Tribal Warfare
12-23-2008, 05:23 PM
Herm Edwards Press Conference - 12/23 (http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2008/12/23/herm_edwards_press_conference__1223/)
Dec 23, 2008, 4:20:08 PM
HERM EDWARDS: ”(DE Alfonso) Boone is questionable and (CB Maurice) Leggett is questionable. Other than that, everybody got through last week pretty good. Cincinnati obviously lost their quarterback kind of early in the season. They’ve been kind of struggling for a while. (QB Ryan) Fitzpatrick’s now playing quarterback for them. They’ve won their last two games with a strong running attack. Their defense is very, very athletic. They’ve done a good job of taking the ball away the last couple games. They’re playing hard, you can see that. (Bengals coach) Marvin (Lewis) has them playing hard and the quarterback is playing halfway decent for them. They can run the ball very well, they ran the ball, I guess, they only threw nine passes against Cleveland. It was a cold day, similar to ours, so they didn’t throw it a bunch. They got the turnovers and were able to win the game. They’ve won two in a row now, it’ll be a good game for us. They’re kind of where we’re at right now and they’re playing hard, so we anticipate a tough football game in Cincinnati.”
Q: Are you burnt out after this season?
EDWARDS: “Does it look like it? No, no. I don’t know where people get that from. I’ve got a lot of energy and I think the thing that gives me the most energy is these young guys we have. Their ability to recover after a bunch of hard losses, we’ve been in a bunch of football games that we haven’t won this year and I think that will pay dividends with this football team next year. With youth, every time they show up after a hard loss, we go through film with them and they’re optimistic and they’re excited about the next weeks’ opponent. Our coaches witness that through all this and it’s a credit to the players. It really is, how they bounce back after a tough loss every week.”
Q: What has been your biggest test this season?
EDWARDS: “I think the biggest test, for any coach when you go through this, is keeping the team together. I think they’ve done a good job of that. They believe in the plan – the players, they’ve played that way. They’re very competitive, we’ve been more competitive, as I was saying, since we had one quarterback playing. That was the Jets game. I think after that game, we’ve been pretty consistent as a football team. We had one that got away from us, the Buffalo game with all the turnovers, but other than that, we’ve been in every game with an opportunity to win. We just haven’t been able to do that as much as we’d like to this year. I just think that the way these guys have come together and stuck together as a football team, a lot of teams, when you have a record like this, converge and unite. They believe they’re going to be a good football team, and they are.”
Q: How are you going into this offseason? Will you need a break for a few days?
EDWARDS: “No, I’m going to be energetic. We’re going to come in Tuesday, and I’ll be in Monday and Tuesday and I’ll evaluate the players. Coaches will get some time off, about a week or so, then they’ll come back. I’ll be in the office, starting to look at the whole season, look at tape and start to plan. I’ll get with (Chiefs VP of Player Personnel) Bill (Kuharich) to start talking about the Senior Bowl and prospects that are coming up in the draft. Free agency is going to start here pretty quickly. So, those are things you go over, once the season is done. Those are the things you look at, so that’s kind of how we’re going to handle it.”
Q: Will you meet with any of the players individually after the season?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, you do. With their individual coaches and if they need to see me, they’ll be there that Monday. When they come in, I anticipate we’ll have a team meeting there about ten o’clock. From then, you’ll be able to talk to all the players. I’ve talked to a bunch of them already but I still need to talk to them when the season’s over. As this week goes and next week and that.”
Q: What will you tell them?
EDWARDS: “Well, obviously, even though the season’s over, you still represent the Kansas City Chiefs. Make sure that, we don’t have any games after next Sunday, you’re name’s not in the paper or anything. Treat it professionally. They’ll get their letter on when the offseason will start and all that kind of stuff. Kind of keep them abreast of what’s going on. They’re going to go home, most of these guys live out of town. They’ll get some rest and that’s how it kind of works, when the season ends.”
Q: How much of the groundwork, in terms of a percentage, was laid for the future this season?
EDWARDS: “Oh, 85 percent of it is done now. It’s just a matter of another draft and free agency, and then you’re going to have your team built, for the most part. Then it’s just a matter of, from there, continuing to grow on that. The hard part is done. All the foundation, all the work, has been laid for what’s going to transpire for years to come now if you keep your head down this path. That’s the path that we’re going to head in, through the draft and be very selective in free agency. The core of your players are going to be drafted Chiefs. That’s kind of the core of the team now.”
Q: So with one more draft and free agency, you foresee this team competing in 2010?
EDWARDS: “I see them competing next year. I think this is going to be a good football team next year. I really do, that’s my opinion. I think the players feel that way too. When you play games that we’ve played, where you’ve been very competitive, you look at nine games where they’ve been one-score games, it’s just the odds that you’re going to win your share of those. This team has gone through a lot this year and they’ll be much more experienced next year. They feel what happened to them this year, they know where they’re at, and they’ll be much more confident coming in in the spring and that’s what you’re looking for.”
Q: How different will your roster look from training camp this year to next season?
