PDA

View Full Version : Chiefs Herm Edwards Press Conference - 9/16


Tribal Warfare
09-16-2008, 05:39 PM
Herm Edwards Press Conference - 9/16 (http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2008/09/16/herm_edwards_press_conference__916/)
Sep 16, 2008, 5:33:03 PM

Highlights

HERM EDWARDS: “Atlanta did a good job in their first game at home. They ran the ball very well. They’ve got two very good runners: Michael Turner and Norwood. They’ve got a rookie quarterback who played good his first game and probably didn’t play as good his second game. They turned the ball over a couple of times.

“Defensively, John Abraham, I think, is leading the league in sacks. He played for us in New York. Brooking is one of the linebackers, Grady Jackson didn’t play last week but he played the first week and is playing well. Lawyer Milloy is a veteran safety.

“They’ve got a very active front that can get after you on the pass rush side of it. Do a good job of playing in space with their linebackers; they’re very active.

“They’re team kind of like us: they’re kind of young. The quarterback, I think, is going to be a good quarterback. He’s tough. He got hit a lot last week in Tampa. I anticipate them trying to protect him a little bit better. It got to be one of those games where they couldn’t run it as much as they like because they got behind.”

Q: Larry Johnson made some comments after the game with Oakland that he felt the writing is on the wall for him, that there’s different personnel groups being used, that he’s not a factor in the game. Is there any truth to that?

EDWARDS: “No, Larry is part of the program. We look at it every week and I’m probably giving the game plan away but people probably know it anyway: he needs to touch the ball 20 to 25 times. Running the ball is what we would like to do with him.

“There are different personnel groups and he’s exactly right about that. But we also have some other players we’re trying to get in the game – Jamal Charles being one of them.

“The game got so skewed late in the third quarter that we got into the two-minute offense in the fourth quarter and were throwing the ball a lot. Not saying that Larry is not a part of that but at that point in time we have different personnel people in the game.

“No, Larry is a factor. Larry is always a factor. He always has to be a factor but we’ve got to start running better. One way you can do that is you’ve got to be able to throw the ball because people are going to stack the box and they’re going to play you the same way that New England played us and the Raiders played us. They’re going to stack the box with eight or nine guys and if the quarterback can’t make plays down the field they’ll continue to stack the box and you can’t run.

“That’s what happened to us the last two weeks. We’ve got to make some plays in the passing game and get them off the line of scrimmage because it’s very difficult to run with eight guys in the box because there is always going to be a guy you can’t block. So, that’s what we’re running up against. Our quarterback is going to have to make some plays and we’re going to have to throw the ball on downs we want to throw it, not when they decide for us to throw it, and make some plays in the passing game.”

Q: Have you talked to Larry or has he talked to you about it?

EDWARDS: “Oh yeah, we’re good. He came in yesterday. We’re fine. He’s talked to everybody. He should feel that way. He should feel that, he should feel you know what? I want to contribute more. We expect that out of him. That’s a good sign; that’s not a bad sign. That’s good for him. He wants to be in the game.”

Q: Do you feel he’s running the same way he did before his foot injury?

EDWARDS: “What’s happened is what I said earlier: they’re stacking the box and forcing us to throw the ball. We have to throw the ball but we’ve got to complete it; we’ve got to make plays in the passing game for them to get some of the guys in the box away. We weren’t very good.”

Q: Is he blocking like he should?

EDWARDS: “I think actually in the pre-season and the time he’s been in there he’s blocking better. I think the one play that everyone is looking at is on the blitz. People just look at a play and they see something happen and they really don’t know the idea behind what took place and what the assignments were.

“That was going to be a screen to Larry so they timed the blitz up right and came right through the A-gap. He was actually going to go out for a screen but when (the opponent) came through the A-gap he saw it and tried to go over and block the guy. But the timing was so good on it the guy hit the gap and beat the count and that’s what happened.”

Q: You’ve got to have a back who can block.

