Today's Q&A with Hermie. Until now I have been reading between the lines, but this clealry says he plans to make the Chiefs into a conservative team. Forget scoring points in the 4th quarter if they have the lead. Play not to lose. He does say though that he believes they do not have the OL to pass as much as before. Those that kept drafting Trent Green thanks to his 4000 yards......forget about it, that will never happen again. And in dynasty leagues, Kennison is in trouble too.
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Chiefs HC Edwards Wednesday Q and A
Written by: ¦ 9/20/2006
Source: www.kcchiefs.com
Q: What do you say to your players heading into the bye weekend?
EDWARDS: “The one thing that we all have to realize is where we are compared to everyone else right now in the National Football League. We’re 0-2, we don’t feel real good about that, but then again there are 11 teams that are 0-2 and some of them at this point had high expectations for themselves. We were one of those teams and out of those teams; we’ve got to make sure that we get out of that situation. That’s got to be our mindset at this point. Our next game is at home and it’s going to be a big game for us. They are all big, but this one for me becomes real big for us on how we’re going to attack the rest of the season. I think that the players understand that. It’s early drama now all of a sudden for us in our third game. Nobody probably anticipated us being here, I know I didn’t, but we are and you can’t escape it. You can say why and suggest different reasons, but we are what we are right now. We’re a team that’s trying to find a little bit of our identity on both sides of the ball, maybe more on offense now than on defense. That’s kind of a surprise for some reason, but we’ll fight through it. We’ve got good character players, we have players who have won here before, but it’s a little different when you change and transition from one type of way you’ve done things to another philosophy, most people think that’s an easy mindset, but it’s not. You’re changing a lot of different things. You know that coming in as a head coach and that’s what you’re fighting. I think the players are buying into what we want to do, how we are going to do it and we’ve just got to improve on it. I think as the season goes on we’re going to improve and we’re going to get better. That’s all you can ask players to do. It’s not a panic situation, I’m not a panic guy, I just think you find out a lot about your team and I found out a lot about our team last week for sure. They did some good things in the game, we didn’t win, but I think our attitude changed a little bit about how we’re going to play and why we need to play that way.”
Q: What did you find out about your team?
EDWARDS: “They are very, very tough. It was a check early for me if we were going to be a tough, physical football team. We didn’t like the outcome, no one did, but what they realize is that they can’t count on the guys to the left or to the right of them. We’re going to be a tough, physical football team. If you can’t do that, this is not the place for you, because we’re going to be a tough team on both sides of the football.”
Q: Any update on QB Trent Green?
EDWARDS: “I haven’t heard anything at this point about the tests or the update. As I said before, it’s day-to-day, week-to-week. I really don’t worry about it. I know he’s ok and that’s the main thing. He might get in here later on this week. I know I’ll visit with him before the week is out. Whenever they decide, he decides that it’s time for him to come back and start getting the feel for football, they’ll make that decision. When they decide and whoever else decides that it’s time for him to play, that will be between him and the doctors and that’s their decision too, so I can’t worry about that.”
Q: What have you learned about your defense?
EDWARDS: “Toughness is a funny thing. I think all players in the National Football League are tough. I don’t think they’re not tough, but they have to become mentally tough. That’s a little bit of a difference to win. I tell players that there is a difference between being a tough guy and being a mentally tough guy. It’s really when things are not going real well that you have to do something in the game at that point that mentally tough teams win. I think that they’ve got tough players. They play a different style of football and how they went about doingthings. I think what they realize now is that it’s a little bit different on how we’re going to do things. Players adjust and we’ll adjust and that’s the important thing that we’re all on the same page.”
Q: Is there one thing that has really caught you off-guard so far this season?
EDWARDS: “No, I’m not that discouraged. We’re just in a situation that we don’t want to be in. When I took this job I knew what I was walking into and I knew the pulse of this team, I knew what I was walking into. I didn’t walk into this blind. I knew what to anticipate with what we’re tying to do and how things have kind of unfolded so far and that’s just what you deal with. We’re going to be fine, I just think we’re going to continue to grow and continue to get better. There are a lot of games left and we’ve got to win one. Once you win one you get a little more confident and you don’t have to worry about all this stuff.”
Q: But you didn’t anticipate being 0-2?
EDWARDS: “No, you never do. I anticipate that you win all 16 of them. Really, more than that if you count the pre-season. You win them all. Worst case scenario, that’s what we are. Ok, so now what? There are 11 other teams just like that who didn’t anticipate it either, but they are. All it takes is one win and that’s what we have to do. We’ve got to win a football game.”
Q: What did you know you were walking into with this team?
EDWARDS: “You know you’re walking into a situation where there is a perception, but there is also a reality to it and I understood the reality when I took this job to kind of do it my way. That’s what I was hired to do. I was hired to do what I saw fit; to build a program that is going to be a program that I believe can win, can win a lot and be a consistent playoff team. I wasn’t brought here to put a bandage on something. I was brought here to create a different program and that’s ok. I understood that and with that comes some pain. I always say that, people don’t like hearing that, but there comes some pain. We’re at that right now, we all feel bad, but we’re not by any stretch of imagination out or down. Our players understand where we’re at. You got a slow start; you started off not the way you want. Worst case scenario, you wish you were 1-1, but we’re not. You’ve still got to play 14 more games and nobody is going to feel bad for us about our situation, not any team in the National Football League and if they do they’re crazy.”
