tk13
01-03-2007, 06:33 PM
http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2007/01/03/qa_with_herm_edwards__13/
Q&A with HERM EDWARDS - 1/3
Jan 03, 2007, 6:14:18 PM
HERM EDWARDS: “I thought today’s practice went pretty good. It’s very, very hard to really get a good feel pretending like we have a quarterback who can do what Peyton Manning can do. That’s tough. But I thought we had some cameo appearances by Brodie (Croyle) and Damon (Huard). That’s tough. We’ll see if it pays off for us.”
Q: You talked a little yesterday how your approach and intensity goes up this time of year How about your game day decisions and preparations, your X’s and O’s, the things you do on game day?
EDWARDS: “Am I conservative are you asking?”
Q: Yeah, in a politically correct way of asking?
EDWARDS: “Was I conservative the last two games?
Q: Not against Jacksonville.
EDWARDS: “How about against the Raiders? Going for it on fourth down. You can see my approach. I start preparing myself to play in the playoffs. I’ve been doing that for this team for the last three weeks in how we practice and how we prepare and how we call the game, too.”
Q: Are the things you believe in as far as philosophy more important now?
EDWARDS: “I think the foundation was built and I think the players know how I like to play the game. I want to continue to do that. That doesn’t change. You don’t want to turn the ball over, you always want to run the ball and play good defense. You’d like to score when you have the opportunity in the Red Zone. You’ve got to play good Red Zone defense. Those things never change. You don’t beat yourself with foolish fouls. If you look at us for the most part in games we’ve won we’ve completed those tasks.
“In the playoffs the only thing you all know, and I told the players today, is that everything gets magnified. Whatever you do is magnified because there’s only one game being played at that time and everybody’s watching. So the speed of the game is much faster, how you think and how you call plays and make decisions are much faster because of the anxiety and level of competition in the playoffs. Everyone has the same anxiety – both teams – if you don’t win you go home.
“In certain situations depending where you’re at you’re gonna take some opportunities you wouldn’t earlier in the season. Then again, I know this football team better, too. I know I can trust them better now compared to opening day. That’s a process you gain as a coach with your players. There are certain situations I hadn’t been in with these guys earlier in the season. Then the quarterback went down and I’ve got a backup quarterback now and, guess what, I’m not going to put all the burden on that guy. I’ve got to pass it around.
“So, as we started playing games you know your team better and you put your team in situations after week nine and ten because you trust them more. You know what they can do and that’s why you make different decisions. But your decisions still have to be on a solid foundation and it’s not like I’m guessing or hoping. I have more confidence in what we’re doing. I think I know my players better, they know me better. You play the game that way.”
Q: What about that playoff game you played in Pittsburgh a few years ago. Knowing what you know now do you regret not doing something differently? Do you do it the same way?
EDWARDS: “Exactly. I’ve got a field goal kicker (in NY) that’s 88% and never missed two field goals in a game back-to-back. That was the right thing to do. Our problem was we panicked – one of the receivers panicked – and called time out and put us in a bad way. But that doesn’t get talked about. What gets talked about is we should have got it closer. Every coach who called me told me, ‘you did the right thing.’ I knew my football team better than anybody else. I knew the field goal kicker. He just didn’t make the field goal. So be it. But I wouldn’t have changed. I wouldn’t have said throw a pass; I wouldn’t have done that.
“Chad Penninigton’s arm was in a bad way in that game. A lot of people don’t understand that either. So there are a lot of factors about what we had to do. We were in a position to win and we didn’t get it done.”
Q: You made reference earlier in the week that winning in Oakland got you going on the right path. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
EDWARDS: “We just came off a three-game skid. We had just lost three games in a row now, so let’s not lose sight of that. At that point in the season we have two games left and for a lot of people it probably looked awful dreary for us. You probably figured well if they can win out they can have a winning season.
“Well, I wasn’t thinking that at all. My whole mindset was real simple: we need to win a road game, a division game because all of a sudden we’ve won another division game, won one on the road, finished up with a pretty good division record then, the last game of season will be bigger than a lot of people imagine.
