Chiefs Head Coach Andy Reid Quotes
October 17, 2022
OPENING STATEMENT: “Don’t have injuries for you right now – I don’t think it’ll be too much. As far as the game goes, I kind of see it the same way that I saw it last night – two good teams playing against each other (and) the team that made the least mistakes ended up winning the game. Turnovers – we’d talked about this during the week – when they win the turnover battle they’re undefeated over the last few years here. They got it – we were up one and that’s how that works. A lot of good things took place, but then there’s some things that we’ve got to clean up. We’ll do that. Again, my responsibility to make sure that we get that done. I appreciated the effort that the guys put in. I appreciated the young guys and the way that they competed. Everything wasn’t perfect but they competed – and did it for four quarters and we came up a bit short so we’ve got to take care of business there and get better – which I know our guys will do and continue to work hard. Anyways, with that the time’s yours.”
Q: Willie Gay is eligible to return from suspension today. Do you anticipate activating him today?
REID: “Yeah, listen – I haven’t got with (General Manager) Brett (Veach) on that, but I presume that is what will take place, yeah.”
Q: Secondly, with his return, how will this affect the linebacker rotation that you currently have with Darius Harris and Leo Chenal?
REID: “Yeah – who have done a nice job for us. It’ll be great to get Willie (Gay) back in the mix on things and then we’ll just see. (Defensive Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo) Spags uses a lot of different personnel groups and to have one more good football (player) in there – I’m sure will help, too.”
Q: When it comes to Trent McDuffie, are you optimistic that this will be his return week or given the bye is it the week after do you think you will keep him out one more week?
REID: “Yeah, if he can go this week (then) we’ll get him in there playing. (We) just want to see how he does during the week practice and see how it feels. If he can get back in, we’ll let him play.”
Q: Any rhyme or reason to the inconsistent play of the offensive line? Is it just the competition or are there things that you can do with Offensive Line Coach Andy Heck just to try to improve it here midseason?
REID: “We’ve been fortunate to play some good defensive lines and that helps you get better. The guys are competing and you’re going to – listen, you’re going to lose every once in a while, that happens all throughout the league and you’re striving to win every battle but at the same time we’re playing really good, talented defensive lines. That’s the bottom line and we have another one coming up this week, but we look forward to those challenges because it helps you down the road (and helps you) become better. Andy (Heck) is always looking for things to do up front to work the protections and that’s not going to change. He’s going to keep doing those kinds of things to try and work according to what they present.”
Q: On getting into field goal range in 12 seconds. Is it a practice on how much time you need to get into field goal range? Does it depend on where the ball is?
REID: “I don’t know. I mean we’re kind of testing the clock here now. I mean that’s a pretty low number – with 12 (seconds) it’s normally tough to get that much yardage that fast. I’m proud of the way the guys handled it. I think we were on top of it whether it was the play calls, whether it was the execution of the plays or whether it was making sure the officials called the timeout – everybody kind of has their piece of the pie in getting it done as fast as possible. I thought it was all well done. And then the kick, obviously, was tremendous.”
Q: It seems like your philosophy for bringing McDuffie back from IR is to have him practice a week, sit out and then potentially bring him back. Is some of that to help get him back into football shape to avoid other injuries?
REID: “Yeah, that was kind of the idea last week was to test it out, see where he’s at. We’ll do the same thing this week. We’ll see – we’re not going to put him in a bad situation where he’s not comfortable but normally you want to get them back up to speed and you can do a lot in rehab. (Vice President of Sports Medicine and Performance) Rick (Burkholder) does a great job with his people with that but there’s nothing like being on the field. I mean Rick would be the first one to tell you this – there’s nothing like being on the field and practicing and getting the game speed down – you know as close as you can to a game – and see how it feels. As long as he feels good this week coming up then we’ll give him a chance to play. If not, then we’ll back off it.”
Q: Is getting the ball out of Patrick Mahomes’ hands quickly something that he is still working on? Is taking the small gains when they’re there and giving everyone a chance to get in a rhythm something else he’s working on?