Q: What do you mean that they were used to a different style here?
EDWARDS: “When you watch these guys, and I watch from afar, basically they had the ability to get big leads and then really other teams tried to catch up with them. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t and that’s what they were doing. That’s how they played and that was their style, you are going to go outscore everybody and that’s ok. We’re not in that mode anymore. We still want to outscore everybody, but we don’t play that way. Why? Sometimes it has something to do with personnel that you have. Sometimes it has something to do with where you are at as a football team. My style is not that way, it’s a different way. That doesn’t mean that they style they had here doesn’t work, it did work, they won football games. But I think it’s time to change and that’s why we’re doing it. It’s the right thing to do in my mind for this football team to be successful in the long haul.”
Q: Could you have kept it the same if you had wanted to?
EDWARDS: “In my estimation, no. There were just certain factors and I don’t want to get into that.”
Q: Has the situation with QB Trent Green being out accelerated that process a little bit?
EDWARDS: “Well, I think that even if Trent is healthy we still have to do things a little bit different. This is what I believe, here is a little bit of myview.
I like to get leads, but after the third quarter, if you’ve got a substantial lead, you’re really not going to throw a lot of passes in the fourth quarter; you’re going to run that ball. When you go on the road, I just think you play a different way. You don’t try and outscore your opponent on the road, that just doesn’t happen a whole lot in this league. I think you get yourself in trouble. When you put your defense on the field too many times on the road, if you don’t score fast too many times that’s not good. On the road, what happens? When the opponent is at home and the offense gets going, the crowd gets into the game. There are philosophy changes and that’s ok. That doesn’t make me right, that doesn’t make the philosophy that was here before wrong, it’s just different. That’s how I grew up playing, that’s just me. It’s hard for me to sit here and say that I’m going to do something different and I’m going to stay the same way that it was. I can’t do that, I would be cheating myself to do that and I can’t do that. I think that a little bit of what we are as a football team is a little different. I believe that our offense has to run through the running game. I think our offense has a pretty good running back, that’s just my opinion, I might be wrong. My opinion is that we have a pretty good running back and when you have that, you’ve got to make sure that he’s always in that game because that makes you two-handed. That makes you have the ability to pass and run. Believe me, I’m not sitting here saying that I’m opposed to the forward pass, I’m not saying that and I’m not saying that I’m opposed to spreading people out. I’ll do that too if we can block them. But if we can’t block them, I’m not going to put the quarterback in a bad situation, I’m not going to put players in bad situations when I know that could hinder our performance and that’s what you have to understand. We’re going to play a little bit different, we’re still going to try to score points, as many as we can, but we’ve got to play better defense. When you understand that, you understand how we are going to play.”
Q: Coach Vermeil used to play that style when he coached you in Philadelphia, but when he came back with the Rams he changed. Were you surprised with that change?
EDWARDS: “The problem that I’ve got is that I’m a defensive guy. I just like defense. I think that when you look at the big game (Super Bowl) the one thing that keeps coming to my mind is that they are in the top three in points allowed defensively, all those teams that have won championships in the last 10 years. Historically that’s the deal, that’s what happens. The year that we went to the Super Bowl (with Philadelphia), we were in the top two, I think we were number one in points allowed. I just think that in the end, you’ve got to play defense. I think this league is about to turn that way too when you watch teams play. You look at some of the scores now early in the season, you can always say that the defenses are in front of the offenses and this time, yeah that’s fine, but I just think what happens to you is that the way you play now and the way that defenses attack offenses you have to be very, very careful. You’ve got to know who your quarterback is, because when you put that guy in harms way you’re really asking for trouble.”
Q: Is your style the old Vermeil style in Philadelphia?
EDWARDS: “It’s really not the old Vermeil style. It’s more of a balance and I think you play true to your players. Like I said, I think we’ve got a pretty good running back here. You can’t put it all on his shoulders. You’ve got to be able to throw the ball, you really do and the league allows you to do that and we’re going to do that. I just think that when you have a guy like we have at running back, he has to touch the ball some, it can’t be an afterthought. Tome,when you runt he ball offensively, you’re a tough football team. This is not touch football, this is tackle football, and it’s a physical game. Teams that I played for and that I’ve coached have had that mindset, so that’s the mindset I have. I’m not going to change my mindset, that’s the way I am.”
Q: Did you think the toughness of this team was in question because they threw too much?
