Donger
10-02-2007, 01:42 PM
Oct 02, 2007, 2:29:26 PM
HERM EDWARDS: “Our next opponent is one that when you look at them on tape they take on the demeanor of their head coach, Jack Del Rio. They’re very physical on both sides of the football.
They’ve done a great job defensively as far as allowing points. They’ve allowed only 11.3 points a game. Kind of what gets skewed is their first game against Tennessee. Tennessee ran the ball because [the Titans] opened up their formation and the quarterback made a lot of runs. They really have shut down the run and don’t turn the ball over. Their quarterback has only turned it over twice and those have been fumbles and not due to him throwing interceptions.
“They’re keeping the ball about 32 minutes a game. Against Denver I think they actually kept it 38 [minutes.] So they’ve done a great job of staying on the field offensively which rests their defense. Then, in turn, they’re not giving up a lot of points. Last year it was a little bit of a shoot-out game [between Kansas City and Jacksonville]. I don’t anticipate it being in the 30s here [this year], but we’ll see.”
Q: Eddie Kennison’s status right now?
EDWARDS: “Eddie’s is going to practice a little bit more this week. Hopefully, he might be able to participate in the game which would be good for us.”
Q: If Eddie’s in the game where does Dwayne Bowe go?
EDWARDS: “They’ll both be in there at the same time. One of them will be ‘X’ and the other will be ‘Z.’”
Q: Several times you’ve talked about Bowe and how he’s everything you saw at LSU. The difference between seeing him in person and in college and on tape is what?
EDWARDS: “The thing I liked about him the most is he brought energy. I said that when we drafted him. I said he was a big physical guy who will go in who will catch the ball when he is contested in tight coverage. He’ll go across the middle.
“He brings energy. He has that little kid in him when he plays football. He enjoys playing the game. He’s very competitive, very, very competitive and the more he plays the more confidence he’s gaining as a football player. But I just think that every week he shows you a little something different.
“His first game in Houston was one that he was excited, probably too excited. He was playing too fast with his brain and his brain couldn’t keep up with his feet or his hands. Now he’s kind of slowed down and has gotten into the mode where he feels very comfortable playing football. He knows the offense much better now; he’s very relaxed.
“Is he going to catch every ball? Probably not. No receiver does. But he has the ability to make big plays and what I think he’s doing is, and it’s kind of funny because when you have a player like that it makes guys around him want to make big plays. Tony’s [Gonzalez] making big plays; LJ makes the big play at the end of the [San Diego] game which I thought was very important. When you’re on the minus five [yard line] and it’s 3:41 left in the fourth quarter we do this drill all the time that we call ‘hammer time’ where the other team shouldn’t get the ball back with two timeouts out. You have to execute some things. LJ did a good job of pushing the pile and we ended up going from the minus five to the plus 41 and they never got the ball back. Last week in a similar situation against Minnesota we didn’t get it done.
“He brings electricity when he plays, that joy. He always wants the ball. About every other series when the offense comes off I now I’m going to get a tap on my shoulder. It’s generally him and he’s got that big smile on his face. I kind of nod and look at him and say, ‘I know. You’re 7-Eleven. You’re always open. You’ll get the ball. Relax. There’s some other guys we’ve got to get the ball to, too.
“It’s been a treat to deal with him on the sideline because it’s never too big for him. He just wants the ball, to play, to help us win.”
Q: I know for a while he was behind arriving late in camp. Being a rookie and being behind, are you surprised how far he’s come?
EDWARDS: “Two things: we streamlined some things for him, too, as a staff. They’ve done a good job of really simplifying some things for him as well as Webb. That’s the whole key: simplify some things that your good players can get on the field right away. So our staff did that for both of them and every week he’s gaining more knowledge of it.”
Q: He had kind of a rough first day at camp, if you recall, and he dropped a couple of passes. The media was out there and took note of it. Do you remember that day and did you talk to him?
