Flustrated's press conference.

[Scorp]

http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2008/10...ference__1021/



Herm Edwards Press Conference - 10/21
Oct 21, 2008, 5:37:29 PM


HERM EDWARDS: “Transactions. (K) Connor Barth will be our kicker this week. We let (K Nick) Novak go. Connor Barth is the kid we had brought in here earlier. We had a competition with Novak. We made that switch on our roster. (QB) Brodie Croyle is set to have surgery on his knee. He will go on IR. (QB) Damon (Huard), we’re still evaluating his throwing hand. We’ll see where he’s at. But other than that, we’re in pretty good shape.

“We play the Jets this week. A 3-3 football team, very good defensively. They’ve done a good job of acquiring some players defensively and offensively. They’re really good against the run, a very physical 3-4 defense. They’ve got some players that we had drafted when we were up there, they’re still there playing. Offensively with the insertion of QB Brett Favre, he’s done a great job for them offensively, moving the football. They’ve got some good runners in (RB Thomas) Jones and (RB Leon) Washington, some good receivers, some veteran receivers in (WR Jerricho) Cotchery and (WR Laveranues) Coles. (TE Chris) Baker and Kelly are their tight ends. They do a good job of moving the football.

“Favre, he is who he is, he’s a Hall of Fame quarterback. He’s done a good job of making plays after things break down, that’s where he’s dangerous. They lost a tough one on the road against the Raiders. They’re playing at home, they’re 3-3, they’re right in the mix with their division, so it will be a tough football game for us. Questions?”

Q: Can you elaborate on your kicking situation?

EDWARDS: “Connor Barth was in a competition with Novak here in the spring. We made a decision to go with Novak. We thought he had a little bit more experience. Connor Barth being a rookie, it was almost a coin toss, really. We went with Novak and at this point we’re dying to score points. When you get in field goal range you’ve got to make them. We just felt at this point he’s missed too many. We wanted to go in this direction. Connor knew that when he left here. I said if things go awry and we’re not consistent, at least 80 percent kicking field goals, somewhere in that vicinity, then we’ll probably come back to you. He’s been working out down in Chapel Hill. We called him, got him in here last night and he’s here today. So that’s where it stands.”

Q: Do you have any quarterbacks you’re working out?

EDWARDS: “Yeah, we worked out a couple guys. We’re probably in the process of maybe signing one, we’ll see. We haven’t made that decision yet, but we had two guys in town today that worked out.”

Q: Would that be a decision you’d make today probably?

EDWARDS: “Today or tomorrow. If Damon can’t go, then we’ll go with (QB) Tyler (Thigpen) and then if he can’t go, he can’t dress, the obviously (QB) Ingle Martin will be number two.”

Q: What could you expect from the third guy at this point in the season?

EDWARDS: “Hold the clip board, basically. Chart down the plays. That’s what he’d have to do. That’s going to take a couple weeks. If it’s a veteran guy, maybe shorter, but it’s going to take a couple weeks to learn the system, you just can’t throw the guy in there.”

Q: The names are QB Daunte Culpepper and QB Bruce Gradkowski. Are those the two players?

EDWARDS: “We’ve talked to Daunte. Daunte has not been on campus. The other kid has been on campus, with another guy. But we’ll decide what we want to do.”

Q: Do you think you could sign a guy off the street and have him develop into your starter?

EDWARDS: “Well, we have two young ones right now. If we decide to go with another one, that’d be three. Then we have two more, so that’s five. One being a veteran, all the other ones are young. There’s a lot of different options on how you do it, how you weigh it. We haven’t made a decision either way, but that’s how you look at it when you look at our roster at QB right now.”

Q: Is Culpepper out of the mix since you haven’t brought him in yet?

EDWARDS: “No. We just haven’t brought him in. That’s where that’s at. No one’s out of the mix right now at our quarterback situation. We’re turning over all the rocks right now.”

Q: Would Culpepper be the starter the rest of the way if you signed him?

EDWARDS: “Well, the conversation that we’ve had with him was more that, he would have no problems competing to be a starter, wherever that was. But he wanted it to be open competition. And obviously if that should happen here, transpire, that would be the situation here. There’s no doubt about that at this point.”

Q: Is it possible to stabilize the quarterback position by the end of the season?

EDWARDS: “I sure hope so. That’d be kind of fun to see a guy play two games in a row for us instead of the merry-go-round that we’re dealing with right now. It’s no one’s fault, it’s just the cards that have been dealt. I think the team has been handling it very well and the quarterbacks that have had to play have handled it well. It makes it hard, game planning every week when you have a different guy behind center.”

Q: Are you planning on RB Larry Johnson being in the starting lineup?