“Now, I knew that going into that game; I felt that. That’s why it was very important that we win that game and I thought the way we did it was good, too, in that Oakland went right down and got points on the board and that we came back on a drive and got seven points. When we got seven points I felt very good about our football team and thought we’d win this game now. We got over that hump. We were in that grind in that we have lost three in a row. I’ve been there and I know how players’ mindsets are. We had just traveled in back-to-back games to the coast. That set the table for the last game of the year.
“Now, there were a couple of teams that were in the same situation we were. They had to win. That looks easy on paper but, trust me, it’s hard to do. I felt if we could take care of our business that’s all we had to do. Take care of our business. Remember, after week two we were 0-2 with 11 other teams. I told the players simply this: somebody’s going to get out of this, why not us? It was the last game to get out but we got out.”
Q: You said the playoffs are a faster paced game. Do you prepare that way in practice?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, I try to put a lot of mental stress on them. Get them in and out of the huddle, get the clock running, the whole deal. You set the stage early in the class room in what’s going to transpire. I think players that have played in playoff games understand that. Now some of them haven’t on this football team. I think there are eight of them that are starting who have not played in a playoff game. That will kind of be interesting.
But I’m letting them know so that when the first series happens in this game I don’t want ‘em looking at me and saying, ‘you told me coach.’ ‘Yeah, I told you and it’s going to happen real fast.’ Rookies understand that because in the regular season it’s different from the pre-season. They get a glimpse of it. Now, everyone else will feel the same situation. And we’re playing a team that is fast; that is built for turf and has played the last five years in the playoffs.
“The team we are playing is a playoff-caliber football team. Tony (Dungy) has the record for most consecutive times in a row in the playoffs. They get it. They understand it. They’re playing at home and they’re going to come out and try and light the scoreboard up real fast. You have to withstand that first five minutes of that first quarter and then the first five minutes of the third quarter. They are key indicators of how this game can unfold.”
Q: When you were playing did you think you could ever get into a quarterback’s head, so to speak?
EDWARDS: “I always had a game plan as a corner. I figured I knew certain routes they were going to try and run and it was just a matter of whether I was going to let him catch the first one or later in the game. If they double-routed me they were probably going to beat me for a touchdown, maybe. Those are the kind of cat-and-mouse games you play, but you did that against opponents.”
Q: People around the league still talk about that 2004 playoff game where Ty Law intercepted three passes and had more yards receiving than Marvin Harrison did.
EDWARDS: “That was one of those deals they were playing against a good defense and playing on the road which is always tough. They had a good day and they got the quarterback out of rhythm. Ty had a great game and has played very well in playoff games.”
Q: Is it possible he could be in Peyton Manning’s head?
EDWARDS: “I don’t know that. I don’t know that. You’d have to ask Peyton that. I don’t want to answer for Peyton. I don’t want to get Peyton riled up either.”
Q: How worried are you about Trent’s ankle and do you go with Damon if he’s not 100%?
EDWARDS: “I’m not worried about it at this point. It’s sore. I know that. We’ll see tomorrow.”
Q: Does he have to be 100% to start?
EDWARDS: “Well, he has to be good enough to orchestrate what we need him to do obviously. I anticipate him starting but we’ll see tomorrow how far he comes along.”
Q: How about LJ (Larry Johnson)?
EDWARDS: “LJ’s fine. He’s got a hall pass. 416 carries. You probably couldn’t carry it one time in this league, son.”
Q: How many backs in the league do you think could handle the load he has and still be strong at the end of the day?
EDWARDS: “I don’t want to answer questions for other backs. I just coach Larry. He’s a mentally tough guy. It’s more mental toughness than anything else. He’s physically tough but mentally you have to be a tough guy to do that.
“For him it was probably a little bit tougher because early in the season we lost the starting quarterback. Even if you’re a fantasy football coach you would probably stack the deck by putting ten guys in the box to stop the run, right? That’s what he had to deal with early. That’s what he had to deal with early in the first five or six games. Everyone is putting guys in the box thinking we were going to have to run the ball and Damon Huard can’t beat us. Damon did a good job, I think, in the San Francisco game where he hit some passes and was able to open it up a bit.
