tommykat
09-27-2004, 05:14 PM
Q&A with Dick Vermeil
Sep 27, 2004, 6:04:28 PM
DICK VERMEIL: “When you looked at the tapes (from yesterday’s game) and didn’t know the score you’d think we won the football game. But we didn’t, so what we have to do is just keep grinding away and keep improving the things that make a difference and try to eliminate them a penalty here and there.
“When you have the ball more than 10 minutes than your opponent, convert sixty some percent of your third downs and run for 168 yards – do all those kinds of things – you normally win the football game. We didn’t, so the credit goes to Houston who found a way to win it. A year ago at this time a lot of those things were going our way and if you stay in this game long enough they usually balance out.“Right now we can’t get many things to go our way especially when we play well. When you don’t play well and you get beat you deserve it. But I felt we played well enough to really win this football game yesterday. The numbers tell you that.“I’m very, very pleased that Priest Holmes was able to become the all-time rusher in the history of the Kansas City Chiefs and to do that in far fewer number of rushing attempts and years is truly remarkable. I don’t know how many people really appreciate this guy. Just to see what he did on the interception return, guys, that is an example of what he is and I think that is a reflection on all these guys. That’s the kind of leadership we have.“Did you see what Trent Green did on his interception thrown? I’ve seen great Pro Bowl Hall of Fame quarterbacks back out of the way and flag it and watch the guy run. We have good character people who will help pull us through this thing and sooner or later we’ll start winning football games.“I feel bad for the real veteran guys like Willie Roaf, who played awfully well yesterday. Played his heart out and he’s been waiting a long time to be on a real good football team, as has Will Shields. We’re sort of letting those guys down and that hurts me more than it does for the 15 or more young guys on this roster that don’t have as much invested.“We’re certainly not going to throw in the towel and I think we’ll rebound and end up having a good football team and a good season. But right now we are struggling. Certain things are happening to us that sometimes you can’t even figure out where the yellow flag is coming. You don’t why, you don’t know how. You don’t know when it’s coming but it’s a problem right now.”Q: Are you going to be sending more plays than normal into the league regarding officiating?VERMEIL: “Only those that should have been called that weren’t. Some that should have been called against us that weren’t called, a ton against them that weren’t called. I think we all go through this weekly as coaches. But we’ve still got to win anyway, but it still just keeps breaking the continuity. You knock a quarterback down twice legally and, my G- -, I have no idea what to tell the defensive player. I have no idea what to tell him. It would be impossible to tell him to do anything else other than carry a white flag and surrender. It’s ridiculous. But we’ll work it out.”Q: You guys were so good the last few years you’ve been here with penalties, but this year you’re way up there. How do you explain that?VERMEIL: “I’m not really sure. We’ve only got one different starter on offense. I don’t know if all the officiating crews are different. We’ve got a few different starters on defense now. A few. Little different approach. Maybe we were lucky. Maybe they didn’t call many on us last year. But we’ve got to solve the problem because it does hurt us. But I don’t think it beat us, but it hurt us yesterday.”Q: Does Gunther Cunningham’s style maybe have a little hand in this?VERMEIL: “We had four penalties on defense by defensive backs. One the guy was called lined up off-sides. You can’t freakin’ believe it! You can’t believe it when you see it on tape. He’s two yards off the guy. I don’t know. I mean really…”Q: With all these penalties being called how do you tell a guy to keep his aggressiveness?VERMEIL: “I don’t know. Hey, let’s get on a different topic. I’m finished talking about it and if I really get p - - - - - I’ll get fined. Let’s go on. It’s a dead subject, guys.”Q: You can afford it can’t you?VERMEIL: “I can afford it but I don’t want to lower myself.”Q: But do guys back off when…..VERMEIL: “No question. No question. Scott Fujita puts his hands up. Gary Stills goes, ‘my G- -, what did I do?’ He comes off the field saying, ‘coach, what am I supposed to do?’”Q: Where did you see your defense improve yesterday?VERMEIL: “They didn’t run the ball very well against us. We didn’t give up a big run. I thought that was a real positive. Now, are they as good a running team as the other teams we’ve faced? Maybe not. We did, I think, overall other than the quarterback scrambles, I thought, we did a very good job against the run. They got a couple of passes on us, the one the batted ball that really our one defender thought our guy was going to intercept it, so he didn’t go try to break it up. Those things happen, especially with those big, tall receivers like that.