Opening statement:
“As far as the injuries go, [Chiefs RB] Clyde [Edwards-Helaire] has a high-ankle sprain. [Chiefs WR] Kadarius Toney, his hamstring tightened up. [Chiefs S Juan] Thornhill has a left calf that he strained. Then, [Chiefs CB] Jaylen Watson hurt his hand, but we’ll see where that goes from here. Listen, great football game. Our fans were unbelievable, the ones that were here. We appreciate that. [Chargers Head Coach] Brandon Staley has done a heck of a job with this football team. These games come right down to the last series and they can go either way. I was proud of our guys for stepping up and doing a nice job, offensively, that last series that they had, and, defensively, the last series the defense had. That’s big-time football at the right time, and much appreciated. [Chiefs TE Travis] Kelce, again, had another 100-yard game. He’s done a nice job with that. It was good to get [Chiefs RB Isiah] Pacheco 100 yards. We needed that today, every yard of it. It was good to see some of the young guys step up, whether it was [Chiefs WR Justin] Watson having to start and [Chiefs WR] Skyy [Moore] stepping in there and doing a nice job on the offensive side. Defensively, [Chiefs LB Nick] Bolton was all over the place. He’s been doing that all year. [Chiefs DE Mike] Danna had some nice rushes. [Chiefs DT] Chris [Jones], he’s a great player. It’s a great play when great players make them. He did a nice job on that interception, he actually caused that to take place. I could keep going; the offensive line, [Chiefs QB] Pat Mahomes, what are you going to say? He calms everything down. Both sides of the ball he helps out with. [Travis] Kelce does the same, and Chris [Jones] and [Chiefs DE] Frank [Clark]. It was good to have Frank [Clark] back]. [Nick] Bolton, all of those guys. The good players really stepped up and calmed things down when it was needed. Anyway, time’s yours.”
On his ‘level of confidence’ during the offense’s game-winning drive:
“Didn’t really think about that part. We just went in saying, ‘This is what we have to do.’ Pat [Mahomes] doesn’t worry about all that; he just goes in and plays. These guys, they all practice. [Chiefs Wide Receivers Coach] Joe [Bleymaier] rotates all of them. [Chiefs Tight Ends Coach] Tom Melvin does the same. Whoever goes in, goes in and plays. That’s how we roll. As far as practicing, we spend so much time on that during camp, working on it. For it to pay off, it’s a good thing. It seems like every time we come here, it comes down to something like this. I mean, it’s ridiculous.”
On the value of ‘integrating the new faces’ in training camp and how that benefits now:
“Well, that, and then rotating them in practice. We have a lot of rookies that finished that game, so it was neat to see them step up and do what they did, whether it was in the secondary or at linebacker or wide receiver. It was a neat thing to see those guys do that.”
On if Kelce ‘was needed more than ever tonight’:
“He battled. They had a plan for him. They were going to bang him around, and then they put an All-Pro safety on him with number three [Derwin James Jr.]. He had to fight like crazy the whole game and come up with things on the fly to get himself open. It’s a tribute to the Chargers, but it’s also a great tribute to [Travis] Kelce for battling through.”
On Chiefs RB Isiah Pacheco ‘lasting until the seventh round’ before being drafted and his impact tonight:
“Really, you saw it tonight, [Chiefs General Manager] Brett Veach, how good he is at doing his job, and [Isiah] Pacheco is one of those guys. He and his crew, they study it, they see what fits into what we do, and then they’re willing to pull the trigger at the right time and evaluate where they think guys are going to fall. It’s an art. That’s not an easy thing to do; you can overdraft guys, you can under-draft. At the same time, you’re talking about guys you want to come in and play, at least within a year or two.”
On Pacheco’s development:
“His growth in the pass protection part of it, even though he had a tough one today when three [James Jr.] blitzed. His pass protection, we are confident in that. His patience, I thought, was good. We’ve been working on that. I thought he did a nice job with that. Not necessarily speed to the hole, but speed through the hole. You could see him let the offensive linemen get it set up and work to the linebacker-level guys, and then go. Hit it, as opposed to being indecisive.”
On Moore’s confidence:
“It’s great. He had the punt returns that were a bit of a mess, but he had never done that. The guys kept encouraging him through this, whether it was his coach, Joe [Bleymaier], or [Offensive Quality Control] Connor [Embree], they just kept encouraging him. They players stuck by him. They could see how talented he was. Nobody looked at him cross-eyed. That peer pressure is the strongest pressure in that case.”
On the duo of Mahomes and Kelce:
“We’re a part of it, and that’s the fun part. You’d like it to last forever, but these guys grow old and it’s not [going to last forever]. So, what I do is I try to enjoy every minute of it, every play. Their chemistry is ridiculous. You know, coming into this game, that they had a plan for Kelce and he and Pat were able to work through it and make some nice things happen.”
On Mahomes’ ability to ‘get everybody on the same page’ offensively:
“Sometimes, there’s not a lot of thinking involved and you just go play [laughter], whether you’re the receiving part of that or you’re the quarterback throwing it. That’s what I saw. I saw guys, ‘Listen, you have to be there,’ and they were there. ‘I know I’ve got to get there and I’m going to fight like crazy to make sure I’m there.’ There’s a time when you just have to get down to that part of it and I thought the guys did that.”
On Mahomes ‘providing a sense that they are going to win the game’:
“We’ve been down with 13 seconds [remaining in regulation] before, so a minute seemed like an eternity. I thought that we gave them too much time [laughter] because that other guy [Herbert] is pretty good, too. [Mahomes] gives you that confidence. The more you’re around him, the more you watch him do what he does, you know that you have a shot.”
On the performance of the rookies tonight:
“They have done a nice job of working hard. It hasn’t come naturally easy. They have had to work their tail off to get themselves in a position where a quarterback trusts them and the coaches trust them to play them. We appreciate that effort that they put forward. I mentioned a little bit earlier that Brett Veach has done a nice job, and you are seeing the results of this with all of these young guys playing. We appreciate that, as a coaching staff.”
On RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s ankle injury:
“He’s a tough kid, but that doesn’t look good. High-ankle sprains on running backs aren’t always the best. We’ll see how he does in the recovery, but it’s pretty tender right now.”
On if Edward-Helaire could be placed on the Reserve/Injured list:
“I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far.”