HEAD COACH ANDY REID
Opening Statement:"Alright, again the players are just coming in now, so I don't really have any injuries to report to you. Shout out to the fans for the support yesterday; it was a great environment to play in. Tony Richardson – congratulations to him for being inducted there yesterday. All the alums, it was great to see all of those guys around, and out there, and all the support. They're great for our team to see, and I love when they come up to training camp and have the opportunity to talk to the team and share some experiences with them. I thought the coaches put together a good game plan, and the players executed well. There was good enthusiasm and support on the sideline. There were times in that game that it could have gone either way, as far as the fourth and inches and going for it, and we didn't get it. The defense made a nice stand, the fumble going into the end zone – again – these are points where your momentum could have changed. The defense snuffed that out. So, overcame a little bit of adversity there and did some good things with that. Again, I appreciate the effort that the guys put in and the detail that they put in. We have a ton of room to improve – absolutely. We have a lot of things we can take out of this and work on that we'll do this week against a good Steelers football team. It's important that we enjoy this today, and then, get ourselves ready for the Steelers."
Q: What do you think about the rule of fumbling near the goal line?
REID: "Yeah, it's a little different, I agree with you. It is the rule. So, if you can't secure it with two hands, then, it's tough to tell a player not to make a play – that's a tough thing. Unless you can secure it with two hands and bring your body with it across the end line, you probably don't want to stretch it out like that. Again, that's tough. These kids are trying to do their best to score and win the game, but you've got to be careful with that one."
Q: Spencer Ware doesn't fumble a lot.
REID: "Yeah, his left arm got knocked off of that thing. That one, you go back to the one before and that was a great example for a couple of people. Spencer [Ware], you secure the ball at all times, right? And he's not a fumbler, and then, finish your blocks. There were a couple guys out there blocking for him that their guys spun off and hit Spencer, when Spencer thought they were being blocked – no excuses there. You got to hold onto the football no matter what, likewise, yesterday. That was kind of a freak deal yesterday."
Q: Are instructions to the runner different on a first down opposed to any other kind?
REID: "Not really. Not necessarily. A fumble is a fumble there. It doesn't matter the down or the distance. So, you really want to bring your body across the end line is what you want to do."
Q: So, along the lines with that – finishing in the red zone and having to settle for a field goal.
REID: "So, you're at the two-yard line – the plus two – and you go backwards. You can't do that. You've got to take care of business down there. Those are things that we can work on. There were so many good things – so many positive things. Our quarterback rating, you can look at that, and can look at some of the things our offensive linemen did – backed up all those linemen. You could argue this is one of the better defensive lines that you'll play. I thought the guys handled themselves well. You look at time of possession, we kind of won that battle and obtained the football. Take a bunch of good stuff of it, but got to do a little better job there."
Q:Tamba [Hali] got a few more snaps. Is that a situational thing as New York was in the passing mode, or is he starting to come around? REID:"It's a little bit of each. Dee Ford got banged up a little and had to come out. Tamba got more time there, and we've been easing him a little more each of the last few games. We're not going to give him an entire game at this point -- that's not where he's at. We want him to be here and be productive the whole year."
Q:Now that you've had a chance to go back and watch the game, what were your thoughts on Travis Kelce's performance?REID:"I thought Travis played well. Are there some things he could work on? Sure. There are some things he needs to take care of. For the most part though, he ran some crisp routes, caught the ball well, yards after the catch were good, his inline blocking was good for the most part and there's always room to improve on perimeter blocking."
Q:Where is the biggest area Travis Kelce has improved on over the last year?REID:"Consistency is the main thing. He's been more consistent in his play."
Q:What do you coach Tyreek Hill on when he maybe tries for too much on returns and it ultimately costs him yards?REID:"You need to see it on tape, which helps. When you're one of, if not the fastest guy on the field, you need to understand the geometry of the playing field. You've only got a certain amount of room to work with and defenders can cut that space in half depending on their angles. You end up having to split people. There's a time and a place to do that and there's a time and a place to go around a guy. He had one where he went inside and went up the field and he should have gone outside on one of our wide screens. There was a similar occurrence on another special teams play and the one where he spun out and he should have split it and went up field. He wants to be good. He's easy to talk to. He'll get it -- I've seen this before. He's got a lot of talent and he'll make some big plays too."
Q:Is it difficult to show players the difference in speed from college to professional when entering the NFL? REID:"They need to see it on film. That tells you the whole story. At this level, you can't outrun everybody. The angles and the size of the field -- you've got to keep all of that in mind and figure it out."
Q:What have you seen out of*Steven Nelson in these first three games? REID: *"He's done a nice job. Every week he's gotten better and he made some nice plays yesterday. He's staying aggressive, he's playing inside and outside, a lot of special teams plays and obviously his numbers are up there."
Q:Did you intentionally reduce his work load on special teams this week? REID:"Yeah. With Phillip [Gaines'] absence, we decided to up Nelson's reps. We weren't quite comfortable putting Phillip in there quite yet."
Q: The four tight ends when you put those guys all on the field at the same time, is that something that you are maybe a little cautious of, showing too much off, or does it matter because the size mismatch is just sort of inevitable?
REID: "It just depends. We're mixing it in just as another personnel group. Down in the red zone we used it a little bit, we didn't use it quite as much out in the field. If we're going to have these guys up we might as well use them. That's the way I look at it. So we're mixing things up."
Q: A number of your defensive players mentioned practice last week as a reason for success, Eric Berry specifically mentioned Wednesday's practice. Did you notice any uptake in intensity last week from the defense?
REID: "I did. I thought their focus was better than the week before. It's a tough deal because you're getting a lot thrown at you in the meetings before the practice. The heat was up a little bit the last two Wednesday's so that can throw your concentration off a little bit. They focused in. I thought they did better, Eric [Berry] was a big part of that. He kind of drives that on that side of the ball as one of the leaders. I just thought the communication and energy level was up."
Q: I noticed at the end of the first half you guys got the ball back and then there was a penalty. What was the thought process behind becoming more aggressive once the penalty hit?
REID: "So we started off with a quick screen to Travis [Kelce] there and tried to get ourselves out of the hole just a little bit and get a feel on what they were thinking and what we wanted to get done. The percentage driving the long field in that short of time is a tough thing, but maybe you can get a field goal out of the mix. We let the clock tick down so we knew we were getting the ball the second half. We didn't want to give them the ball back, so we let the clock come down a little bit with the run. We tried to pop a trap and then came back with a couple of big hitters to put us in field goal position to take a shot. We weren't successful with it, but that was the idea."
Q: So basically just trying to make sure they didn't have enough time left?
REID: "I didn't want to give them the ball back. Plus you know you're getting the ball back at the beginning of the second half after deferring the toss."
Q: What's the plan for Jamaal [Charles] this week?
REID: "We'll see. He's getting closer here. We've probably been overly cautious, but there's a chance he's out there this week. We'll see how it goes."
Q: Marcus [Peters] is in pretty rare company with 12 interceptions at this point in his career. How does he stack up with some of the other young corners that you've coached and gone up against in your career?
REID: "I think he does a tremendous job. He is so competitive. He's just kind of a combination of a physical corner and he's got that ability to tie it down when he needs to, whether it's bumping and running or tackling. On the other hand, he can be that nimble shifty corner that you see intercepting these balls. He has tremendous ball skills. He probably could come over on the other side and be a heck of a receiver. Who does he compare? He puts his name on his own way. He's a really talented kid. He works hard. That probably gets overlooked. He practices hard, he loves playing football and these are all things I appreciate about the kid."