EDWARDS: “Right now, Larry will come to work tomorrow. The decision on that will take place when it has to be made. I don’t have to make the decision on who’s starting and who’s not starting. So that’s kind of where that’s at. Whatever I do, I think hopefully you know me by now, people know me by now, I’m going to do the right thing for the football team, and that’s where it stands with me. So that’s where we’re at.

Q: Have you been contacted by the league about a possible suspension for Larry?

EDWARDS: “No. They don’t generally call the head coach. They call higher powers than me.”

Q: Has the organization been contacted?

EDWARDS: “I won’t comment because I’m not involved in that part of it. I’m pretty sure the National Football League will get involved in it because that’s what they do. But even before that, we have to do our due diligence as a football organization, too. You can’t wait on other people to do your work for you in certain situations. We make decisions, in this organization, what’s best for the football team. We’ve always done it that way, I’ve always done it that way as a head coach, we believe in doing it that way. That’s how we make our decisions. When the NFL steps in, that’s a whole entirely different situation. They have the decisions they make, we have the decisions we make as a football team. That’s what we’ll do.”

Q: When you say the organization is looking into it, what does that entail?

EDWARDS: “It’s an organizational matter and I don’t think that’s to be talked about here because it’s no one’s business except ours. I just think it’ll be handled. I think enough people are handling it now, whether it be the NFL, the police department. We’re just like everybody else. We gather information, we’re aware of the situation and we’re waiting to draw a conclusion. Before that happens we have to make some decisions too as an organization. That’s how we stand.”

Q: How disappointed are you, personally?

EDWARDS: “I’m always disappointed. But I’m disappointed when, it’s not Larry, just players in general, forget the obligation they have to play in the NFL. What the National Football League stands for, the integrity, the standards that you have to keep, whether you be a player, a coach, in management, or whatever we do is looked upon as trying to be the very best at what we do. There are certain sacrifices that you make when you’re involved in this league because you represent the league. I think you handle it a certain way. So anytime anything occurs with any player, a coach, anyone in this league, I get a little disappointed because I’ve been in this league a long time, 30 years. I’ve always said it, it’s no one’s right, it’s a privilege to be in this league. You can’t take advantage of it and you have to understand that. So I think sometimes when situations arrive like this, it’s a learning lesson for a lot of people. We can just talk about the incident here, but it seems to me there are always a lot of incidents. That’s a shame. With the young team that we have, hopefully we’re going to learn from this. All of a sudden it’s on our doorstep. We’ll handle it in the proper way as an organization and I know the league will handle it too.

Q: Does it make it harder to swallow that he’s a franchise player?

EDWARDS: “I just know this. That we’ve made a statement. I don’t think I’m up here to talk about that. I have my own personal opinion. I kind of said what I need to say and I’m going to leave it at that.”

Q: Does it make it harder to swallow that he’s a franchise player?

EDWARDS: “I just know this. That we’ve made a statement. I don’t think I’m up here to talk about that. I have my own personal opinion. I kind of said what I need to say and I’m going to leave it at that. I don’t want to make that discussion about a player or any player because it’s more about who we play this week, the Jets. That’s what we’re here to talk about is the New York Jets, and it’s kind of important for us. That’s kind of where I stand. I have personal opinions about a lot of things, but that’s personal and I just kind of leave it at that.”

Q: Are you confident that somebody can learn and move forward at this stage of life?

EDWARDS: “I think we all have the ability to change if we choose to. But that’s a choice. We all have to make choices in life. It’s your choice and that’s what’s so good about it, you have a choice. And when you’re willing to make a choice you can change, anyone can change. We all have to change some things we do as people sometimes, and I just think it’s your choice to do that, and we’ll see where that’s at.”

Q: How much does this set back the rebuilding process?

EDWARDS: “I think that you take all situations for what they’re worth and you learn from it whether it be good or bad. We’ll learn from this, everyone will learn from it. And if you can learn from it, and it doesn’t happen again in this organization, that’s great. If it doesn’t happen to another player in the league, that’s great, too. That’s how I look at it. It’s going to be a learning experience for us as an organization and that’s how you’ve got to look at it. Whatever happened, happened and we don’t know the whole story. We’ve got certain reports and whatever and I’m not getting into that, but I just think that’s done with, now where do we go?

“I’m a guy that believes in fixing things, I’m not a guy that dwells on what just happened. Because that’s kind of like in a game, when something breaks down you better get over there and fix it because you’ve got 30 seconds to figure it out. It’s the same way in this situation. We’ve got to do what’s right to fix it and that’s what we’re here to do. Whatever we have to do, that’s part of it, and there’s going to be some consequences, and that’s okay too. As long as we can get it fixed.”

Q: Was it your choice to tell Larry to stay home for the game last week?