“Overall, I thought our defense did a better job than it had done in the coordination of the scheme, the fill of the linebackers, the safeties Greg Wesley and Jerome Woods coming down hill. We had both veteran safeties in there playing. I think for the most part they did a good job against the run.“(Monty) Beisel did a good job and showed some signs of getting better. Scott Fujita did some good things and Shawn Barber, I thought, had his best game this year. Lional Dalton continues to play well inside, the whole defensive group overall. We gave up two field goals and a touchdown. And we get a 15-yard penalty that gives them a field goal before the half. It’s a gift from Santa Claus real early and you have to live with those.Q: How set is John Browning at defensive end even when Vonnie Holliday becomes healthy?VERMEIL: “The one thing we know is that John Browning can play defensive end. He can play on the other side as well. That’s helped us develop more depth in there and the fact that we put more pressure with Lional Dalton inside has helped us. He’s growing a lot.“Offensively we did so many good things. We played three games and scored the first time we’ve had the ball - probably the only team in the league that’s done it. So, we’re doing some things right and then we stop ourselves and we’ve played some good football teams. Priest Holmes doing what he’s doing is a positive reflection on the offensive line. I think Al (Saunders) did a good job of mixing our run-pass game this week as well as he’s done. We got up into 30-something rushes. Had a lot of touches and opportunities to win the game. Dante Hall almost breaks two kicks – inches away from breaking two.“Now, we’ve got to become more consistent and overcome any difficulties that come up are not self-inflicted.”Q: How about injuries?VERMEIL: “Came out of the game healthy. Hopefully, we’ll get Vonnie Holliday back and William Bartee back.”Q: What about Eddie Kennison?VERMEIL: “Got a chance to get Eddie back. I was very pleased for Chris Horn, who stepped in and played 30-something plays. Caught two passes and one for a touchdown – his first in his career in the first game he’s ever played in for the National Football League. He did a tremendous job. He’s a very, very smart little guy who can play football.”Q: Does he stay on the active roster?VERMEIL: “There’s a very good chance that he will.”Q: You always look at trends. What do the numbers tell you about a 0-3 football team and you trying to get this team where it wants to go?VERMEIL: “The numbers would tell you it decreases your odds or opportunity to be a playoff team or a world champion. No question about that. I’ve coached two playoff teams that lost three games in a row but they weren’t the first three games of the year.“There have been some other teams that went 1-3, but it makes it tougher. No question. We’ve got to find a way to do what some other people haven’t been able to do. We’ve already done a ton of things in this organization that this organization has never done: win 13 in a row at home; lead the league in scoring; have the leading rusher in team history. We’ve done a lot of things this organization has never done and we’ve done them in the last three years.“So, now one of the things we may have to do is what maybe nobody else in the NFL has ever done: go ahead and become a very strong playoff team in spite of losing the first three. That might be a real challenge, but that’s what our mindset is.”Q: Is there a difference in your mind of starting 0-3 and having a three game losing streak in the middle of the season as opposed to the start?VERMEIL: “Yeah, there’s a difference because there’s emotional momentum that goes against you. Fortunately for us we have outstanding leadership within our roster and, hopefully, on my coaching staff. You can work your way through it and overcome it and spin downhill. I don’t think this football will do that. I just trust them too much. I know them real well.“We had some newcomers step up this week. John Welbourn played his best game. Jared Allen continues to show that he can play. A mid-round pick who got two hits on the quarterback, two pressures and a sack. Not too bad a performance.”Q: Is he ready for a bigger role?VERMEIL: “He could play. He played a total of 20 snaps. I’d like to see him play between 20-30 snaps a ball game. But there’s no question he has the ability to play well because he’s demonstrated it every time we play him. It doesn’t matter which offensive tackle we play him on. We played him inside as a rush tackle one time and he got a pressure on the quarterback. He’s doing a good job.”Q: Dante was just a tackle or two away from breaking one yesterday. Is that a matter of having some new faces on special teams? Getting that timing down? Reasonable to expect it might take a couple of weeks?VERMEIL: “I just think that’s just how tough it is to do. It’s tough to run kicks and punts back for scores. They’re tough to do and the fact that he did it four times last year put him in the Hall of Fame caliber and those guys did it years ago when no one even coached special teams. He will make some returns again.