2 start. Did you learn any lessons from that time?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, it was real simple: don’t listen to anybody but me. Don’t believe what people are saying. Don’t believe that you can’t win or that we’re going to struggle this year ‘cause we lost the quarterback, we lost Willie Roaf, we lost this player or that player. Don’t believe that.
“I said we’re going to be fine. All we have to do is continue to improve and that’s what we have to do. To a man these guys believed that and they’ve gotten better. I said at the beginning of the year that what you want to try to do in football is your team needs to get better as the season goes on. November’s an important month, I said. If you can win in November you can set yourself up to have a chance to go to the playoffs.
“The players understood that. November’s over with. We’ve won some games in November and that helps us. But these guys never gave up when we were 0-2 and that’s a credit to the players and the staff, believing that this is how we’re going to do it; we’re not going to get in a panic mode.”
Q: Was there ever a time in September where you worried they weren’t buying into it?
EDWARDS: “No, not at all. I just think that starting the season off I didn’t feel good because I knew what we went through in the pre-season. We were juggling the offensive line, we weren’t very rhythmic on offense. So I knew we weren’t ready to go yet. And the quarterback got hurt. Then in the (first) Denver game we had to play a style that a lot of people probably thought was obsolete to play. But it was the best way for us to play in Denver at that point, in my estimation. We lost the game but the next week we came out and got ahead of the 49ers early and why: because we got three turnovers right away. We gave the offense a short field and scored on some touchdowns.
“If you look at us when we get turnovers we do a good job of capitalizing on them. Then our offense at times has scored a lot of points. There was a three-game series where we scored 90 points. So, it wasn’t what they saw last night. That’s what’s kind of amazing. The 90 points and everybody was, ‘oh boy, we’re back to Chiefs ball. That’s great.’
“Now, we’ve scored 19 points and we still won. To me, that demonstrates that you have a team that if it’s a shoot-out game we’ve won some shoot-outs; if it’s a low scoring game – defensive games – that you can win those too. This team has done both. It’s won some low-scoring games; it’s lost some low-scoring games; it’s won some high-scoring games. What’s wrong with that? You’re not going to win every game the same way. The thing is to win and I don’t want people to portray that this is a team that doesn’t want to score any points. Now, it’s two games where we haven’t scored over 20 and everybody’s saying, ‘well, can you win like that?’ I don’t care how we win. I really don’t.
“I just want to play good defense. I don’t want to turn the ball over on offense. I want to be able to run the ball and control the clock. And, if we have to throw over 30 passes a game we’re probably going to be in trouble.”
Q: Comment on your defense’s improvement?
EDWARDS: “I think the last four weeks what they’ve done a great job of is they’ve kept the points down. They’re headed in the direction as far as points; they haven’t allowed a lot of points. We still need to improve on third down. Last night we were pretty good on third downs.
“They still have to take the ball away. We only took it away twice last night; I’m always looking for three a game. So, they’re getting better. They played in a big game against a good team. They had to stop the run last night and they knew that. They did and put Denver in a place where they don’t want to be - no one wants to be. If you ask Mike Shanahan today he’ll say, we threw the ball 39 times and it’s hard to do on the road and win.”
Q: Are you upset that that the outcome from the media was not so much about Larry game or the defense but was this Jake Plummer’s last game?
EDWARDS: “It doesn’t matter. The less they talk about us the better, to be quite honest. There’s a lot of better teams than us and they need to talk about those teams and those players.”
Q: Think it’s better you’re a little under the radar?
EDWARDS: “I think it’s fantastic. I like being that way. Best way to play. Just keep winning games.”
Q: Your next game is on the road and the next three of five are on the road. You’ve talked about this team’s ability or inability to win on the road. Do you feel better about this team’s ability to win on the road?
EDWARDS: “I think they’ve got a mindset on how to do it. Now, we haven’t won all of them on the road. We had the one – whatever it was – in Pittsburgh, but the other ones have been where we’ve had a chance. The two others we lost we had the ball at the end to win. So, that’s a good feeling that they know out of the five games we’ve played on the road we’ve won two and competed in the other two to have a chance to win.”
Q: Your last five games are in December and do you have a good feeling of where this team is?
EDWARDS: “Well, I think we can continue to improve and some of the guys that are still nicked have to get healthier and that helps you. But I think they know what it takes and are starting to realize how we play.
“The thing I like about this team right now is I think is we’re starting to learn how to play with mental toughness. I think we’re physically a tough football team. We’ve played some physical games the last three weeks and have stood the test of that. But mentally I think we’re becoming more tough and that’s a good thing.”
Discuss