Hammock Parties
10-29-2007, 05:32 PM
http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2007/10/29/qa_with_herm_edwards__1029/
HERM EDWARDS: “Everybody made it back safe and sound. Nobody on SportsCenter. I thought the rest did us good and did the coaches a lot of good, too. We evaluated ourselves and some things we’re going to try to do a better job with for the players.
“They’re excited about being back. That’s the thing you learn when you give them some time off. They get to reflect on where you’re at as a player, where your season is at. There are nine games left in the regular season and from there is another season and that’s the one you’d like to be involved in.
“But when you’re away from you miss it. They miss being around each other.”
Q: Did Eddie Kennison do anything but individual stuff today?
EDWARDS: “Basically, after individual [period] we broke it up it up into teams but it was all the young guys. It was the practice squad guys and the guys that don’t play a lot, the guys that don’t dress. We actually had like an OTA while the other guys ran ‘cause I wanted to see the young guys that don’t participate a lot run our offense and run our defense. Thigpen was our quarterback.”
Q: Does Kennison stand a reasonable shot of playing this weekend?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he moved around pretty good. We’ll see what happens.”
Q: What about Damon Huard? Did you give him another day off?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he needs it. He’s thrown the ball enough in his lifetime. He’s resting, basically.”
Q: What do you have to do differently this next half of the season?
EDWARDS: “Offensively, the first thing you look at is points. The second thing you look at is first downs, then negative plays, converting third downs, the Red Zone. Defensively, we look at opening drives. We haven’t been very good at opening drives. Taking the ball away more. We have to take the ball away more if we’re going to be more productive on offense. When we score in the 20s generally we take the ball away more than one time. We have to take it away more.
“Our kick return game and kicking game have to improve some. Our returner is our returner but we’ve got to do a better job for the guy to create some better field position.
“There is a lot we have to look at because you’re not changing players; you’re not changing coaches. That’s what it is. You have to find ways to improve what you’re asking them to do, maybe show them a different way how to do it. But I think there are some more things defined now. It’s good when you can go back and look over the last seven games and discover these are the things you get stuck at.
“When you go through the season you never get a chance to look at the earlier ones. I kind of look at the whole deal as we’re going and when the bye week comes I already know there are things we have to correct, talk about.”
Q: Do you feel that you have to do a better job of coaching?
EDWARDS: “I think the head coach’s job is to understand how he is to communicate what he wants done. That’s probably the most important thing. You have to be a good communicator because you delegate a lot of things you do. I can’t be everywhere. Everyone has to have the same message and I have to make sure everyone’s saying the same thing: whether it be the coordinator, to the position coach to the player. It starts with me. It starts with my communication of what I want done and how I want it done and how we go about getting it done. From there you rely on the people you hire.”
Q: When you think about Green Bay you think about Favre, but this team’s pretty good on defense
EDWARDS: “They are a good defense. They’re very good against the run. They play a lot of man-to-man and one of their corners is actually one of my guys: Al Harris. I had him in Tampa. He was a free agent. They play very aggressive on defense.
“The quarterback is a Hall of Fame guy. In Tampa we used to go against him twice a year and he’s fun to compete against. He’s having a great year and I think it’s great for Green Bay but it’s better for the National Football League for a guy of his stature to play the way he’s playing at this point in his career. He is fun to watch. The problem is he can make a lot of great plays with his arm. They throw the ball and they are going to throw it a lot. They’re scoring about 23 points a game or something like that. Their defense is so hard to make big plays on because they play tight man-to-man.”
Q: Under perfect conditions, how many times would you like to see Priest handle the ball?
EDWARDS: “I would say probably 10 times or 12 times in the course of a football game. That’s with the offense getting about 65 plays. There are other guys that have to touch the football. Larry is going to have to touch the ball around about at least 30 times. Gonzalez needs to touch the ball, Dwayne Bowe needs to touch the ball. You only have so many possessions and so many ways to get them the ball. If you can get them all going you can have a pretty potent offense.”
Q: Going back to what you said a while ago. You said it’s your job to make sure that you’re getting what you want. Have you been satisfied with that part of it after the first seven games?
EDWARDS: “We didn’t start out the way I would have liked. We got ourselves into a hole. Lot of reasons for that. Not just one reason. But I think if you sit and evaluate where we’ve come from winning four out of five it’s OK. We’ve done some things correctly but we’ve got to do some things better. That’s what we talked about during the bye and the coaches know exactly what I discussed with them and how I laid it out.”
Q: You said you were going to stay at home this past bye. What did you do?
EDWARDS: “Watched all the tapes.”