EDWARDS: “Talked to him that whole first week of mini-camp and just said, ‘you’re trying way too hard. You’re a good player and that’s why we drafted you. You just need to relax and have some fun. Stop trying so hard.’
“The second practice you could see he got into a flow. He was really good in the spring and you could just see that he was going to be the player he is going to be. Then he missed [training] camp and again he goes backwards. It’s no fault of anybody. The thing is when rookie players miss camp they don’t come around as fast. Now, he’s an exception. He’s come around pretty fast for missing that much time in camp and not playing a whole lot in the pre-season. All of a sudden in the second game he started.”
Q: When you get Eddie back that’s sort of exciting isn’t it, to have those two guys on the field at the same time?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, because Eddie’s a playmaker. He’s been a playmaker and even though he’s a veteran guy he still has good legs, he can still run. He’s helped Bowe a lot too – how to study. He’s kind of taken all those guys under his wing - those two young guys and Sippio, too. He’s done a good job of mentoring those guys.”
Q: Put yourself in Damon Huard’s spot now. You’ve got [Kennison]; you’ve got Bowe and you’ve got Tony [Gonzalez]. What does that open up?
EDWARDS: “It helps you offensively when you have a three-prong offense, in my opinion. You’ve got three guys who can make plays for you when they touch the ball. Now, it’s just a matter of orchestrating how we get them the ball.
“The whole key with us is we have to be in rhythm offensively and not go three-and-out. That’s the whole key – when you can get drives going. We had some drives [vs. San Diego]. Then you can see it all come together. You can see the offense clicking. When you go three-and-out it’s very difficult to call plays - when you penalize yourself, too. We were very good this week with penalties and only had four.
“If we can continue to play offense like that you have the ability to score and if your defense can continue to not to let them score a lot of points you’re going to be in the game. That’s what we said earlier. We always have a chance to be in the football game if we don’t allow them points and our defense has done a pretty good job in the Red Zone in not allowing a lot of touchdowns.”
Q: You’ve reached the quarter point of the season. Can you put in capsule where your team is?
EDWARDS: “What we’ve done well in the first quarter is we’ve survived it. We survived the mess we got into. We got into that wreck again but we had our seatbelts on. We got out of the car and took it to the auto shop and knocked out the dents.
“Now, we’re at .500, but that’s not where I anticipated us to be. I thought we were going to be a little bit better than that, to be quite honest. We started off slow.
“To the coaches and players’ credit they have had great perseverance. They have great character because they want to win. That game that we played last week was one we had to win. There was no doubt about it. We talked about it and it was a road game, a division game and we hadn’t beaten the Chargers out there in a long time. They were sitting like we were sitting and the first half it was one of those deals where we weathered the storm. I always say there are storms in games you have to weather. Then in the second half we made some plays to win the game.
“So, I think offensively we’ve gotten better from the Minnesota game in the third quarter to this third quarter in this game. When you look at it we’re minus 27 in points scored down in the first half and the second half we’re plus 27. Obviously, my pre-game speech going out is not very good. My halftime speech is probably a little bit better.
“We have to get off to faster starts. Now we’ve had some horrendous field position on offense. When you look at how we start games I don’t think we’ve started a game past the 30 [yard line] yet. Seems like we’re always in the minus territory – minus 20 or minus 15. Then you go three-and-out and you end up punting and you give the opposition a short field. A couple of those occasions we’ve given offenses a short field because we haven’t gotten the ball out.
“Our kickoff return is not very good right now. We’re not even crossing the 20 sometimes. We’ve got to do a better job because field position has been bad, so at least we have to get the ball around the 28, the average start in the league. We’re not even that. We’re at the 21. You can’t keep doing that because if at least you don’t make a first down you move it nine yards and you punt and you give the other team a long field to play on. Our defense has done a pretty good job of not letting too many drives get away.
“Defensively, we have to be better with our run fits. We weren’t very good in the first half against San Diego. We were guessing too much. That allowed some positive yards for them. Thought for the second half we did a better job.