“He gets so disappointed when he doesn’t score he feels like he failed. Last year at this time he had a punt return for a touchdown and kickoff return for a touchdown. He’s had opportunities to break in each category and has almost done it. Sooner or later it will come.”Q: Are you guys getting him the ball enough on offense?VERMEIL: “A little more yesterday. I think we did a pretty good job of moving the ball around yesterday. We don’t really have any one that we’re going to over emphasize getting the ball to except Gonzalez maybe. He’s way ahead of where he was last year at this same time.”Q: Your satisfied that (Hall) doing enough offensively?VERMEIL: “I’d like to see him get the ball in different ways a little bit more than just a reverse. I would. So would Al (Saunders). But sometimes you call them and something goes on on defense and you can’t go ahead and do what you called. You go somewhere else with the football. It’s not without emphasis or game plan consideration.”Q: How much not having that deep threat is affecting your offense? You’ve also had some problems getting the screens going.VERMEIL: “I don’t think it’s been a factor. Not with our screens. We haven’t really gotten deeply into our screen package. We’ve been hurt by a couple of screens. Sometimes we’re hurt by ourselves and sometimes a certain defense is really good against it.“We’re behind in yards-per-pass-attempt. I don’t know if it’s a reflection of not having Eddie last week.”Q: Priest didn’t have a catch and that’s the first time it’s happened since he was a Chief. He talked about wanting to break the rushing record.VERMEIL: “That has nothing to do with our thinking. He’s got to touch the ball in the passing game because he averages more after the catch than anyone.”Q: Is there a chance you’re getting burned out, like they’ve suggested on some radio talk shows, and that you might step away prematurely and retire?VERMEIL: “Oh, I don’t listen to radio talk shows or specific writers (who suggest that sort of thing.) Every once in a while I think dementia has set in (laughs) earlier. But no, believe me, the one thing I wouldn’t do is walk out on these guys because I know they wouldn’t walk out on me.“One of the toughest things is to go into the locker room after how hard they played – and you don’t have to buy into this, but – and talk to your football team. It’s tough and I feel for them because it’s all about players. They’re the guys who go through all the work, do all the training. When they don’t get to enjoy a little success when they’re struggling, well, it hurts. The more you care the more it hurts. They’ve got a lot of invested and to start out poorly, then have an opportunity to win one and then not win, it really hurts. It hurts the head coach and it hurts the players.”
Sep 27, 2004, 6:04:28 PM
DICK VERMEIL: “When you looked at the tapes (from yesterday’s game) and didn’t know the score you’d think we won the football game. But we didn’t, so what we have to do is just keep grinding away and keep improving the things that make a difference and try to eliminate them a penalty here and there.
“When you have the ball more than 10 minutes than your opponent, convert sixty some percent of your third downs and run for 168 yards – do all those kinds of things – you normally win the football game. We didn’t, so the credit goes to Houston who found a way to win it. A year ago at this time a lot of those things were going our way and if you stay in this game long enough they usually balance out.“Right now we can’t get many things to go our way especially when we play well. When you don’t play well and you get beat you deserve it. But I felt we played well enough to really win this football game yesterday. The numbers tell you that.“I’m very, very pleased that Priest Holmes was able to become the all-time rusher in the history of the Kansas City Chiefs and to do that in far fewer number of rushing attempts and years is truly remarkable. I don’t know how many people really appreciate this guy. Just to see what he did on the interception return, guys, that is an example of what he is and I think that is a reflection on all these guys. That’s the kind of leadership we have.“Did you see what Trent Green did on his interception thrown? I’ve seen great Pro Bowl Hall of Fame quarterbacks back out of the way and flag it and watch the guy run. We have good character people who will help pull us through this thing and sooner or later we’ll start winning football games.“I feel bad for the real veteran guys like Willie Roaf, who played awfully well yesterday. Played his heart out and he’s been waiting a long time to be on a real good football team, as has Will Shields. We’re sort of letting those guys down and that hurts me more than it does for the 15 or more young guys on this roster that don’t have as much invested.