EDWARDS: “He’s done a better job of blocking since I’ve been here. Larry’s been in there and blocked and is picking up protection. He’s fine.”

Q: How do you keep these guys believing after a loss like you suffered last week? How do you keep them believing that this is the right way?

EDWARDS: “Well, it’s definitely the right way. It’s no different than what happened in Miami in the pre-season. We had a bad game and came back the next week and played pretty good and won at home. It’s no different except it’s the regular season. We didn’t play as good. We played decent up in New England and lost. We played this game and in the first half it was really the same score as in New England, in my opinion, where we were trailing 7-3. As bad as it was the first half (vs. Oakland) you’re one play away from making it a game and taking the lead if you get seven (points).

“You’ve got to let it go and the one thing about these young guys: they’re very resilient and they know this week we’ve got another opponent on the road and we’ve got to play better. We’ve got to do a lot of things better. We’ve got to be more physical on both sides of the ball especially versus the run. They had four runs all on third down for 145 yards. That’s on third down. In the first half of the game they had 34 yards rushing, so it’s not like we had bogged down completely. They had 68 total yards in the first half. It was the second half that got us on four big runs in third down situations. We don’t play our gaps right. One was third-and-11 and they were basically trying to run the ball and thinking about punting and were backed up. We don’t play our gaps right and the guy goes 60 yards.

“You understand that. You’re disappointed that it happened and now we’ve got to go clean it up because (Atlanta) runs the ball too.”

Q: Is this all harder than you thought, more difficult than you thought it was going to be?

EDWARDS: “When you plan this thing out, every week is a new journey, a new road you go down with so many young guys. You understand that.

“Our problem has been this in both games: we get behind, we haven’t played with a lead and when we can’t throw the football and make plays downfield teams stack the box so it’s very difficult to run. It puts you in a lot of third-and-long situations which you don’t want to be in. You don’t convert those you go three-and-out and punt. The defense stays on the field.

“If you go too many three-and-outs and don’t do anything…we’ve had four turnovers so far…have taken four balls away and have gotten no points. The average in the league is about 3.8 if you take the ball away. We’ve got no points off turnovers. You’ve got to convert when you take it away from the other team and we haven’t done that either.

“I just think on both sides of the ball we have to do a better job. On offense we have to have the ability to throw the ball to get them backed off so we can run it and have some running lanes so they don’t stack all the guys in the box.

“And the wide receivers have to beat man-to-man coverage. We’ve got to protect so the quarterback can throw the ball and then he has to throw it. Then on defense we can’t let big runs break out on us. Same in New England. We played New England pretty good, pretty good, and then at the end they ran the ball and gapped us.

“There will be some ups and downs but we’ve got to score more points. We’re scoring about nine points a game and that’s not good enough.”

Q: It looks like games like Sunday are part of the plan…

EDWARDS: “It’s never part of the plan. Part of the plan is to develop young players and give them the ability to play that they can win with. That’s the plan. How games turn out you don’t know until the games’ are being played. Then when they are over with you go, wow, we did these things right, we did these things wrong. But these players want to win a game; we all want to win a game. When things happen they happen and you have to adjust and correct it.”

Q: Which quarterback gives you the best chance to win?

EDWARDS: “I think both of them. I think it’s just how you want to orchestrate it this week. We’re going to determine who the starter will be but both will be available to play along with Martin, who will play too. That’s how we’ll look at it.”

Q: You said last week that Damon Huard would start but Tyler would play? Would that be the same this week assuming Damon could play?

EDWARDS: “We’ll see. We’re putting our game plan in now. We would think we would be more decisive with quarterback and let the guy who plays quarterback be the quarterback. If something should happen to the other guy, well, but we’re thinking right now of just letting one guy play.”

Q: So it would be either…

EDWARDS: “Whoever we decide on.”

Q: You talked about the defense having good success in the first half of the game. What went wrong in the second half? Young players?