“But we’re far, far away from being the team I anticipated us to be. But that’s why you practice and play.”
Q: Do you attribute the problems on defense to field position too?
EDWARDS: “Field position and I think five new starters [on defense.] Guys are guessing a little bit, especially at the linebacker position and some of the D-linemen are just trying to do too much. If we can get our gaps cleaned up we can play the run a little better.”
Q: What about pass defense; what about secondary play?
EDWARDS: “Been OK. It’s been decent. Stats are stats; you can make them look anyway you want. That’s what’s great about stats. You can flip and turn them and make them look positive, negative or however you want.
“If you look at total defense and say the Chiefs are third in the league everybody would laugh. That’s a credit to those guys and they’ve done a pretty good job of staying in games. They keep improving. Offensively, we’ve been so far down it’s going to be very hard to rise that fast. But I think if we can continue to do what we did in the third quarter last week we can have a productive offense.”
Q: Bowe has kind of been the feel-good story on the offensive side this season. Has Derrick Johnson your feel-good story on the defense?
EDWARDS: “He’s improving. He’s improving. He’s made more improvement at this time than he did last year at this time. But he’s still got a lot of improving to do. I expect a lot out of him. If you’re picked that high and you have that much God-given talent, for a guy to have only one interception that’s shocking. Now, he’s a worker and wants to be one of the better players in the league. We’ve got to continue to help him because he can be one of those players who can change a game.”
Q: Do you have guard against a let-down on Sunday now that you’re 2-2?
EDWARDS: “We know where we’re at. One thing you can count on us over the last four games: we’re behind. We’re always behind. We’ve been in that tunnel for too long. It’s been very dark for the last couple of weeks. From last year’s playoff game to this year we hadn’t won a game in a long time. So that tunnel was very, very dark.
“But it always goes back to what I believe: the biggest distractions in life are what other people say about you, not what you think about yourself. If you fall into that trap all of a sudden you lose sight of that objective and the objective is to get better. The way we did it in the pre-season a lot of people didn’t understand what we were trying to do. But it wasn’t for them to understand. It was our objective how we were going to treat the pre-season.
“We were victims of our own…we played the Chiefs too many times along with the opponent. We turned the ball over, were horrendous on fouls, we couldn’t make first downs. We were bad. We couldn’t get out of our own way. We kept improving and kept doing what we do. We didn’t change. We didn’t panic. Now, we’re at 2-2 and it’s OK but it’s where we were last year at this time. We’re kind of on the same pace as last year, but we’ve got to get a lot better if we’re going to be in the race.”
Q: But knowing you can come back like you have…how long can you live on the edge like you’ve been down in the first half?
EDWARDS: “I look at it this way: you keep your poise and you don’t panic. You just know if you keep playing something good is going to happen. That’s what we talked about at halftime [in San Diego]. When we went in at halftime I told the team, believe it or not, ‘you’re doing great.’ They all looked at me like…but I told them to a man, ‘you guys are playing good. We’re fine.’ I think they trust me enough that when I tell them something they know I’m telling them the truth. I saw too many little things if we corrected that we’d be OK. That’s how they took it and then in the second half we made some plays.”
Q: Are they getting their patience from you?
EDWARDS: “I think that now they’ve been with me for a second year. Now, rookies have no idea. We have so many young players they just don’t know how to figure me out yet. But veteran guys understand, I think, understanding he’s pretty calm now and doesn’t get worked up. Now when I do get worked up they know it’s kind of important. I think they know I’m going to be focused and am going to tell them what they have to do to get it turned around and win the game.
“I feel good that they know where I’m coming from. What we talked about on [last] Saturday night was our ability to adjust. I knew we were going to have to make adjustments. Going into a game like this you’re going to have to adjust. We’re going to have to adjust on the boundary and inside at halftime. So, that was the seed that was planted and it was exactly what happened. We did some thing offensively and defensively that we adjusted.
“They understand that’s my personality and when things are going crazy and everyone is hollering I don’t want to hear any of it. I’ve got an objective and the objective is to win. Well, how do you win? Well, if you do these things correctly and you get them adjusted you have a chance to win the game.
“The key to it is if you don’t panic, first of all as coaches, and get out of your game plan – you adjust some things – and stick to what you worked on all week, don’t throw it out the window but adjust it, then the players have to buy into it.”
Q: Then why don’t you do that in the first half?
EDWARDS: “A lot of it has to do when you look at us on opening drives we’ve had some bad field position. We’ve had some bad field position. All of a sudden you don’t make a first down and that’s what kills you. The first drive you don’t make a first down and you punt and you say, ‘here we go.’
“When you do that over and over – and we’ve done it repeatedly – all of a sudden you get that…. We did that again but we got out of our way [in San Diego]. I thought the Minnesota game helped us ‘cause we were down and came back.”
Q: Are you looking for a change at kick returner?
EDWARDS: “No, we’ve got to block it better. We’re not blocking it very well. We’re going to do some things different. Every time I turned around San Diego was hitting us on the 15 yard line. We couldn’t even get it back to the 20-yard line. You’ve got to be better than that.”
Q: Update on Turley?
EDWARDS: “Sore ankle. I think he should be ok.”
Q: Were you happy with Terry?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, Chris did a good job.”
Q: Have you seen any openings running the ball now with the passing game doing so well.
EDWARDS: “Some of it has to do with finishing and some of it has to do with being patient and staying with it. We’ve played some pretty good defenses, too. We’ve played Chicago, we’ve played Minnesota; we’ve played San Diego; now we’re playing [Jacksonville].”
Q: Talking to Larry Johnson, is he getting frustrated at all?
EDWARDS: “Probably, but he got a 100 yards. He did good and had 25 carries and that’s good. He knows we’re playing against good defenses. Unless you make a big run against a good defense it’s going to be hard making a lot of yards. But we have to make more 10-yard plays. We haven’t made a lot of 10-yard runs like we did last year. That’s how you get that yardage.”
Q: Can you talk about your comfort level with your kicker?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he’s kind of the unsung hero. He actually won the game ball this week. He made three field goals and been very good and has kicked the ball in the end zone. Our kickoff coverage units have been good and our punt return except for the one [in Chicago] has been pretty good. But we just haven’t returned the ball well on kickoffs. On punts, the punt return has been pretty good and the punter’s been good. The field goal kicker’s been very good.”
Q: The two teams you play next are coming off byes so what’s the benefit to having this week off?
EDWARDS: “The best thing it does is if you have players injured it rests them. Now, the bye can work either way. Sometimes it throws your timing off.”
Q: As opposed to having a let-down, can the opposite happen?
EDWARDS: “I would hope we would gain some confidence in this and keep going. I hope we’re not over confident. There is a lot of humble pie out there in this world and there is a slice that everyone can put in their mouths. We haven’t done anything. We’re just 2-2 and struggling.’
Q: But you see that happen when you look back, a win can suddenly put a team over the top.
EDWARDS: “That’s what happened to us last year against the 49ers. We got going and got a roll going and then went to Pittsburgh and it was, well, ugly.”
Q: What’s the difference in the psyche of a team when they see its kicker going out there and knocking them through?
EDWARDS: “It gives you confidence especially defensively because that’s who suffers if the guy misses, especially if it’s a long one. When you’re kicking the 49 and 45 yarders it goes to where the ball is being placed and the opponent has good field position all of a sudden with a 60-yard field.
“I always call up to [defensive coordinator] Gun [Cunningham] when we’re going to go for it. He knows if we miss it the ball goes maybe to the 50. A little of it has to do with the team you’re playing offensively and how you feel about your defense.
“A lot of times that’s the decision you have to make as a head coach: what offense am I playing against? It’s no different than when you go for it on fourth-and-one. Who is the offense? Who is the quarterback? If I give these guys a 50-yard field because I miss this field goal did I just put my team in a bad position? Now, sometimes you have to do that because the game dictates it. But the first thing is I tell the coordinator what I’m thinking.”
