Q&A Edwards morning practice-- 7-29

[Chiefs Pantalones]

Q&A with HERM EDWARDS – 7/29
Jul 29, 2006, 11:55:40 AM

TRAINING CAMP

HERM EDWARDS: “For the first day in pads since I’ve been here I thought it was a very competitive practice and not combative. That’s probably important when you practice in pads because when you get combative the first day it ends up getting guys hurt. I thought we had pretty good tempo, so this afternoon it’ll be kind of interesting how we deal with full pads. It’s really no different because all we’re going to do is put our pants on rather than shorts. But I think their minds are set to go to work and that’s good.



Q: You talked in Kansas City that one of your concerns before you came up here is that you hadn’t had your offensive guys practicing in the spring. And now you already have a bunch of guys on the sidelines. Is that becoming a bigger concern for you?

EDWARDS: “No, because the guys that are on the sideline today are obviously the guys that are going to practice this afternoon. We’ve had that as a mindset. Eventually you’ll see some defensive guys on one-a-days too. You have to protect your players, especially when they’re older players.

“I don’t think Will Shields, after all the seasons he’s practiced, that I have to worry about him practicing. He came in condition and had a great off-season. He’s in great shape. That’s what helps. When guys have great off-seasons and they’re veteran football players when they get to camp I help them out. You’ve got to do that.”

Q: So are those guys going to be on one-a-days then?

EDWARDS: “When I decide to put them on one-a-days.”

Q: What happened to Brian Waters today?

EDWARDS: “Waters we’ve got to take to the doctors because he sprained his foot. He’s going to have X-rays this afternoon and once I know more I’ll let you guys know.”

Q: Do you have the sense it’s serious?

EDWARDS: “I don’t know, but I don’t think so. I would think that it’s nothing bad but I don’t know.”

Q: Still expecting Ty Law in tomorrow?

EDWARDS: “Yeah, he’ll be here tomorrow, practicing tomorrow.”

Q: Did the heat cause you guys to change your routine? Have you made any concessions?

EDWARDS: “I’ve always done that wherever I’ve been. The heat’s a factor and it’ll be a factor this afternoon. You’ll see we’ll do things different this afternoon. I’ll change practice around. The time will be the same, but the way we go about practice will be a little bit different this afternoon. I’ll actually let the big guys probably go 15 minutes early and keep the receivers and DBs and quarterbacks out a little bit later and take the pads off and let them in shells. But the base of practice will be full pads until the end. But you’ve got to protect these guys. You don’t want to kill your team on the practice field and they can’t go and we talked about that last night.”

Q: Is that something you’ve learned the hard way as a player?

EDWARDS: “I was fortunate because when I was practicing I was with Coach Vermeil (in Philadelphia) and he was bringing in 125 guys and it didn’t matter if three guys were missing. But now with only 80 or 90 guys you’ve got to be careful because what happens is the reps fall on the other guys’ shoulders and that’s not good. The more you sit in this chair as a head coach and as a former player it helps you make decisions like that.”

Q: What does Trent Green mean to this football team?

EDWARDS: “It’s his competitiveness and toughness. I don’t think he gets credit enough for being a tough quarterback and really an underrated quarterback. Look at his numbers and see what he’s done as a starter. Now, maybe he’s gotten credit, but what he’s done shows he’s a very efficient quarterback. I like him because he’s a gamer. He has a lot of fun, he has great control in the huddle and great field presence.”

Q: And his leadership?

EDWARDS: “To play quarterback that’s what it’s all about: leading. You walk in the huddle and you’ve got the ball and a minute and five seconds left and have to go 40 yards and score, he’s the kind of guy who can do it.”

Q: It looked like yesterday when he came out he was the guy leading.

EDWARDS: “He is one of the leaders. We’ve had some good conversations in the off-season and actually played in the Tahoe event together and the last day we spent four hours together just talking about football. We weren’t golfing real good, but were just talking about football. But we were excited about it.”

Q: You had the mini-camp and the OTAs, but is camp when you find out about your team?

EDWARDS: “You build your toughness and camaraderie here because it’s an even playing field. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Pro Bowl player, a five-year player, or a first round pick, a Hall of Famer. We all sleep in the dorms; we all eat in the food line, we all go to practice every day. Your fancy cars won’t help you. You’ve all got to come and go to work. You start becoming accountable to each other – that along with toughness…..”

Q: What are Pollard’s chances of seeing significant playing time?

EDWARDS: “We’re competing back there and obviously he’s a physical guy. He brings a physical presence, him and Page both. They’re both young safeties but we’ve got two veteran safeties that are good players. I think when you can create good competition it’s good and we’ve done that at a lot of positions. That’s important.”

Q: What about the backup running back position?

EDWARDS: “Right now, we’re just going to keep the guys we have, let ‘em play and see what happens. That one guy we’ve got, the number one running back, he’s really pretty good. I watched him today and he’s a good player, now. You’ve got to find out who the number two is going to be and we’ll find that before the end of camp.”

Q: At fourth receiver is anybody standing out?

EDWARDS: “Nah, I think there’s a bunch of young guys competing for it which is good. Thorpe is a guy that’s been here and that’s good. Nate Curry is a guy that has some ability, I think. So we’ve got some young guys who will fight for that spot and they know there’s a spot there to be had.”



After reading DV's press conferences for 5 years and so far reading Herm's, DV seems to be more articulate than Herm. It also seems Herm knows nothing about offense, like DV knew nothing about defense. Just a first impression, that's all.

[Cormac]

I'm with chop. I thought DV gave much better PCs. Let's see how we all feel about Herm's PC's after a few seasons. It gets old for us listening to them year after year just like it gets old for them answering the same questions.

[Chiefnj]

l

EDWARDS: “You build your toughness and camaraderie here because it’s an even playing field. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Pro Bowl player, a five-year player, or a first round pick, a Hall of Famer. We all sleep in the dorms; we all eat in the food line, we all go to practice every day."

I guess "we all" doesn't include veterans after all.

EDWARDS: "When guys have great off-seasons and they’re veteran football players when they get to camp I help them out. You’ve got to do that."

[rad]

Originally Posted by Chiefnj

l

EDWARDS: “You build your toughness and camaraderie here because it’s an even playing field. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Pro Bowl player, a five-year player, or a first round pick, a Hall of Famer. We all sleep in the dorms; we all eat in the food line, we all go to practice every day."

I guess "we all" doesn't include veterans after all.

In Herm's defense, being on the sidelines counts as being at practice.

[milkman]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

They're coaches. Of course they talk in coach speak. That's what coaches do. All coaches.

Of course it's all coachspeak.
That's essentially what I said.

[blueballs]

Jets fan on Herm "camp marshmallow"

[Halfcan]

I like Herm.