Q: You watch any games yesterday?
EDWARDS: “No, not really. I get more of a feel for the players [looking at tapes]. I look at individual players and see how they’re playing [on tape]. See, the coaches have graded all the players and every four games there is a report card for players to know where they’re at. Seven games now and coaches tell the players what level they’re playing at: Pro Bowl level, not playing at a Pro Bowl level and so on.”
Q: You’re not going to tell us the grades but do you have more passing grades?
EDWARDS: “Some guys you’re pleasantly surprised, some guys you’re a little bit disappointed in because of the fact you know they can play better. How can you help them play better? That’s the whole key. It’s not about degrading guys and embarrassing guys. It’s more of it’s this is where this guy is and how can we help this player play better.
“For some of the young guys it’s this guy is playing pretty good, so how can we help him playing that way? The one thing you can’t do is underachieve with your talent. I think you always have to try and overachieve with your talent. Everybody has different talent levels but at the end your job as a coach is to make the guy overachieve. Make every player overachieve his ability. That’s all you ask a guy to do.
“We’ve got some guys that are doing good, but it kind of goes in groups. It’s like anything else. You can be playing good and your group is not, guess what? It spills over on your plate too. Individually, there are some guys playing OK, some guys playing fairly well, and some guys playing not up to their ability. We’ve got to get them playing better.”
Q: Which groups are playing better?
EDWARDS: “I’m not going to mention who and who is not. That’s up to the staff and me. I’m not divulging any groups.”
Q: Without mentioning any names did you come upon any surprises?
EDWARDS: “There have been a few guys but I’m not going to mention them.”
Q: Were there any big negatives?
EDWARDS: “There are some guys you expect more out of, and you wonder why they’re not playing up to their ability. Then you have to ask: are you asking this guy to do something that he’s not capable of doing? That’s the whole key. I always put it back on coaches. You always put it back on the coach: this guy is underachieving. Why? If you’re asking them to do something he can’t do you have to eliminate that.
“We’re in charge of trying to get them to play better. Sometimes players get it twisted. I think sometimes players think the coach doesn’t want him to play good. I always tell players that’s not our job. Our job is to make you a better player. We want you to be successful because if you’re successful we feel good when you are successful.”
Q: Are you going to watch the Green Bay-Denver game?
EDWARDS: “I will watch that one because we play both those guys [over the next two weeks.]
HERM EDWARDS: “Everybody made it back safe and sound. Nobody on SportsCenter. I thought the rest did us good and did the coaches a lot of good, too. We evaluated ourselves and some things we’re going to try to do a better job with for the players.
“They’re excited about being back. That’s the thing you learn when you give them some time off. They get to reflect on where you’re at as a player, where your season is at. There are nine games left in the regular season and from there is another season and that’s the one you’d like to be involved in.
“But when you’re away from you miss it. They miss being around each other.”
Q: Did Eddie Kennison do anything but individual stuff today?
EDWARDS: “Basically, after individual [period] we broke it up it up into teams but it was all the young guys. It was the practice squad guys and the guys that don’t play a lot, the guys that don’t dress. We actually had like an OTA while the other guys ran ‘cause I wanted to see the young guys that don’t participate a lot run our offense and run our defense. Thigpen was our quarterback.”
Q: Does Kennison stand a reasonable shot of playing this weekend?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he moved around pretty good. We’ll see what happens.”
Q: What about Damon Huard? Did you give him another day off?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, he needs it. He’s thrown the ball enough in his lifetime. He’s resting, basically.”
Q: What do you have to do differently this next half of the season?
EDWARDS: “Offensively, the first thing you look at is points. The second thing you look at is first downs, then negative plays, converting third downs, the Red Zone. Defensively, we look at opening drives. We haven’t been very good at opening drives. Taking the ball away more. We have to take the ball away more if we’re going to be more productive on offense. When we score in the 20s generally we take the ball away more than one time. We have to take it away more.
“Our kick return game and kicking game have to improve some. Our returner is our returner but we’ve got to do a better job for the guy to create some better field position.
“There is a lot we have to look at because you’re not changing players; you’re not changing coaches. That’s what it is. You have to find ways to improve what you’re asking them to do, maybe show them a different way how to do it. But I think there are some more things defined now. It’s good when you can go back and look over the last seven games and discover these are the things you get stuck at.
“When you go through the season you never get a chance to look at the earlier ones. I kind of look at the whole deal as we’re going and when the bye week comes I already know there are things we have to correct, talk about.”
Q: Do you feel that you have to do a better job of coaching?
EDWARDS: “I think the head coach’s job is to understand how he is to communicate what he wants done. That’s probably the most important thing. You have to be a good communicator because you delegate a lot of things you do. I can’t be everywhere. Everyone has to have the same message and I have to make sure everyone’s saying the same thing: whether it be the coordinator, to the position coach to the player. It starts with me. It starts with my communication of what I want done and how I want it done and how we go about getting it done. From there you rely on the people you hire.”
Q: When you think about Green Bay you think about Favre, but this team’s pretty good on defense
EDWARDS: “They are a good defense. They’re very good against the run. They play a lot of man-to-man and one of their corners is actually one of my guys: Al Harris. I had him in Tampa. He was a free agent. They play very aggressive on defense.
“The quarterback is a Hall of Fame guy. In Tampa we used to go against him twice a year and he’s fun to compete against. He’s having a great year and I think it’s great for Green Bay but it’s better for the National Football League for a guy of his stature to play the way he’s playing at this point in his career. He is fun to watch. The problem is he can make a lot of great plays with his arm. They throw the ball and they are going to throw it a lot. They’re scoring about 23 points a game or something like that. Their defense is so hard to make big plays on because they play tight man-to-man.”
Q: Under perfect conditions, how many times would you like to see Priest handle the ball?
EDWARDS: “I would say probably 10 times or 12 times in the course of a football game. That’s with the offense getting about 65 plays. There are other guys that have to touch the football. Larry is going to have to touch the ball around about at least 30 times. Gonzalez needs to touch the ball, Dwayne Bowe needs to touch the ball. You only have so many possessions and so many ways to get them the ball. If you can get them all going you can have a pretty potent offense.”
Q: Going back to what you said a while ago. You said it’s your job to make sure that you’re getting what you want. Have you been satisfied with that part of it after the first seven games?
EDWARDS: “We didn’t start out the way I would have liked. We got ourselves into a hole. Lot of reasons for that. Not just one reason. But I think if you sit and evaluate where we’ve come from winning four out of five it’s OK. We’ve done some things correctly but we’ve got to do some things better. That’s what we talked about during the bye and the coaches know exactly what I discussed with them and how I laid it out.”
Q: You said you were going to stay at home this past bye. What did you do?
EDWARDS: “Watched all the tapes.”
Q: You watch any games yesterday?
EDWARDS: “No, not really. I get more of a feel for the players [looking at tapes]. I look at individual players and see how they’re playing [on tape]. See, the coaches have graded all the players and every four games there is a report card for players to know where they’re at. Seven games now and coaches tell the players what level they’re playing at: Pro Bowl level, not playing at a Pro Bowl level and so on.”
Q: You’re not going to tell us the grades but do you have more passing grades?
EDWARDS: “Some guys you’re pleasantly surprised, some guys you’re a little bit disappointed in because of the fact you know they can play better. How can you help them play better? That’s the whole key. It’s not about degrading guys and embarrassing guys. It’s more of it’s this is where this guy is and how can we help this player play better.
“For some of the young guys it’s this guy is playing pretty good, so how can we help him playing that way? The one thing you can’t do is underachieve with your talent. I think you always have to try and overachieve with your talent. Everybody has different talent levels but at the end your job as a coach is to make the guy overachieve. Make every player overachieve his ability. That’s all you ask a guy to do.
“We’ve got some guys that are doing good, but it kind of goes in groups. It’s like anything else. You can be playing good and your group is not, guess what? It spills over on your plate too. Individually, there are some guys playing OK, some guys playing fairly well, and some guys playing not up to their ability. We’ve got to get them playing better.”
Q: Which groups are playing better?
EDWARDS: “I’m not going to mention who and who is not. That’s up to the staff and me. I’m not divulging any groups.”
Q: Without mentioning any names did you come upon any surprises?
EDWARDS: “There have been a few guys but I’m not going to mention them.”
Q: Were there any big negatives?
EDWARDS: “There are some guys you expect more out of, and you wonder why they’re not playing up to their ability. Then you have to ask: are you asking this guy to do something that he’s not capable of doing? That’s the whole key. I always put it back on coaches. You always put it back on the coach: this guy is underachieving. Why? If you’re asking them to do something he can’t do you have to eliminate that.
“We’re in charge of trying to get them to play better. Sometimes players get it twisted. I think sometimes players think the coach doesn’t want him to play good. I always tell players that’s not our job. Our job is to make you a better player. We want you to be successful because if you’re successful we feel good when you are successful.”
Q: Are you going to watch the Green Bay-Denver game?
EDWARDS: “I will watch that one because we play both those guys [over the next two weeks.]