EDWARDS: “Yes. It was a message for a lot of different reasons and I won’t get into all of them. People will speculate why. I was trying to protect the game, so we would all come here Sunday and worry about the football game, not worry about a player that wasn’t dressing that week. That’s kind of the most important thing. There’s actually eight players that don’t dress every week, who they are really no one cares. When they’re hurt, then they’re okay with that, but when they’re well and they don’t dress, all of a sudden that becomes the story before the game. It becomes a distraction for everybody. And that’s not fair, not fair to the player, not fair to the fans, not fair to the football team. So that’s how I kind of look at that situation, and that’s how you’ve got to handle it. You don’t want to put people in situations where they might be embarrassed. That’s not good. I’m not into embarrassing people. I don’t believe you do that. I just think you look at things with a big objective in your mind and understand there are certain things you’ve got to do. The best thing for us to do last week was to try to concentrate at playing football. Not worry about if he was here if he’s not here and all that stuff. It becomes too much of a circus atmosphere and that’s not fair to anybody.”

Q: When you look at the defensive tape, what did you see and how do you fix it?

EDWARDS: “Same thing, it’s gap control. We go study for a while, we blow a gasket, two big plays and we blow a gasket and we don’t do it right. That’s been our problem the whole year, except for the Denver game. The other games we’ve been that way. The other games we’ve struggled offensively. We didn’t turn the ball over last game, which is good, but defensively we’ve given up way too many big plays. We’ll get it fixed, and we’ll get it fixed with the players we have. Once they understand that and start playing together and start learning how to play together for a whole game and not a series of plays then we can get it fixed. It hurts you because when you can’t score, it puts you into a bad situation. Because if you give up too many scores early, now you’re in the situation where you have to throw the ball 37 times, 40 times a game and that’s not good. We don’t want to do that, no one wants to do that. You don’t want to play from behind.”

Q: Do you believe your players believe in the scheme?

EDWARDS: “Yeah, I believe that. Just haven’t executed. And you can ask the players. They’ll tell you the truth.”

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

If Brody just tore his MCL, why is he going on IR? It's a six week injury.

I suspect it's because they know he'll tear the ACL at some point during rehab.

[Mecca]

The fact that it's an MCL makes the way Brodie was treated during that game look kind of funny.....you can walk on a torn MCL...hell some guys walk on torn ACL's ask Tom Brady.

[DeezNutz]

Originally Posted by Scorp

EDWARDS: “Well, we have two young ones right now. If we decide to go with another one, that’d be three. Then we have two more, so that’s five. One being a veteran, all the other ones are young.”

Did Herm just count to five?

[DeezNutz]

MCL and ACL. Croyle said this today in an interview with Petro.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by DeezNutz

Did Herm just count to five?

Yeah, it surprised me, too.

[Mecca]

It must be awesome to be able to rip up your knee ligaments without really doing anything.

[Rain Man]

Continuing my dismal year of TV watching, I didn't get to see the game. Can someone describe the hit? Was it a clean hit, a fluke, a caught-in-the-pile deal, or what? How did it happen?

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Continuing my dismal year of TV watching, I didn't get to see the game. Can someone describe the hit? Was it a clean hit, a fluke, a caught-in-the-pile deal, or what? How did it happen?

just got tackled didnt look too bad

[Mecca]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Continuing my dismal year of TV watching, I didn't get to see the game. Can someone describe the hit? Was it a clean hit, a fluke, a caught-in-the-pile deal, or what? How did it happen?

Haynesworth just kind of fell on him, nothing that you don't see in a general game.

[Rain Man]

Ah. Thanks, guys. Just wondering.

[Hydrae]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

If Brody just tore his MCL, why is he going on IR? It's a six week injury.

Originally Posted by Mecca

You know I've been wondering that since they said MCL, that is not a season ender or even remotely comparable to an ACL.

I have wondered that and asked a couple of times about how they knew he was out for the season without an MRI. I don't think I have ever heard of something like this. The coach is always saying "We have to wait for the results of the scans and test on Monday to know for sure."

Originally Posted by JASONSAUTO

because herm doesnt want a qb controversy

And here is the most likely answer. As soon as he went down the Chiefs brain trust (oxymoron I know) already knew that he was done as a starter for the Chiefs forever. If we actually see Brodie on the field in a Chiefs uniform again I will be shocked.

[FAX]

810 had an interview with Croyle this afternoon in which Brodie said the doctors informed him he would be ready by camp. He doesn't want to quit. Says he loves the game and doesn't want to be remembered as just a guy who was injured all the time.

I really feel for the guy.

FAX

[teedubya]

I ****ing hate Herm. **** this shit.

[Mecca]

Originally Posted by FAX

810 had an interview with Croyle this afternoon in which Brodie said the doctors informed him he would be ready by camp. He doesn't want to quit. Says he loves the game and doesn't want to be remembered as just a guy who was injured all the time.

I really feel for the guy.

FAX

I'm pretty sure he's always going to be remembered that way.

[KCheavy]

Yeah so do I. The man's got heart and could acually be a descent QB if he could take a hit. Its not his fault