HERM EDWARDS: “Our next opponent is one that when you look at them on tape they take on the demeanor of their head coach, Jack Del Rio. They’re very physical on both sides of the football.
They’ve done a great job defensively as far as allowing points. They’ve allowed only 11.3 points a game. Kind of what gets skewed is their first game against Tennessee. Tennessee ran the ball because [the Titans] opened up their formation and the quarterback made a lot of runs. They really have shut down the run and don’t turn the ball over. Their quarterback has only turned it over twice and those have been fumbles and not due to him throwing interceptions.
“They’re keeping the ball about 32 minutes a game. Against Denver I think they actually kept it 38 [minutes.] So they’ve done a great job of staying on the field offensively which rests their defense. Then, in turn, they’re not giving up a lot of points. Last year it was a little bit of a shoot-out game [between Kansas City and Jacksonville]. I don’t anticipate it being in the 30s here [this year], but we’ll see.”
Q: Eddie Kennison’s status right now?
EDWARDS: “Eddie’s is going to practice a little bit more this week. Hopefully, he might be able to participate in the game which would be good for us.”
Q: If Eddie’s in the game where does Dwayne Bowe go?
EDWARDS: “They’ll both be in there at the same time. One of them will be ‘X’ and the other will be ‘Z.’”
Q: Several times you’ve talked about Bowe and how he’s everything you saw at LSU. The difference between seeing him in person and in college and on tape is what?
EDWARDS: “The thing I liked about him the most is he brought energy. I said that when we drafted him. I said he was a big physical guy who will go in who will catch the ball when he is contested in tight coverage. He’ll go across the middle.
“He brings energy. He has that little kid in him when he plays football. He enjoys playing the game. He’s very competitive, very, very competitive and the more he plays the more confidence he’s gaining as a football player. But I just think that every week he shows you a little something different.
“His first game in Houston was one that he was excited, probably too excited. He was playing too fast with his brain and his brain couldn’t keep up with his feet or his hands. Now he’s kind of slowed down and has gotten into the mode where he feels very comfortable playing football. He knows the offense much better now; he’s very relaxed.
“Is he going to catch every ball? Probably not. No receiver does. But he has the ability to make big plays and what I think he’s doing is, and it’s kind of funny because when you have a player like that it makes guys around him want to make big plays. Tony’s [Gonzalez] making big plays; LJ makes the big play at the end of the [San Diego] game which I thought was very important. When you’re on the minus five [yard line] and it’s 3:41 left in the fourth quarter we do this drill all the time that we call ‘hammer time’ where the other team shouldn’t get the ball back with two timeouts out. You have to execute some things. LJ did a good job of pushing the pile and we ended up going from the minus five to the plus 41 and they never got the ball back. Last week in a similar situation against Minnesota we didn’t get it done.
“He brings electricity when he plays, that joy. He always wants the ball. About every other series when the offense comes off I now I’m going to get a tap on my shoulder. It’s generally him and he’s got that big smile on his face. I kind of nod and look at him and say, ‘I know. You’re 7-Eleven. You’re always open. You’ll get the ball. Relax. There’s some other guys we’ve got to get the ball to, too.
“It’s been a treat to deal with him on the sideline because it’s never too big for him. He just wants the ball, to play, to help us win.”
Q: I know for a while he was behind arriving late in camp. Being a rookie and being behind, are you surprised how far he’s come?
EDWARDS: “Two things: we streamlined some things for him, too, as a staff. They’ve done a good job of really simplifying some things for him as well as Webb. That’s the whole key: simplify some things that your good players can get on the field right away. So our staff did that for both of them and every week he’s gaining more knowledge of it.”
Q: He had kind of a rough first day at camp, if you recall, and he dropped a couple of passes. The media was out there and took note of it. Do you remember that day and did you talk to him?
EDWARDS: “Talked to him that whole first week of mini-camp and just said, ‘you’re trying way too hard. You’re a good player and that’s why we drafted you. You just need to relax and have some fun. Stop trying so hard.’
