Kevin Ashcraft
Footballguy
http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2006/10/24/he...nference__1024/
Q: Was John Welbourn suspended or did he retire?
EDWARDS: “At one time he retired, I believe, and then he wanted to be reinstated. Then he was suspended.”
Q: So he retired because he was going to be suspended?
EDWARDS: “You’d have to ask Welbourn that.”
Q: How does a guy who has left under those circumstances get back with his teammates?
EDWARDS: “Do you have kids?”
Q: No.
EDWARDS: “I have one who’s grown up already and two little girls and they’re not old enough to make mistakes where they know any better. But when they do, hopefully, if they make two of them I don’t get rid of them.
“I just think players make mistakes because they’re human. When they do you have to take a stand and say what you want to do with the guy. Do you want to say that since you’ve made some mistakes in your life that you can’t play on this team anymore?
“He hurt the team; he hurt his reputation because of the accusations that came along. But no one knows what happened. But then you look at it and say he’s done those things and he’s paid a price for it, too, because everyone’s talking about that player. So, you have to make a decision as a coach if it’s a distraction to your team, what kind of teammate was he, was he a distraction when he was here? Did he work hard when he was here? Yeah. Is he a good football player? Yeah. Is he hard to handle? No, not hard to handle, comes to work every day on time, made a bad decision or two. So then you have to decide if you want him back. At this point I want him back.
“I don’t know John, to be quite honest. When I got here John was here, but the last time I talked to him I was walking down the hall at the end of practice one day. The next thing I knew he was retiring two days later and now he’s back. That’s good for us and I think it’s good for him. Hopefully, he’s learned his lesson by sitting out. Hopefully, he can come back and help us.”
Q: If your tackles were playing Pro Bowl caliber football right now would you be bringing John Welbourn back?
EDWARDS: “Yeah, because he’s a good football player. You know what makes coaches good? Good players, last time I checked. The more good players you have the better coach you’re going too be. So, like I said, he hasn’t done anything to harm anybody but himself. He put himself in a bad spot. He’s willing to live with that, we’re willing to live with that. Hopefully it doesn’t continue to happen, but that’s his decision. ”
Q: How do you think he’ll be received by his teammates?
EDWARDS: “He’ll be fine. His teammates will receive him well. They’re excited about having him back.”
There is more but as you can see, he went off several times.Q: What was the miscommunication at the end of the first half of the Chargers game?
EDWARDS: “Nothing really. It was whether we go ‘Red Gun’ and continue to try to go down the field and get more points or sit where we were at. In my estimation it was real simple. Unless we made a big play on the (Larry Johnson) draw I was going to take a 14-point lead and go in.
“The reason for that is I always keep the numbers of plays that we’ve run in a game. It’s kind of ironic that the three possessions that (San Diego) had before the half they had eight plays where they went 44 yards, they had 12 plays for 77 yards and they had 11 plays for 45 yards and in all three of those possessions they kicked two field goals and missed one. So, in three possessions before the half they ran off 31 plays on our defense.
“We had three possessions before we got the ball back before the half and we had 12 plays. We scored two touchdowns and we punted. So, at that point and time, we had the football and unless we break a big run on a draw and get it across the 45 (yard line) I’m going to take a 14-point lead into half and I’m going to rest my defense which just came off the field in a two-minute situation where they had made them punt the football. I have already played 44 plays in the first half on defense. We only had 23 plays of offense. I get the ball back in the third quarter and I’m at home. Are you kidding me?
“I’m not turning this ball over and am not going to throw the ball and stop the clock. I’m not doing that. If something bad happens they get momentum again and I’m not giving them momentum. I’ve got a sleeping giant down right now; I don’t want to wake him up. I don’t need to do that. That’s how I want to play football.
“Now, someone else might want to play it differently. But if I’m so conservative, why when they have the ball (at the end of the game) with 0:48 seconds left and I call time-out and make them punt and we get the ball with 0:33 seconds left, most people say, ‘well, they’re going to go into overtime.” No, no, no.
“When I called time-out there wasn’t any overtime in my mind. It was we’re going to try and go down the field and do what? Kick a field goal. We take the ball from the 18-yard line with 0:33 seconds left and get in field goal range and win the game. So, I’m going to play the game the way I want to play it. I’ve got a plan and I know what I’m doing.
“Now, some things got miss-communicated because some of our players thought that we were the same old Chiefs and were going to go down and throw this ball all over the ball park before the half. I’m not doing that.”
Q: So that was the miscommunication? They wanted to go for it?
EDWARDS: “No, they thought we were going to go ‘Red Ball’ after we went on the draw. But no, we didn’t make enough yards on the draw.”
Q: But you wanted to sit on it?
EDWARDS: “Go inside (the locker room), relaaaaax. We don’t need to do this, boys, because, I’m telling you, my defense has already played 44 plays. I don’t want to get into one of those games.”