REID: “Yeah, we try to mix that up the best you can. You can’t do one all the time and not take shots and you can’t take shots all the time and then not throw quick game, so I think he’s got a pretty good feel on it and then obviously him when he does break the pocket his numbers are phenomenal, so I don’t want to curb that. That’s not part of it. So, he’s got a pretty good feel on all that stuff. Listen, there are a lot of things you can criticize when you get down to a game like this because it’s two good teams playing each other so there’s going to be some things that don’t look quite as good, and I bet they’re doing the same thing – they just happened to win the game – but they’re doing the same thing. ‘Oh man we could’ve done this better and that better.’ But they have the ‘W’ so we’re there trying to make sure that we clean up our part and get the things done that we need to be better here and so that’s what we’re heading with. He has a pretty good feel on it. You don’t want to take away all that good stuff that he does and his instincts there and how he handles. He’s pretty good with all that.”
Q: With Gay’s absence what do you believe Nick Bolton gained most from this four-game experience without Gay?
REID: “Yeah sure, so (Nick Bolton) Bolt’s got such a good feel for the game that I think you saw even more maybe of his leadership when (Darius) Harris came in, although Harris is very smart too and (Leo) Chenal is (too). That’s a pretty good group there. But you got to see him perform with other guys and he’s very close with Willie. They’ve known each other a long time so they’re very close and it was just a little different flavor. But still very productive. I think you just adding Willie back in there is another good athlete into that mix and that never hurts. So, we look forward to getting him back in there.”
Q: What do you think the last two weeks did for Gay in terms of integrating back into the team because he could be in the facility?
REID: “No, I’m glad that the league lets them back in with the group. That’s a good place for them to be and stay in tuned with the game so when he has an opportunity to get back in, he knows what’s going on. Things go fast in the National Football League and a week can seem like an eternity. Things change, you’re always growing in certain areas, so to be back in the room, at least you can grow with the guys scheme wise and do what he can do on the field here – we’ll just see where he’s at on the field this week.”
Q: What would you say is the identity of the offensive line? What do they do best right now?
REID: “Well listen, they’re a tough group. They did a decent job with the pass protection yesterday against a good defensive front. Run game, we got to clean a couple of things up there but there were some good things and there were some things we got to take care of. But what their identity is? I think it’s probably too early in the season (to say). I like doing identities at the end of the year (laughs) not at the beginning. But I know they’re a tough group, if you want a feisty group. So you can take that for right now and then we’ll see how we grow.”
Q: On a series of downs in the fourth quarter when you ended up with the field goal. There was a screen that appeared to be open and an Isiah Pacheco open field tackle. And then, it looked like Mahomes might have had a running lane down the left sideline as he was scrambling. How do you look back on that particular series? Do you look back and see an opportunity to get more points?
REID: “Yeah sure, no, you analyzed that. That’s (a) good point there. The screen – we actually had an alert on that play where we could go to a screen against a certain look. We did it and we were just off by a tick. He catches that and that’s a – the throw-catch deal – that’s a big play. Obviously, the run, you – 58 (Matt Milano) did a nice job with the tackle, you got to get your feet up and you can learn from that. Now that’s a young kid right there, but that’s very, very intense and tough. You can try to kick yourself out of that the best you can, although, it was a good tackle. You (got to) give him credit on that. And then, Pat (Mahomes) was trying to make something happen on the throw – and I believe it was third-and-13 or somewhere in that area. Yeah, potentially he could’ve run down the left side, but he was trying to get a little bit more with the throw if he could (in order) to get a first down. But, it was a – he chose that and that’s what you go with – right or wrong.”
Q: Where do you feel you are with the pass rush part of it right now?
REID: “Yeah, I thought we did a good job. When we didn’t get there, we at least blocked a few throws – and you’re not talking about a shorter quarterback back there (laughs), he’s a big kid. We were able to block a couple of them there. But, we’ll always be growing there with it, but we seem to get decent pressures at times on them and that’s an important thing that we keep getting better at down the road.”
Q: Have you learned anything from JuJu Smith-Schuster now after having him be part of your team for a few months?
REID: “Yeah, JuJu (Smith-Schuster) loves to play the game and that’s the part that I appreciate about him. And he’s really tough and he’s very strong. But he loves to play. And those kinds of guys can hang with me all day. I like that.”