EDWARDS: “It’ll look a little different in the fact that you’ll have the draft choices, you’ll have a couple free agent guys, and it’ll be some guys that came in and did a good job that we picked up off the street. Obviously your backup guys. The good thing that happened this year, there’s still some good in all this, is that you evaluated almost every player you had on the roster. You know where they’re at. They got playing experience, which is hard to do over the course of a season when you don’t have injuries or whatever. We’ve evaluated a lot of football players, we know what they are. Some guys that are starting, maybe we’re asking too much of them, when it’s all said and done. You don’t know that until they play. Now we know. You look at 96 percent of the players on this roster have played in games and have played a significant amount of football games. Now there’s always that five percent, four percent that didn’t play enough, but that’s anywhere. To be able to evaluate your football team like this is a tremendous help for you because now you know going into next season exactly where your guys stand. You don’t have to project what they’re going to be, you’ve got a whole season of showing what kind of player he can be, so that’s the good part.”
Q: Have you found a few guys this season?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, there’s a few guys. (WR Mark) Bradley, how about him? He’s a guy that was at home. We brought him in and he did a pretty good job for us. That’s kind of unique in a guy like that. There’s some other guys we’ve brought in, and maybe they’re not starters, but they have a role on this football team. Maybe they’re being prepped to start right now, but I think if you just give them a role and they don’t have to play 50, 40 snaps a game, they’re a better player for it.”
Q: Looking back on the season with 8-8 possibly winning the division, does that haunt you?
EDWARDS: “You make a great point, 8-8 has a chance of winning the division if Denver doesn’t win. You talk about the teams in our division, we were very competitive in our division. We had a chance to win more games than we did in our division and I think that’s a good thing. I think the players realize that. They will realize that. They actually competed against those teams. When you look at our division, that’s something we’ll talk about at the end of the year. These guys will reflect on that and go hmmm. And that’s a good part. Every season is new, you never know what’s going to happen year-to-year. If you just look at that, it gives you a great bit of optimism for the future?”
Q: But does that haunt you?
EDWARDS: “No, it won’t haunt you. Things in life happen for a reason. You never know why. But you live through it, you learn from and I think this team is going to learn a lot from everything they’ve gone through this year.”
Q: Is it tough to motivate a team with nothing to play for?
EDWARDS: “No because you get to play football. It’s the last football game we get to play this year. That’s what’s great about it. When you get between the lines as a football player, you want to play football. That’s the great part about it. Cincinnati will play hard, we’ll play hard. When you watch both teams play this week, you won’t realize what the records are. You’ll see a competitive game, in my opinion. I know how Marvin coaches, I have a lot of respect for him and he’ll have his guys ready to play.”
Dec 23, 2008, 4:20:08 PM
HERM EDWARDS: ”(DE Alfonso) Boone is questionable and (CB Maurice) Leggett is questionable. Other than that, everybody got through last week pretty good. Cincinnati obviously lost their quarterback kind of early in the season. They’ve been kind of struggling for a while. (QB Ryan) Fitzpatrick’s now playing quarterback for them. They’ve won their last two games with a strong running attack. Their defense is very, very athletic. They’ve done a good job of taking the ball away the last couple games. They’re playing hard, you can see that. (Bengals coach) Marvin (Lewis) has them playing hard and the quarterback is playing halfway decent for them. They can run the ball very well, they ran the ball, I guess, they only threw nine passes against Cleveland. It was a cold day, similar to ours, so they didn’t throw it a bunch. They got the turnovers and were able to win the game. They’ve won two in a row now, it’ll be a good game for us. They’re kind of where we’re at right now and they’re playing hard, so we anticipate a tough football game in Cincinnati.”
Q: Are you burnt out after this season?
EDWARDS: “Does it look like it? No, no. I don’t know where people get that from. I’ve got a lot of energy and I think the thing that gives me the most energy is these young guys we have. Their ability to recover after a bunch of hard losses, we’ve been in a bunch of football games that we haven’t won this year and I think that will pay dividends with this football team next year. With youth, every time they show up after a hard loss, we go through film with them and they’re optimistic and they’re excited about the next weeks’ opponent. Our coaches witness that through all this and it’s a credit to the players. It really is, how they bounce back after a tough loss every week.”
Q: What has been your biggest test this season?
EDWARDS: “I think the biggest test, for any coach when you go through this, is keeping the team together. I think they’ve done a good job of that. They believe in the plan – the players, they’ve played that way. They’re very competitive, we’ve been more competitive, as I was saying, since we had one quarterback playing. That was the Jets game. I think after that game, we’ve been pretty consistent as a football team. We had one that got away from us, the Buffalo game with all the turnovers, but other than that, we’ve been in every game with an opportunity to win. We just haven’t been able to do that as much as we’d like to this year. I just think that the way these guys have come together and stuck together as a football team, a lot of teams, when you have a record like this, converge and unite. They believe they’re going to be a good football team, and they are.”
Q: How are you going into this offseason? Will you need a break for a few days?