“We’re certainly not going to throw in the towel and I think we’ll rebound and end up having a good football team and a good season. But right now we are struggling. Certain things are happening to us that sometimes you can’t even figure out where the yellow flag is coming. You don’t why, you don’t know how. You don’t know when it’s coming but it’s a problem right now.”Q: Are you going to be sending more plays than normal into the league regarding officiating?VERMEIL: “Only those that should have been called that weren’t. Some that should have been called against us that weren’t called, a ton against them that weren’t called. I think we all go through this weekly as coaches. But we’ve still got to win anyway, but it still just keeps breaking the continuity. You knock a quarterback down twice legally and, my G- -, I have no idea what to tell the defensive player. I have no idea what to tell him. It would be impossible to tell him to do anything else other than carry a white flag and surrender. It’s ridiculous. But we’ll work it out.”Q: You guys were so good the last few years you’ve been here with penalties, but this year you’re way up there. How do you explain that?VERMEIL: “I’m not really sure. We’ve only got one different starter on offense. I don’t know if all the officiating crews are different. We’ve got a few different starters on defense now. A few. Little different approach. Maybe we were lucky. Maybe they didn’t call many on us last year. But we’ve got to solve the problem because it does hurt us. But I don’t think it beat us, but it hurt us yesterday.”Q: Does Gunther Cunningham’s style maybe have a little hand in this?VERMEIL: “We had four penalties on defense by defensive backs. One the guy was called lined up off-sides. You can’t freakin’ believe it! You can’t believe it when you see it on tape. He’s two yards off the guy. I don’t know. I mean really…”Q: With all these penalties being called how do you tell a guy to keep his aggressiveness?VERMEIL: “I don’t know. Hey, let’s get on a different topic. I’m finished talking about it and if I really get p - - - - - I’ll get fined. Let’s go on. It’s a dead subject, guys.”Q: You can afford it can’t you?VERMEIL: “I can afford it but I don’t want to lower myself.”Q: But do guys back off when…..VERMEIL: “No question. No question. Scott Fujita puts his hands up. Gary Stills goes, ‘my G- -, what did I do?’ He comes off the field saying, ‘coach, what am I supposed to do?’”Q: Where did you see your defense improve yesterday?VERMEIL: “They didn’t run the ball very well against us. We didn’t give up a big run. I thought that was a real positive. Now, are they as good a running team as the other teams we’ve faced? Maybe not. We did, I think, overall other than the quarterback scrambles, I thought, we did a very good job against the run. They got a couple of passes on us, the one the batted ball that really our one defender thought our guy was going to intercept it, so he didn’t go try to break it up. Those things happen, especially with those big, tall receivers like that.“Overall, I thought our defense did a better job than it had done in the coordination of the scheme, the fill of the linebackers, the safeties Greg Wesley and Jerome Woods coming down hill. We had both veteran safeties in there playing. I think for the most part they did a good job against the run.“(Monty) Beisel did a good job and showed some signs of getting better. Scott Fujita did some good things and Shawn Barber, I thought, had his best game this year. Lional Dalton continues to play well inside, the whole defensive group overall. We gave up two field goals and a touchdown. And we get a 15-yard penalty that gives them a field goal before the half. It’s a gift from Santa Claus real early and you have to live with those.Q: How set is John Browning at defensive end even when Vonnie Holliday becomes healthy?VERMEIL: “The one thing we know is that John Browning can play defensive end. He can play on the other side as well. That’s helped us develop more depth in there and the fact that we put more pressure with Lional Dalton inside has helped us. He’s growing a lot.“Offensively we did so many good things. We played three games and scored the first time we’ve had the ball - probably the only team in the league that’s done it. So, we’re doing some things right and then we stop ourselves and we’ve played some good football teams. Priest Holmes doing what he’s doing is a positive reflection on the offensive line. I think Al (Saunders) did a good job of mixing our run-pass game this week as well as he’s done. We got up into 30-something rushes. Had a lot of touches and opportunities to win the game. Dante Hall almost breaks two kicks – inches away from breaking two.“Now, we’ve got to become more consistent and overcome any difficulties that come up are not self-inflicted.”Q: How about injuries?VERMEIL: “Came out of the game healthy. Hopefully, we’ll get Vonnie Holliday back and William Bartee back.”Q: What about Eddie Kennison?VERMEIL: “Got a chance to get Eddie back. I was very pleased for Chris Horn, who stepped in and played 30-something plays. Caught two passes and one for a touchdown – his first in his career in the first game he’s ever played in for the National Football League. He did a tremendous job. He’s a very, very smart little guy who can play football.”Q: Does he stay on the active roster?VERMEIL: “There’s a very good chance that he will.”Q: You always look at trends. What do the numbers tell you about a 0-3 football team and you trying to get this team where it wants to go?VERMEIL: “The numbers would tell you it decreases your odds or opportunity to be a playoff team or a world champion. No question about that. I’ve coached two playoff teams that lost three games in a row but they weren’t the first three games of the year.