Kansas City Chiefs' Assistant Head Coach / Special Teams Coordinator Dave Toub, Offensive Coordinator Eric Bieniemy, Defensive Coordinator Bob Sutton and linebacker Reggie Ragland met with the media on Thursday. Here are five things that stood out.
Assistant Head Coach / Special Teams Coordinator Dave Toub
1. The anatomy of De'Anthony Thomas' return, how did that come about and how was that designed?
TOUB: "First of all, we've got three great returners. All three of those guys would start on any other team, so put them in the game and have as a safety, they're going to block and then all of a sudden you pull them out and they are a viable returner. That's what we did on that play. We were thinking they were going to try to kick away from 10 (Tyreek Hill) which they did. They kicked a high, short kick. We had Tyreek fake like it was a deep kick and it actually was a short kick, and then 13 (De'Anthony Thomas) was standing right there to field it. We were hoping that the coverage would run by him which they did and then we were able to get a big return. But you have to have trust, and we have trust that those guys will field it and make the right decisions. Then they had the trust in the scheme and it worked. This was a well-executed play by those guys."
2. What have you seen in training camp or in his preparation that has led to Dustin Colquitt being so successful in the first two weeks of the season?
TOUB: "He's just so consistent you really don't have to worry about it. He practices great. We've got it down to a science how much he kicks every week and he works out, he spends a lot of time in the weight room. He's getting stronger. He understands what's going to help him prolong his career and he's doing everything right."
Offensive Coordinator Eric Bieniemy
3. How are Sammy Watkins, Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce dealing with knowing maybe winning will come with the sharing of the football?
BIENIEMY: "That starts up top. Coach Reid, he keeps this environment very humble. He has always had an environment where wins are the most important thing that we strive for. When you have good people who happen to be good football players, it takes care of itself. The only thing we want our guys to understand is, 'What can we do to help us win?' Because when it is all said and done with, and you guys have heard me say this before, it's not the stats that are celebrated. I understand, players will receive their independent accolades when the season is over. But in this industry, you are celebrated by those alphabets. And the most important (letter) is the W. We just want to make sure that collectively we are focused on that. And that's all what matters."
Defensive Coordinator Bob Sutton
4. Andy Reid complimented you on the halftime adjustments you made, can you shed some light on some of the conversations you had at halftime?
SUTTON: "I wouldn't tell you all of them. But I thought we had to tighten things down a little bit. Change a couple of things that we were doing. Games flow in different ways. Obviously, we were going on pretty good in that first quarter, then they got kind of hot that one drive and started moving the ball. We kind of got back on our heels a little bit, so we felt like we had to come out and re-establish what we were trying to do there. We had a really great effort in rushing Ben (Roethlisberger) I thought. It produced one sack, but we did a really good job of that. It felt like if we could just keep rushing and doing those things, hopefully we can get this thing back on track. I have to give the players a lot of credit because they stayed the course in that thing. When you have those kinds of swings, it is hard. We got the one touchdown where we didn't get it, it would have made it 28-0. You are on top of the world thinking, 'Jeez, man this is even getting better.' All of the sudden, you lose that one and then they end up taking that drive down. Instead of being 28-0 it is 21-7. That kind of shifted the way the game was going a little bit."
Linebacker Reggie Ragland
5. There has been some back and forth between Tyreek Hill and their running back (Matt Breida) on who is the real cheetah in the NFL, how much of a challenge is he going to be for you guys this week?
RAGLAND: "He's fast. We have to do a good job of containing him and make sure everyone is getting their edges and playing good defense on him. For the most part, there's only one cheetah in my opinion and that is number 10 (Tyreek Hill). No offense to him, but I have to go with my boy."