EDWARDS: “No, I’ve just been in situations where you don’t do a lot running the ball and now all of a sudden defensively you can’t stop the run because you don’t practice it a lot. Then when it’s time to get two yards on third-and-two you want to throw a pass. Linemen want to be tough and you always build your football team up front with your offensive and defensive linemen and you want tough guys. When it gets going hard and you cant’ throw the ball, you get some injuries at quarterback, you get a bad day and you can’t run the ball you’re in a little bit of a spot now. You really are, you get yourself in a jam and people say, ‘we couldn’t get two yards running?’ You’re not going to make it, it’s only about that far, but you sit there and your kickers up and everybody says, ‘they couldn’t run for two yards.’ I think that when you do that, the teams that generally win in this league and the consistent playoff teams are very tough, physical football teams. Those are the teams that get into the tournament for the most part. Not all of them, but when you watch them they are the ones, they keep showing up. When I was in New York, we were a pretty good offense, we weren’t a great offense, but we are in the top 15 somewhere. We threw the ball, I had QB Chad Pennington, but I also had RB Curtin Martin. I don’t want people thinking we’re not going to throw the ball, because we’re going to throw the ball. We had good players, we had a good quarterback and we had a good runner, so we played that way. We played pretty good on defense; we got turnovers and took a lot of balls away. We were pretty good on defense in the years that we went to the playoffs. That’s my philosophy on how I want to play and how we are going to play.”
Q: In the era of free agency and salary cap, is it possible to have an offense and a defense both in the league’s top three?
EDWARDS: “It’s hard in some sense. You’re probably not going to be in the top three in both anymore, I think one is going to be a little bit more than the other, but I think that if you’re in the top three, top five in points allowed on defense than you are doing well. As we all know, if you don’t allow the other team to score a lot of points in the game, your team is always in the game. You’re in the game all the time, every time no matter where you go and that’s what you ask for. If you can do that and now have the ability to score you have then on the other side of it you’ve got a chance to win game. I just think that the way the game is played now and you see how it’s played every week, you’ll see some big scores and then you’ll see some not so big scores. Generally, when you see big scores, the thing I always say is that they turned the ball over. That team turned the ball over; they gave them a short field. It’s hard for the offenses and I mean all the offenses to go 70-80 yards in 12 possessions. You get about 12 possessions in a football game. You might see some long drives two or three times in a game. Other than that, unless they have a short field, it’s very difficult to score unless you turn the ball over. If you turn the ball over and give a team a short field, they are going to score points. That’s what you have to realize when you play.”
Q: What would you like QB Damon Huard to do to take advantage of this bye week?
EDWARDS: “I think that we have to open the offense up a little more than we did the first week. I think the thing that he has to realize is that he doesn’t have to win the game. Sometimes you look at your quarterback and go, ‘hey, you’ve got to win the game.’ He doesn’t have to win the game, all he has to do is manage the game and don’t turn the ball over. It sounds like I’m beating a dead horse here, but you can’t turn the ball over. We’ve turned the ball over too many times in the first two games and we haven’t won a game.”
Q: Did you feel that in Denver Huard tried to make plays?
EDWARDS: “He did and he took what was there. He did a good job. You’ve watched this team go over there (Denver). Guys, at halftime it hasn’t been close. The truth is the truth and I’m not trying to say anything about anybody, but I’m looking at that when we get ready to play these guys and I’m going, ‘well why is that?’ I’ve got to look at all of that and go, ‘ok, this is why it happened and guess what boys, we’re going to play a different way this time and let’s see if this happens.’ What I told them that week when we got ready, I said, I’m going to tell you something. If we withstand the barrage in the first quarter and make this a game. If we withstand the right hook to the head in the first quarter and we make this a game, in the fourth quarter we’ll have a chance to win the game. Well, guess what? In the fourth quarter we had a chance to win the game. We didn’t win it and we have to do a better job with that.”
Q: Do your coaches have time off during the bye weekend?
EDWARDS: “They actually have Friday and Saturday off and then they will come back in on Sunday. They have two days basically, three days after practice on Thursday they will go back and be with their families and they will come back on Sunday. Generally I’ve always done that traditionally in the byes and I usually come in those two days on my own and I look at everything. I watch all of the tapes over again by myself and get an assessment of our team, what we’ve done, some of our players on our football team and then really have a good plan when the coaches come back on what we are going to do and how we are going to do it. The coaches have been good; they’re working their tails off. Everybody’s working hard and that’s all you can do. I believe that if you just work hard, good things happen and that’s what we’re going to do. We’ll continue to work hard and we will get out of this hole that we’ve dug ourselves in.”
http://www.kcchiefs.com
KC, you've been HERMINATED!!!!!!!!
If there are legit reasons, you do it sometimes. Herm looked at the camera and said he loves to kick the ball away. Check out NFL Access when you get the chance today. Simply unbelievable. And he had the nerve last week to say nothing has changed on the KC O? You think his players do not listen to this crap and shake their heads saying WTF.....they have one of the best O in the league last few years and now the giuy would prefer to play Defense???
HEY, maybe Herm turned the corner. 
too:He told the NY media he didn't have any conversation with the Chiefs front office while still coaching with the Jets, and that he had no intention of leaving NY, that he loved it here..