EDWARDS: “No, I’m going to be energetic. We’re going to come in Tuesday, and I’ll be in Monday and Tuesday and I’ll evaluate the players. Coaches will get some time off, about a week or so, then they’ll come back. I’ll be in the office, starting to look at the whole season, look at tape and start to plan. I’ll get with (Chiefs VP of Player Personnel) Bill (Kuharich) to start talking about the Senior Bowl and prospects that are coming up in the draft. Free agency is going to start here pretty quickly. So, those are things you go over, once the season is done. Those are the things you look at, so that’s kind of how we’re going to handle it.”
Q: Will you meet with any of the players individually after the season?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, you do. With their individual coaches and if they need to see me, they’ll be there that Monday. When they come in, I anticipate we’ll have a team meeting there about ten o’clock. From then, you’ll be able to talk to all the players. I’ve talked to a bunch of them already but I still need to talk to them when the season’s over. As this week goes and next week and that.”
Q: What will you tell them?
EDWARDS: “Well, obviously, even though the season’s over, you still represent the Kansas City Chiefs. Make sure that, we don’t have any games after next Sunday, you’re name’s not in the paper or anything. Treat it professionally. They’ll get their letter on when the offseason will start and all that kind of stuff. Kind of keep them abreast of what’s going on. They’re going to go home, most of these guys live out of town. They’ll get some rest and that’s how it kind of works, when the season ends.”
Q: How much of the groundwork, in terms of a percentage, was laid for the future this season?
EDWARDS: “Oh, 85 percent of it is done now. It’s just a matter of another draft and free agency, and then you’re going to have your team built, for the most part. Then it’s just a matter of, from there, continuing to grow on that. The hard part is done. All the foundation, all the work, has been laid for what’s going to transpire for years to come now if you keep your head down this path. That’s the path that we’re going to head in, through the draft and be very selective in free agency. The core of your players are going to be drafted Chiefs. That’s kind of the core of the team now.”
Q: So with one more draft and free agency, you foresee this team competing in 2010?
EDWARDS: “I see them competing next year. I think this is going to be a good football team next year. I really do, that’s my opinion. I think the players feel that way too. When you play games that we’ve played, where you’ve been very competitive, you look at nine games where they’ve been one-score games, it’s just the odds that you’re going to win your share of those. This team has gone through a lot this year and they’ll be much more experienced next year. They feel what happened to them this year, they know where they’re at, and they’ll be much more confident coming in in the spring and that’s what you’re looking for.”
Q: How different will your roster look from training camp this year to next season?
EDWARDS: “It’ll look a little different in the fact that you’ll have the draft choices, you’ll have a couple free agent guys, and it’ll be some guys that came in and did a good job that we picked up off the street. Obviously your backup guys. The good thing that happened this year, there’s still some good in all this, is that you evaluated almost every player you had on the roster. You know where they’re at. They got playing experience, which is hard to do over the course of a season when you don’t have injuries or whatever. We’ve evaluated a lot of football players, we know what they are. Some guys that are starting, maybe we’re asking too much of them, when it’s all said and done. You don’t know that until they play. Now we know. You look at 96 percent of the players on this roster have played in games and have played a significant amount of football games. Now there’s always that five percent, four percent that didn’t play enough, but that’s anywhere. To be able to evaluate your football team like this is a tremendous help for you because now you know going into next season exactly where your guys stand. You don’t have to project what they’re going to be, you’ve got a whole season of showing what kind of player he can be, so that’s the good part.”
Q: Have you found a few guys this season?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, there’s a few guys. (WR Mark) Bradley, how about him? He’s a guy that was at home. We brought him in and he did a pretty good job for us. That’s kind of unique in a guy like that. There’s some other guys we’ve brought in, and maybe they’re not starters, but they have a role on this football team. Maybe they’re being prepped to start right now, but I think if you just give them a role and they don’t have to play 50, 40 snaps a game, they’re a better player for it.”
Q: Looking back on the season with 8-8 possibly winning the division, does that haunt you?
EDWARDS: “You make a great point, 8-8 has a chance of winning the division if Denver doesn’t win. You talk about the teams in our division, we were very competitive in our division. We had a chance to win more games than we did in our division and I think that’s a good thing. I think the players realize that. They will realize that. They actually competed against those teams. When you look at our division, that’s something we’ll talk about at the end of the year. These guys will reflect on that and go hmmm. And that’s a good part. Every season is new, you never know what’s going to happen year-to-year. If you just look at that, it gives you a great bit of optimism for the future?”
Q: But does that haunt you?
EDWARDS: “No, it won’t haunt you. Things in life happen for a reason. You never know why. But you live through it, you learn from and I think this team is going to learn a lot from everything they’ve gone through this year.”
Q: Is it tough to motivate a team with nothing to play for?
EDWARDS: “No because you get to play football. It’s the last football game we get to play this year. That’s what’s great about it. When you get between the lines as a football player, you want to play football. That’s the great part about it. Cincinnati will play hard, we’ll play hard. When you watch both teams play this week, you won’t realize what the records are. You’ll see a competitive game, in my opinion. I know how Marvin coaches, I have a lot of respect for him and he’ll have his guys ready to play.”