EDWARDS: “Most of the runs we didn’t play our gaps. Our defensive line didn’t play real well. We didn’t allow our linebackers to have a chance. The guards got up on the linebackers and the one thing about defense, and it’s something linemen have to do and it’s not to allow the linemen to get up on linebackers. You can’t get to your gap that’s not good and when you play a team that runs zone they cut you on the backside and you got problems. That’s what happened to us.

“Some of it had to do with guys trying to make a play. We have to be more disciplined in what we want to do offensively as well as defensively. Understand the requirements of your job on that play. You have to do it play after play after play.

“I think what happens to us we want to make a play. We press. That comes with youth. Guys want to make a play so bad but really you need to do your job. We mentally don’t do that at times.”

Q: Surtain is out, right. Will Brandon Carr start?

EDWARDS: “He’s out this week. Yeah, two rookie corners will start.”

Q: Does that kind of give you a knot in your stomach: two rookie corners starting?

EDWARDS: “No, not at all. Not those two kids. Not at all. I anticipated that would happen eventually. It came to fruition. They’re going to play.

“You can anticipate certain things when you look at your football team. It’s the youngest secondary in the league now. The good part is they’ll get to play together for a long time.

“They’ve played fairly decent. Now, they haven’t been challenged a whole lot because people haven’t thrown the ball on us a whole lot. They’ve been able to run the ball and have played with a lead on us. If you’re playing with a lead in the third and fourth quarter guess what? You’re not going to throw a lot of passes and they’re high percentage ones at the most.

“But for the most part, I thought they did a good job against the Raiders. We put them in a lot of man-to-man situations and played a lot of bump-and-run. I don’t think we played but maybe five snaps of Cover 2 (defense) all day. We have no problems playing man-to-man with these guys. We go up there and bump them, run with them, and no one gets nervous about it.”

Q: Tyler Thigpen said he didn’t know until the fourth quarter that Damon Huard was not going to come back in the game. What’s the process you go through: do you want him wondering if it’s his game or how does that process work?

EDWARDS: “It works real simple for us. We had a plan of getting both quarterbacks to play. When Tyler went in Damon had been hit. Damon’s neck was stiff and looked back earlier in the second quarter and his neck was still stiff. By halftime he was still stiff. In the third quarter it was still stiff and I said obviously you can’t go back in. And Tyler just continued to play. In that situation you never want to tell a kid, ‘by the way, the next series the other guy is coming in.’ You don’t want the guy thinking about that. You want him to just go play, don’t think about it. That’s all you can control.

“I thought at the end with six minutes left he had his wits about him and we did some things to help him. He moved the team down there and got a score.”

Q: Have you had a chance to spend some time with Atlanta’s Ryan and would you have taken a serious look at him should he have been available to you when you picked?

EDWARDS: “You look at all good players at number five. He would have been interesting sitting there. We ended up getting two good players who will be the foundation of this football team who are starting for us.”

Q: Were you so sold on Brodie Croyle that you wouldn’t have taken him?

EDWARDS: “If you’re picking that high you’re thinking about all players that fall in that category. For us, we were in a situation where we needed a lot of positions. We needed those guys in that mix. We drafted a running back in the third round. We drafted another tight end, another tackle. At those positions we knew we needed players.

“(Ryan) is tough, pretty smart guy. Can get out of the pocket some. He’s a good quarterback and he’s playing. He started out very good and they ran the ball real well the first week. This week they got behind and he had to throw the ball. He made a few errors but rookies are going to do that, young quarterbacks are going to make mistakes. It’s part of the growing process and that’s what you know when you have one.”

Q: Do you think about shaking up your offensive line yet, or when might you do that?

EDWARDS: “It’s too early for that. We did that last year and it never comes together when you start doing that. We went into this season to let those five guys play together. The good part is they are all healthy so far this season. This offense has played two games together and it’s a new offense. That’s the hard part: a whole new offense and a brand new coordinator and we’re not playing with the same quarterback. That’s tough. You’ve got to pull all that together. We’d like to go down the road with these guys, especially with a new offense. It’s hard enough to figure out who’s playing quarterback. If you start messing with the offensive line you have no cohesion at all on offense.”