“There have been some other teams that went 1-3, but it makes it tougher. No question. We’ve got to find a way to do what some other people haven’t been able to do. We’ve already done a ton of things in this organization that this organization has never done: win 13 in a row at home; lead the league in scoring; have the leading rusher in team history. We’ve done a lot of things this organization has never done and we’ve done them in the last three years.“So, now one of the things we may have to do is what maybe nobody else in the NFL has ever done: go ahead and become a very strong playoff team in spite of losing the first three. That might be a real challenge, but that’s what our mindset is.”Q: Is there a difference in your mind of starting 0-3 and having a three game losing streak in the middle of the season as opposed to the start?VERMEIL: “Yeah, there’s a difference because there’s emotional momentum that goes against you. Fortunately for us we have outstanding leadership within our roster and, hopefully, on my coaching staff. You can work your way through it and overcome it and spin downhill. I don’t think this football will do that. I just trust them too much. I know them real well.“We had some newcomers step up this week. John Welbourn played his best game. Jared Allen continues to show that he can play. A mid-round pick who got two hits on the quarterback, two pressures and a sack. Not too bad a performance.”Q: Is he ready for a bigger role?VERMEIL: “He could play. He played a total of 20 snaps. I’d like to see him play between 20-30 snaps a ball game. But there’s no question he has the ability to play well because he’s demonstrated it every time we play him. It doesn’t matter which offensive tackle we play him on. We played him inside as a rush tackle one time and he got a pressure on the quarterback. He’s doing a good job.”Q: Dante was just a tackle or two away from breaking one yesterday. Is that a matter of having some new faces on special teams? Getting that timing down? Reasonable to expect it might take a couple of weeks?VERMEIL: “I just think that’s just how tough it is to do. It’s tough to run kicks and punts back for scores. They’re tough to do and the fact that he did it four times last year put him in the Hall of Fame caliber and those guys did it years ago when no one even coached special teams. He will make some returns again.“He gets so disappointed when he doesn’t score he feels like he failed. Last year at this time he had a punt return for a touchdown and kickoff return for a touchdown. He’s had opportunities to break in each category and has almost done it. Sooner or later it will come.”Q: Are you guys getting him the ball enough on offense?VERMEIL: “A little more yesterday. I think we did a pretty good job of moving the ball around yesterday. We don’t really have any one that we’re going to over emphasize getting the ball to except Gonzalez maybe. He’s way ahead of where he was last year at this same time.”Q: Your satisfied that (Hall) doing enough offensively?VERMEIL: “I’d like to see him get the ball in different ways a little bit more than just a reverse. I would. So would Al (Saunders). But sometimes you call them and something goes on on defense and you can’t go ahead and do what you called. You go somewhere else with the football. It’s not without emphasis or game plan consideration.”Q: How much not having that deep threat is affecting your offense? You’ve also had some problems getting the screens going.VERMEIL: “I don’t think it’s been a factor. Not with our screens. We haven’t really gotten deeply into our screen package. We’ve been hurt by a couple of screens. Sometimes we’re hurt by ourselves and sometimes a certain defense is really good against it.“We’re behind in yards-per-pass-attempt. I don’t know if it’s a reflection of not having Eddie last week.”Q: Priest didn’t have a catch and that’s the first time it’s happened since he was a Chief. He talked about wanting to break the rushing record.VERMEIL: “That has nothing to do with our thinking. He’s got to touch the ball in the passing game because he averages more after the catch than anyone.”Q: Is there a chance you’re getting burned out, like they’ve suggested on some radio talk shows, and that you might step away prematurely and retire?VERMEIL: “Oh, I don’t listen to radio talk shows or specific writers (who suggest that sort of thing.) Every once in a while I think dementia has set in (laughs) earlier. But no, believe me, the one thing I wouldn’t do is walk out on these guys because I know they wouldn’t walk out on me.“One of the toughest things is to go into the locker room after how hard they played – and you don’t have to buy into this, but – and talk to your football team. It’s tough and I feel for them because it’s all about players. They’re the guys who go through all the work, do all the training. When they don’t get to enjoy a little success when they’re struggling, well, it hurts. The more you care the more it hurts. They’ve got a lot of invested and to start out poorly, then have an opportunity to win one and then not win, it really hurts. It hurts the head coach and it hurts the players.”