“The second practice you could see he got into a flow. He was really good in the spring and you could just see that he was going to be the player he is going to be. Then he missed [training] camp and again he goes backwards. It’s no fault of anybody. The thing is when rookie players miss camp they don’t come around as fast. Now, he’s an exception. He’s come around pretty fast for missing that much time in camp and not playing a whole lot in the pre-season. All of a sudden in the second game he started.”
Q: When you get Eddie back that’s sort of exciting isn’t it, to have those two guys on the field at the same time?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, because Eddie’s a playmaker. He’s been a playmaker and even though he’s a veteran guy he still has good legs, he can still run. He’s helped Bowe a lot too – how to study. He’s kind of taken all those guys under his wing - those two young guys and Sippio, too. He’s done a good job of mentoring those guys.”
Q: Put yourself in Damon Huard’s spot now. You’ve got [Kennison]; you’ve got Bowe and you’ve got Tony [Gonzalez]. What does that open up?
EDWARDS: “It helps you offensively when you have a three-prong offense, in my opinion. You’ve got three guys who can make plays for you when they touch the ball. Now, it’s just a matter of orchestrating how we get them the ball.
“The whole key with us is we have to be in rhythm offensively and not go three-and-out. That’s the whole key – when you can get drives going. We had some drives [vs. San Diego]. Then you can see it all come together. You can see the offense clicking. When you go three-and-out it’s very difficult to call plays - when you penalize yourself, too. We were very good this week with penalties and only had four.
“If we can continue to play offense like that you have the ability to score and if your defense can continue to not to let them score a lot of points you’re going to be in the game. That’s what we said earlier. We always have a chance to be in the football game if we don’t allow them points and our defense has done a pretty good job in the Red Zone in not allowing a lot of touchdowns.”
Q: You’ve reached the quarter point of the season. Can you put in capsule where your team is?
EDWARDS: “What we’ve done well in the first quarter is we’ve survived it. We survived the mess we got into. We got into that wreck again but we had our seatbelts on. We got out of the car and took it to the auto shop and knocked out the dents.
“Now, we’re at .500, but that’s not where I anticipated us to be. I thought we were going to be a little bit better than that, to be quite honest. We started off slow.
“To the coaches and players’ credit they have had great perseverance. They have great character because they want to win. That game that we played last week was one we had to win. There was no doubt about it. We talked about it and it was a road game, a division game and we hadn’t beaten the Chargers out there in a long time. They were sitting like we were sitting and the first half it was one of those deals where we weathered the storm. I always say there are storms in games you have to weather. Then in the second half we made some plays to win the game.
“So, I think offensively we’ve gotten better from the Minnesota game in the third quarter to this third quarter in this game. When you look at it we’re minus 27 in points scored down in the first half and the second half we’re plus 27. Obviously, my pre-game speech going out is not very good. My halftime speech is probably a little bit better.
“We have to get off to faster starts. Now we’ve had some horrendous field position on offense. When you look at how we start games I don’t think we’ve started a game past the 30 [yard line] yet. Seems like we’re always in the minus territory – minus 20 or minus 15. Then you go three-and-out and you end up punting and you give the opposition a short field. A couple of those occasions we’ve given offenses a short field because we haven’t gotten the ball out.
“Our kickoff return is not very good right now. We’re not even crossing the 20 sometimes. We’ve got to do a better job because field position has been bad, so at least we have to get the ball around the 28, the average start in the league. We’re not even that. We’re at the 21. You can’t keep doing that because if at least you don’t make a first down you move it nine yards and you punt and you give the other team a long field to play on. Our defense has done a pretty good job of not letting too many drives get away.
“Defensively, we have to be better with our run fits. We weren’t very good in the first half against San Diego. We were guessing too much. That allowed some positive yards for them. Thought for the second half we did a better job.
“But we’re far, far away from being the team I anticipated us to be. But that’s why you practice and play.”
Q: Do you attribute the problems on defense to field position too?
EDWARDS: “Field position and I think five new starters [on defense.] Guys are guessing a little bit, especially at the linebacker position and some of the D-linemen are just trying to do too much. If we can get our gaps cleaned up we can play the run a little better.”
Q: What about pass defense; what about secondary play?
EDWARDS: “Been OK. It’s been decent. Stats are stats; you can make them look anyway you want. That’s what’s great about stats. You can flip and turn them and make them look positive, negative or however you want.
“If you look at total defense and say the Chiefs are third in the league everybody would laugh. That’s a credit to those guys and they’ve done a pretty good job of staying in games. They keep improving. Offensively, we’ve been so far down it’s going to be very hard to rise that fast. But I think if we can continue to do what we did in the third quarter last week we can have a productive offense.”
Q: Bowe has kind of been the feel-good story on the offensive side this season. Has Derrick Johnson your feel-good story on the defense?
EDWARDS: “He’s improving. He’s improving. He’s made more improvement at this time than he did last year at this time. But he’s still got a lot of improving to do. I expect a lot out of him. If you’re picked that high and you have that much God-given talent, for a guy to have only one interception that’s shocking. Now, he’s a worker and wants to be one of the better players in the league. We’ve got to continue to help him because he can be one of those players who can change a game.”
Q: Do you have guard against a let-down on Sunday now that you’re 2-2?
EDWARDS: “We know where we’re at. One thing you can count on us over the last four games: we’re behind. We’re always behind. We’ve been in that tunnel for too long. It’s been very dark for the last couple of weeks. From last year’s playoff game to this year we hadn’t won a game in a long time. So that tunnel was very, very dark.
“But it always goes back to what I believe: the biggest distractions in life are what other people say about you, not what you think about yourself. If you fall into that trap all of a sudden you lose sight of that objective and the objective is to get better. The way we did it in the pre-season a lot of people didn’t understand what we were trying to do. But it wasn’t for them to understand. It was our objective how we were going to treat the pre-season.
“We were victims of our own…we played the Chiefs too many times along with the opponent. We turned the ball over, were horrendous on fouls, we couldn’t make first downs. We were bad. We couldn’t get out of our own way. We kept improving and kept doing what we do. We didn’t change. We didn’t panic. Now, we’re at 2-2 and it’s OK but it’s where we were last year at this time. We’re kind of on the same pace as last year, but we’ve got to get a lot better if we’re going to be in the race.”
Q: But knowing you can come back like you have…how long can you live on the edge like you’ve been down in the first half?
EDWARDS: “I look at it this way: you keep your poise and you don’t panic. You just know if you keep playing something good is going to happen. That’s what we talked about at halftime [in San Diego]. When we went in at halftime I told the team, believe it or not, ‘you’re doing great.’ They all looked at me like…but I told them to a man, ‘you guys are playing good. We’re fine.’ I think they trust me enough that when I tell them something they know I’m telling them the truth. I saw too many little things if we corrected that we’d be OK. That’s how they took it and then in the second half we made some plays.”
Q: Are they getting their patience from you?
EDWARDS: “I think that now they’ve been with me for a second year. Now, rookies have no idea. We have so many young players they just don’t know how to figure me out yet. But veteran guys understand, I think, understanding he’s pretty calm now and doesn’t get worked up. Now when I do get worked up they know it’s kind of important. I think they know I’m going to be focused and am going to tell them what they have to do to get it turned around and win the game.
“I feel good that they know where I’m coming from. What we talked about on [last] Saturday night was our ability to adjust. I knew we were going to have to make adjustments. Going into a game like this you’re going to have to adjust. We’re going to have to adjust on the boundary and inside at halftime. So, that was the seed that was planted and it was exactly what happened. We did some thing offensively and defensively that we adjusted.
“They understand that’s my personality and when things are going crazy and everyone is hollering I don’t want to hear any of it. I’ve got an objective and the objective is to win. Well, how do you win? Well, if you do these things correctly and you get them adjusted you have a chance to win the game.