Q: Any medical update on Brodie Croyle and when he can practice?

EDWARDS: “He’s feeling a lot better. I know that. Not this week. If anyone wants to get well fast it’s him. We’re going to make sure that he’s well. We’re not going to put him out there, especially when it’s his throwing arm, too. When he comes back he needs to play the whole season. Whenever that days is he needs to be the quarterbacks.”

PastorMikH
09-16-2008, 05:55 PM
.

“Our problem has been this in both games: we get behind”


Ya think!

Shoot, that's the problem in at least 100% of the games we lose - we got behind.


(I couldn't resist)

kpic
09-16-2008, 05:56 PM
“No, Larry is part of the program. We look at it every week and I’m probably giving the game plan away but people probably know it anyway: he needs to touch the ball 20 to 25 times. Running the ball is what we would like to do with him."

ROFL ROFL Uhhh.....someone break the news to Hermie that it probably doesn't matter.

SAUTO
09-16-2008, 06:01 PM
love the quote on brodie "when he comes back he needs to play the whole season".. . does that mean he gets to be starter until he can start a WHOLE SEASON?:cuss::#:banghead::banghead::banghead:

Chiefnj2
09-16-2008, 06:09 PM
2 really interesting tidbits.

1. The play where everyone was saying LJ blew it, was a screen to LJ so it's understandable that he missed the block.

2. Herm said the run D was the fault of the DL and not the LBs. The LB's were the Planet consensus problem.

SAUTO
09-16-2008, 06:12 PM
2 really interesting tidbits.

1. The play where everyone was saying LJ blew it, was a screen to LJ so it's understandable that he missed the block.

2. Herm said the run D was the fault of the DL and not the LBs. The LB's were the Planet consensus problem.

BUT was herm actually telling the truth?????
1. he could be sticking up for lj to get on his good side.
2. he is obviously trying to act like we dont have a lb problem.I.E. thomas beat out harris(who wasnt as bad as thomas last year i dont care what ANYONE says) which was a coach decision.

SAUTO
09-16-2008, 06:13 PM
does anyone actually think pat thomas could get 100+ tackles this year? i sure as hell dont see it right now

Rausch
09-16-2008, 06:23 PM
2 really interesting tidbits.

1. The play where everyone was saying LJ blew it, was a screen to LJ so it's understandable that he missed the block.

2. Herm said the run D was the fault of the DL and not the LBs. The LB's were the Planet consensus problem.

Rausch's tidbits:

1) You don't call plays one way your whole NFL career and then just happen to decided to change to THE EXACT SAME $#IT THAT GOT THE LAST OC FIRED FOR INEFFECTIVENESS! YOU DON'T.

I don't know if it's Carl/Herm or what but this is not a Chan offense. Chan would definitely pull Huard (or starter) and then run with the n00b and then come back with Huard (if healthy) or a WR/HB option pass. He'd DO SOMETHING to manufacture plays. He's great at it.

2) LJ is not the same because LJ is not the same. I don't think it has squat to do with the Leg, carries, or line. It's like he's not even trying. He'd just takes the ball and runs to where the play was designed to go (after goosing a lineman or two) and falls down.

Absolutely no vision, no drive, no give a ****...

LOCOChief
09-16-2008, 07:27 PM
2 really interesting tidbits.

1. The play where everyone was saying LJ blew it, was a screen to LJ so it's understandable that he missed the block.

2. Herm said the run D was the fault of the DL and not the LBs. The LB's were the Planet consensus problem.


I didn't think LJ had time to get into position to make the block / pick up the blitz
Our D line was horrid, but the DB's where no safety net in the run game either

theultimatekcchiefsfan
09-16-2008, 09:16 PM
both will be available to play along with Martin, who will play too


Gees.............................:rolleyes: