Chiefs Coordinators Quotes
August 22, 2022
OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR ERIC BIENIEMY
OPENING STATEMENT: “Alright. Good afternoon, how (are) we doing? Feels good to come up here today after a pretty good team victory. I thought our guys played hard. I thought there were some things we improved upon. Is it perfect? No, it’s not perfect, but the thing that I am appreciating is the effort. I’m also appreciating the chemistry that’s been developed and formed right now. With that said, I’m all ears.”
Q: How much do you get the sense that there’s pressure for Patrick Mahomes to find a certain receiver right now and, maybe, that’s leading to some early success in the pass game?
BIENIEMY: “Let me just say it this way – and hopefully I understand your question the right way – I don’t think he’s feeling any pressure to get rid of it. I think he’s just doing a great job of distributing the football. The thing that I think that we’ve added – and obviously, we know what took place this offseason, we lost a great player who’s going to continue to be great – but the thing that we’ve added, we’ve added some pieces. And these guys are doing a heck of a job. I think we have a lot of depth at many positions not just at the running back position. We’ve got depth at that position as far as the receiver room and the tight end room. Pat is just doing a great job of distributing the football. And the thing that he does in practice, he finds all those guys and keeps them all involved, so everybody’s working to get open. So, I just think that’s the chemistry that’s being formed and you see guys just working to improve upon it.”
Q: On a play where Marquez Valdes-Scantling got free and Mahomes overthrew him.
BIENIEMY: “The next time we have that opportunity to run that play, in fact we had a great discussion about it because one thing, the man MVS (Marquez Valdes-Scantling), he came out and on top of that, at the end of the day we got to make sure that we’re completing the ball but just making sure we’re on the same page as far as the angles are concerned and what should we expect. There’s a number of things that took place on that particular play that we could improve upon, and the first thing is just making sure that we’re aligned properly so we all can give ourselves an opportunity to get off the ball.”
Q: What was your message to Isiah Pacheco after a play where it looked like Patrick Mahomes was guiding Pacheco into a hole?
BIENIEMY: “Isiah is a great kid. He’s a tough, hard nosed football player. My message to him each and every week is to be patient and allow the game to come to you. He wants to do good all the time in which you love about that particular player and about that kid. The thing he has to understand is that you got to rely on the o-line (offensive line) to work for you as well. On top of that you have to learn how to be in sync and in rhythm with the o-line on making sure you’re executing the proper footwork because your spacing has to equate to what they’re doing and now that allows them to secure level 1 to level 2. If he’s just taking a ball and running, we’re not giving ourselves a chance to be great. Now, is he working on it? Yes. Is it (a) work in progress? Yes. Will he improve over time? Yes, he will. The kid has the right temperament, and he has the right mindset, and he will be okay.”
Q: How do you feel about the run game?
BIENIEMY: “It could be a lot better. It could be a lot better. At the end of the day, we just got to make sure that we’re calling enough runs but on top of that we got to give ourselves a chance and everything starts upfront. Our guys upfront are doing a (good) job but on top of that we just need to make sure as a (running) back, that we’re doing everything under the sun to make it happen by being in sync and in rhythm. Making sure we’re having the proper reads and then on top of that, everybody just thinks the run game goes with what’s taking place inside. It also has to do with the guys, the tight ends on the edge and those guys on the perimeter so it’s a team effort. There’s a lot of things that we need to improve upon and we’re going to continue striving to make sure that we can reach the perfection that we want to reach.”
DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR STEVE SPAGNUOLO
OPENING STATEMENT: “Alright. I’m here ready to go. No opening comments. I’m going to just let you fire away.”
Q: You told us in OTA’s that you were more or less racing against the clock to get everything together before the season starts. How do you feel about that race now?
SPAGNUOLO: “Yeah, pretty good. I mean the early on I know we talked a lot about this in terms of volume of scheme and all that. It’s been cut way back in these preseason games and everybody does that, right? Everybody kind of gets vanilla. But we’ll just add a little bit here and there when we start heading toward Arizona and just be careful with how much we add on.”
Q: You mentioned a lot of the new faces. I’m sure after the 2022 NFL Draft you have expectations for some of them. Through OTAs, camp and preseason games how much have they exceeded your expectations as we head toward the regular season?
SPAGNUOLO: “You know, you ask me the expectation question a lot. I think there’s an assumption that I have certain expectations. We’re hopeful in certain areas, when we get a certain guy, we get a guy, but I’m always starting from ground zero and building from there and trying to get them from point A to point B. And some of those guys are getting there quicker than others, you know? But that part of it’s never going to stop. You’re more hopeful when you get new guys in my opinion. In some regards you never really know what you’re getting. Throughout the history of the NFL there’s been a bunch of first round picks that everybody thought was going to (do well) and it doesn’t happen. So, you can’t predict it. That’s why I kind of stay away from that. Basically, just try to build.”
Q: On having to play rookies because of the makeup of the team, as well as the theory over the years of him not wanting to play rookies.
SPAGNUOLO: “Here’s my thing with anybody and anything. Take the rookie off of it. I believe you have to earn anything you get, that’s just me. Whether that’s rookies, whether that’s a new guy coming, whether it’s a new coach, you’ve got to earn (it). That’s what this league is all about. You earn what you get. But, this year might be a little bit different, you got to put somebody out there, right? (laughter).”
ASSISTANT HEAD COACH/SPECIAL TEAMS COORDINATOR DAVE TOUB
Q: After seeing Skyy Moore for a couple of games as a punt returner, what are your thoughts there? Do you think he’s ready for the regular season?
TOUB: “I think he’s building confidence every game. I really liked that second one where he went after it, it was a short kick. We had a right return call but there was not a lot of blocking over there, but he still went up and caught it and saved us some yardage and held onto the ball when he got hit. So, I mean that was good to see. He’s getting a lot more confident with his catching and his ball reads so we’ve got to keep working him. I tried to get him as many as I could in that last game.”
Q: On that play there, when you’re running like that, would you rather him fair catch it?
TOUB: “If you fair catch it, obviously you can’t return it, so he was trying to steal it. He was trying to get something out of it. I like his courage right now, that’s a good thing to see. You want to have a returner who is willing to take chances. It’s a tough job. I tell our guys, ‘You’ve got quarterback then you’ve got punt returner as far as the toughest jobs in the NFL.’ I think it’s hard. You have to have courage and you have to have toughness. The ball reads and everything that goes along with it. You have to trust your teammates and that they’re going to block for you because you don’t get to see it a lot of times.”
Q: And the decision making?
TOUB: “Yeah, the decision making is huge. That’s a big thing. In a regular season game, a fair catch, I would’ve been fine with that. He made a fair catch on the first one, that was fine. I like the fact that he tried to steal it. That was a good thing to see.”
Q: On Harrison Butker making a 68- and 74-yard field goal during pregame warmups.
TOUB: “It was the perfect situation out there, we had the wind blowing. In pregame he likes to hit long ones because it makes him feel like when we do kick a 50 yarder, he feels real close because he just banged 21 yards further than he just kicked the 53. Then he missed the 53. That wasn’t like him to miss that kick, I’ll let him tell you about it, but it was not normal for him. He was spot on in pregame for sure. The situation was good and he was banging those kicks.”
Q: In the right conditions is that his range now?
TOUB: “We’re going to keep him 58 (yards), 40-yard line would probably be his range. Get the ball to the 40 then you have a really good legitimate shot to get it. That kind of kick there, you do at the end of the half. You’ve got the wind behind you, no time left on the clock. You know, you’re just going to take a shot. That’s why we always try to, at the beginning of the game, kick into the wind. If we win the toss, we try to kick into the wind so we have the wind at our back in the second quarter so we can try those long field goals.”
Chiefs Player Quotes
August 22, 2022
S JUSTIN REID
Q: What advice do you have for the young guys trying to make the 53-man roster?
REID: “Yeah, so I got a couple of tips on that. So first and foremost, it’s not always about being so hungry to make a play that you get outside of the technique and scheme of the defense to make those plays. You can have a great game and not have any stats on a production chart by being consistent, doing your job the whole time and it just so might happen for that game that the ball didn’t come your direction but when it does come, don’t miss the lay up when those opportunities come. Don’t get bogged down, overthinking your job or what’s going to happen next. At the end of the day, football is football. It’s the same sport we been playing since we were kids, so pin your ears back and go.”
Q: About the defense from that start of training camp to now.
REID: “Yeah, the confidence is there. You look at the first two halves of both the Chicago (Bears) game and Washington (Commanders) game, I mean they looked identical. The offense goes and scores on the first drive. Defense holds them to a big egg on the score board. That’s what we wanted to execute out of our first teams. To go out there, game plan is simple. We should be able to execute, and I think we did a good job of that so that’s brought us some momentum going into the season. We just got to make sure we continue to do that when the games count.”
Q: You and Deon (Bush) are in the same position (veterans on a new team), how much are you getting to know each other?
REID: “Yeah, we got to know each other a lot. We bring a lot of experience to the room. Me and Deon (Bush), we chat all the time. I didn’t know that he had that big hit stick power that he had in him, that he put on display a couple days ago. That was very fun to watch. Our job here not only is to go out and perform but it’s also to be a resource for those next guys coming in. We have a ton of rookies in this class, especially in the DB room, so we want to help bring those guys along because most of them are going to be playing some football for us and they’re going to play a pivotal role in us getting some big time wins down the road.”