“I think there was a lot of pressure on Larry early in the season. He had to carry the load when Trent went down and it was the first time he had started, too. That was all a part of his maturity as a back, too. He’s done a very good job. It’s his first start in a playoff game.”
Q: When did you know he had that mental toughness?
EDWARDS: “When we visited in the off-season and the conversations we had, things that I told him. I told him: he was going to carry it about 400 times. You want the ball and you’re going to get it. He didn’t shy away from it and he took it and ran.”
Q: Bernard Pollard got the special team’s player of the week this past week. For a young player like that can you just see him maturing each week?
EDWARDS: “He was a little frustrated early because Page had been playing a little bit more than him. Not for any specific reasons, but Page is a little further along than Bernard. I had a conversation with Bernard probably a month and a half ago. He started to become a special teams guy for us. What I told him was what you need to try to do for me is be the best special teams’ player in the league. Be a Pro Bowl special teams player and he took that to be ok and I kind of challenged the guy. I’m proud of the guy. He’s been fantastic. He’s been very good and gotten better every week.
“Bernard Pollard will be a starter on this football team eventually..”
Q: What makes Indy so good at home?
EDWARDS: “They’ve got a good team. They’re good on the road. They’ve won a lot of football games. They’ve got a Hall of Fame quarterback and a Hall of Fame coach, in my estimation. They know how to win. They know they’re good. They play that way. That’s what you admire about them. People take shots at them that they can’t do this or that. They were 12-4. That’s good.
“I just think they’ve been a very consistent football team over the last five years. Now, they haven’t won a Super Bowl yet. They say the same thing about Marty (Schottenheimer), that he hasn’t won a Super Bowl yet. It’s kind of ridiculous in a way. What did it take Bill Cowher? 16 years to win. They’re a good team.”
Q: You were talking about Tony being the guy who wanted you to be a head coach. Why did you not want to be a head coach?
EDWARDS: “My ambitions weren’t to be a head coach, I didn’t have that ambition. My ambition was to be a player and eventually become a secondary coach and just coach my eight or ten guys and not worry about having to make all those decisions. But when I went down there with Tony he said you’ve got to do this. I understood what he meant what I had to do. It was for a lot of reasons and not just for me. It was for the people who were going to follow me.”
Q&A with HERM EDWARDS - 1/3
Jan 03, 2007, 6:14:18 PM
HERM EDWARDS: “I thought today’s practice went pretty good. It’s very, very hard to really get a good feel pretending like we have a quarterback who can do what Peyton Manning can do. That’s tough. But I thought we had some cameo appearances by Brodie (Croyle) and Damon (Huard). That’s tough. We’ll see if it pays off for us.”
Q: You talked a little yesterday how your approach and intensity goes up this time of year How about your game day decisions and preparations, your X’s and O’s, the things you do on game day?
EDWARDS: “Am I conservative are you asking?”
Q: Yeah, in a politically correct way of asking?
EDWARDS: “Was I conservative the last two games?
Q: Not against Jacksonville.
EDWARDS: “How about against the Raiders? Going for it on fourth down. You can see my approach. I start preparing myself to play in the playoffs. I’ve been doing that for this team for the last three weeks in how we practice and how we prepare and how we call the game, too.”
Q: Are the things you believe in as far as philosophy more important now?
EDWARDS: “I think the foundation was built and I think the players know how I like to play the game. I want to continue to do that. That doesn’t change. You don’t want to turn the ball over, you always want to run the ball and play good defense. You’d like to score when you have the opportunity in the Red Zone. You’ve got to play good Red Zone defense. Those things never change. You don’t beat yourself with foolish fouls. If you look at us for the most part in games we’ve won we’ve completed those tasks.
“In the playoffs the only thing you all know, and I told the players today, is that everything gets magnified. Whatever you do is magnified because there’s only one game being played at that time and everybody’s watching. So the speed of the game is much faster, how you think and how you call plays and make decisions are much faster because of the anxiety and level of competition in the playoffs. Everyone has the same anxiety – both teams – if you don’t win you go home.
“In certain situations depending where you’re at you’re gonna take some opportunities you wouldn’t earlier in the season. Then again, I know this football team better, too. I know I can trust them better now compared to opening day. That’s a process you gain as a coach with your players. There are certain situations I hadn’t been in with these guys earlier in the season. Then the quarterback went down and I’ve got a backup quarterback now and, guess what, I’m not going to put all the burden on that guy. I’ve got to pass it around.
“So, as we started playing games you know your team better and you put your team in situations after week nine and ten because you trust them more. You know what they can do and that’s why you make different decisions. But your decisions still have to be on a solid foundation and it’s not like I’m guessing or hoping. I have more confidence in what we’re doing. I think I know my players better, they know me better. You play the game that way.”
Q: What about that playoff game you played in Pittsburgh a few years ago. Knowing what you know now do you regret not doing something differently? Do you do it the same way?
EDWARDS: “Exactly. I’ve got a field goal kicker (in NY) that’s 88% and never missed two field goals in a game back-to-back. That was the right thing to do. Our problem was we panicked – one of the receivers panicked – and called time out and put us in a bad way. But that doesn’t get talked about. What gets talked about is we should have got it closer. Every coach who called me told me, ‘you did the right thing.’ I knew my football team better than anybody else. I knew the field goal kicker. He just didn’t make the field goal. So be it. But I wouldn’t have changed. I wouldn’t have said throw a pass; I wouldn’t have done that.
“Chad Penninigton’s arm was in a bad way in that game. A lot of people don’t understand that either. So there are a lot of factors about what we had to do. We were in a position to win and we didn’t get it done.”
Q: You made reference earlier in the week that winning in Oakland got you going on the right path. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
EDWARDS: “We just came off a three-game skid. We had just lost three games in a row now, so let’s not lose sight of that. At that point in the season we have two games left and for a lot of people it probably looked awful dreary for us. You probably figured well if they can win out they can have a winning season.
“Well, I wasn’t thinking that at all. My whole mindset was real simple: we need to win a road game, a division game because all of a sudden we’ve won another division game, won one on the road, finished up with a pretty good division record then, the last game of season will be bigger than a lot of people imagine.
“Now, I knew that going into that game; I felt that. That’s why it was very important that we win that game and I thought the way we did it was good, too, in that Oakland went right down and got points on the board and that we came back on a drive and got seven points. When we got seven points I felt very good about our football team and thought we’d win this game now. We got over that hump. We were in that grind in that we have lost three in a row. I’ve been there and I know how players’ mindsets are. We had just traveled in back-to-back games to the coast. That set the table for the last game of the year.
“Now, there were a couple of teams that were in the same situation we were. They had to win. That looks easy on paper but, trust me, it’s hard to do. I felt if we could take care of our business that’s all we had to do. Take care of our business. Remember, after week two we were 0-2 with 11 other teams. I told the players simply this: somebody’s going to get out of this, why not us? It was the last game to get out but we got out.”
Q: You said the playoffs are a faster paced game. Do you prepare that way in practice?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, I try to put a lot of mental stress on them. Get them in and out of the huddle, get the clock running, the whole deal. You set the stage early in the class room in what’s going to transpire. I think players that have played in playoff games understand that. Now some of them haven’t on this football team. I think there are eight of them that are starting who have not played in a playoff game. That will kind of be interesting.
But I’m letting them know so that when the first series happens in this game I don’t want ‘em looking at me and saying, ‘you told me coach.’ ‘Yeah, I told you and it’s going to happen real fast.’ Rookies understand that because in the regular season it’s different from the pre-season. They get a glimpse of it. Now, everyone else will feel the same situation. And we’re playing a team that is fast; that is built for turf and has played the last five years in the playoffs.
“The team we are playing is a playoff-caliber football team. Tony (Dungy) has the record for most consecutive times in a row in the playoffs. They get it. They understand it. They’re playing at home and they’re going to come out and try and light the scoreboard up real fast. You have to withstand that first five minutes of that first quarter and then the first five minutes of the third quarter. They are key indicators of how this game can unfold.”
Q: When you were playing did you think you could ever get into a quarterback’s head, so to speak?
EDWARDS: “I always had a game plan as a corner. I figured I knew certain routes they were going to try and run and it was just a matter of whether I was going to let him catch the first one or later in the game. If they double-routed me they were probably going to beat me for a touchdown, maybe. Those are the kind of cat-and-mouse games you play, but you did that against opponents.”
Q: People around the league still talk about that 2004 playoff game where Ty Law intercepted three passes and had more yards receiving than Marvin Harrison did.
EDWARDS: “That was one of those deals they were playing against a good defense and playing on the road which is always tough. They had a good day and they got the quarterback out of rhythm. Ty had a great game and has played very well in playoff games.”
Q: Is it possible he could be in Peyton Manning’s head?
EDWARDS: “I don’t know that. I don’t know that. You’d have to ask Peyton that. I don’t want to answer for Peyton. I don’t want to get Peyton riled up either.”
Q: How worried are you about Trent’s ankle and do you go with Damon if he’s not 100%?
EDWARDS: “I’m not worried about it at this point. It’s sore. I know that. We’ll see tomorrow.”
Q: Does he have to be 100% to start?
EDWARDS: “Well, he has to be good enough to orchestrate what we need him to do obviously. I anticipate him starting but we’ll see tomorrow how far he comes along.”
Q: How about LJ (Larry Johnson)?
EDWARDS: “LJ’s fine. He’s got a hall pass. 416 carries. You probably couldn’t carry it one time in this league, son.”
Q: How many backs in the league do you think could handle the load he has and still be strong at the end of the day?
EDWARDS: “I don’t want to answer questions for other backs. I just coach Larry. He’s a mentally tough guy. It’s more mental toughness than anything else. He’s physically tough but mentally you have to be a tough guy to do that.
“For him it was probably a little bit tougher because early in the season we lost the starting quarterback. Even if you’re a fantasy football coach you would probably stack the deck by putting ten guys in the box to stop the run, right? That’s what he had to deal with early. That’s what he had to deal with early in the first five or six games. Everyone is putting guys in the box thinking we were going to have to run the ball and Damon Huard can’t beat us. Damon did a good job, I think, in the San Francisco game where he hit some passes and was able to open it up a bit.
“I think there was a lot of pressure on Larry early in the season. He had to carry the load when Trent went down and it was the first time he had started, too. That was all a part of his maturity as a back, too. He’s done a very good job. It’s his first start in a playoff game.”
Q: When did you know he had that mental toughness?
EDWARDS: “When we visited in the off-season and the conversations we had, things that I told him. I told him: he was going to carry it about 400 times. You want the ball and you’re going to get it. He didn’t shy away from it and he took it and ran.”
Q: Bernard Pollard got the special team’s player of the week this past week. For a young player like that can you just see him maturing each week?
EDWARDS: “He was a little frustrated early because Page had been playing a little bit more than him. Not for any specific reasons, but Page is a little further along than Bernard. I had a conversation with Bernard probably a month and a half ago. He started to become a special teams guy for us. What I told him was what you need to try to do for me is be the best special teams’ player in the league. Be a Pro Bowl special teams player and he took that to be ok and I kind of challenged the guy. I’m proud of the guy. He’s been fantastic. He’s been very good and gotten better every week.
“Bernard Pollard will be a starter on this football team eventually..”
Q: What makes Indy so good at home?
EDWARDS: “They’ve got a good team. They’re good on the road. They’ve won a lot of football games. They’ve got a Hall of Fame quarterback and a Hall of Fame coach, in my estimation. They know how to win. They know they’re good. They play that way. That’s what you admire about them. People take shots at them that they can’t do this or that. They were 12-4. That’s good.
“I just think they’ve been a very consistent football team over the last five years. Now, they haven’t won a Super Bowl yet. They say the same thing about Marty (Schottenheimer), that he hasn’t won a Super Bowl yet. It’s kind of ridiculous in a way. What did it take Bill Cowher? 16 years to win. They’re a good team.”
Q: You were talking about Tony being the guy who wanted you to be a head coach. Why did you not want to be a head coach?
EDWARDS: “My ambitions weren’t to be a head coach, I didn’t have that ambition. My ambition was to be a player and eventually become a secondary coach and just coach my eight or ten guys and not worry about having to make all those decisions. But when I went down there with Tony he said you’ve got to do this. I understood what he meant what I had to do. It was for a lot of reasons and not just for me. It was for the people who were going to follow me.”