“The key to it is if you don’t panic, first of all as coaches, and get out of your game plan – you adjust some things – and stick to what you worked on all week, don’t throw it out the window but adjust it, then the players have to buy into it.”
Q: Then why don’t you do that in the first half?
EDWARDS: “A lot of it has to do when you look at us on opening drives we’ve had some bad field position. We’ve had some bad field position. All of a sudden you don’t make a first down and that’s what kills you. The first drive you don’t make a first down and you punt and you say, ‘here we go.’
“When you do that over and over – and we’ve done it repeatedly – all of a sudden you get that…. We did that again but we got out of our way [in San Diego]. I thought the Minnesota game helped us ‘cause we were down and came back.”
Q: Are you looking for a change at kick returner?
EDWARDS: “No, we’ve got to block it better. We’re not blocking it very well. We’re going to do some things different. Every time I turned around San Diego was hitting us on the 15 yard line. We couldn’t even get it back to the 20-yard line. You’ve got to be better than that.”
Q: Update on Turley?
EDWARDS: “Sore ankle. I think he should be ok.”
Q: Were you happy with Terry?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, Chris did a good job.”
Q: Have you seen any openings running the ball now with the passing game doing so well.
EDWARDS: “Some of it has to do with finishing and some of it has to do with being patient and staying with it. We’ve played some pretty good defenses, too. We’ve played Chicago, we’ve played Minnesota; we’ve played San Diego; now we’re playing [Jacksonville].”
Q: Talking to Larry Johnson, is he getting frustrated at all?
EDWARDS: “Probably, but he got a 100 yards. He did good and had 25 carries and that’s good. He knows we’re playing against good defenses. Unless you make a big run against a good defense it’s going to be hard making a lot of yards. But we have to make more 10-yard plays. We haven’t made a lot of 10-yard runs like we did last year. That’s how you get that yardage.”
Q: Can you talk about your comfort level with your kicker?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he’s kind of the unsung hero. He actually won the game ball this week. He made three field goals and been very good and has kicked the ball in the end zone. Our kickoff coverage units have been good and our punt return except for the one [in Chicago] has been pretty good. But we just haven’t returned the ball well on kickoffs. On punts, the punt return has been pretty good and the punter’s been good. The field goal kicker’s been very good.”
Q: The two teams you play next are coming off byes so what’s the benefit to having this week off?
EDWARDS: “The best thing it does is if you have players injured it rests them. Now, the bye can work either way. Sometimes it throws your timing off.”
Q: As opposed to having a let-down, can the opposite happen?
EDWARDS: “I would hope we would gain some confidence in this and keep going. I hope we’re not over confident. There is a lot of humble pie out there in this world and there is a slice that everyone can put in their mouths. We haven’t done anything. We’re just 2-2 and struggling.’
Q: But you see that happen when you look back, a win can suddenly put a team over the top.
EDWARDS: “That’s what happened to us last year against the 49ers. We got going and got a roll going and then went to Pittsburgh and it was, well, ugly.”
Q: What’s the difference in the psyche of a team when they see its kicker going out there and knocking them through?
EDWARDS: “It gives you confidence especially defensively because that’s who suffers if the guy misses, especially if it’s a long one. When you’re kicking the 49 and 45 yarders it goes to where the ball is being placed and the opponent has good field position all of a sudden with a 60-yard field.
“I always call up to [defensive coordinator] Gun [Cunningham] when we’re going to go for it. He knows if we miss it the ball goes maybe to the 50. A little of it has to do with the team you’re playing offensively and how you feel about your defense.
“A lot of times that’s the decision you have to make as a head coach: what offense am I playing against? It’s no different than when you go for it on fourth-and-one. Who is the offense? Who is the quarterback? If I give these guys a 50-yard field because I miss this field goal did I just put my team in a bad position? Now, sometimes you have to do that because the game dictates it. But the first thing is I tell the coordinator what I’m thinking.”