Chiefs Coordinator Quotes
September 11, 2025
ASSISTANT HEAD COACH/SPECIAL TEAMS COORDINATOR DAVE TOUB
Q: Can you talk about the field goal in the first half and how do you coach that?
TOUB: “There’s a lot of things that are involved in that. I mean, we have (Statistical Analysis Coordinator) Mike Frazier our analytics guy, he talks to us all the time about what happens if you get tackled and you get knocked back and the clock keeps running. He talks about the timing stuff all the time with the whole team. (Head Coach Andy Reid) Coach gives me a lot of time in training camp and OTAs to work on those little things and the situational stuff that can come up, and we practice fast-field-goal, we call it ‘Mayday’, we practice that a lot and it doesn’t happen very often. It’s a situation – I mean, there’s a lot of things that have to happen, for that to happen. When he (Noah Gray) got knocked back and didn’t get out of bounds going forward, we knew right away. Everybody was on the same page, everybody knew, including Noah, that we had to go – we had to go ‘Mayday’. And everybody did a great job with it, including the guys that had to report. And (with) Noah (Gray) running the ball out and putting it down and us not changing the ball, not getting the ball changed. We kicked a quarterback ball, we didn’t kick a kicking ball (and) that might have kept us from getting a shot at it. A whole lot of credit to everybody, the operation went smoothly and (Harrison) Butker nailed it. It was good to get three points right there.”
Q: What are the Philadelphia Eagles special teams like?
TOUB: “We do have a game coming up (laughter). The (Philadelphia) Eagles are good, I mean obviously, they’re World Champions. They play really hard, (they’re) very well-coached. (Special Teams Coordinator) Coach (Michael) Clay does a great job with them. They (have) got a lot of guys back when you look at them. (Eagles RB Will) Shipley was a returner, (but) we don’t know about him. He was injured yesterday so we’re not sure (that) he’s going to play. They did sign (Eagles RB/KR) Tank (Bigsby), so he’s a returner, so we think we’re going to get him back there in kick return. The punter, (Eagles P Braden) Mann is excellent, (and) the kicker (Eagles K Jake) Elliot, he’s got good range. (They’re) just a well-coached group that we’ll have to get ready for.”
Q: What did you see from the kick returners in Week 1?
TOUB: “I really liked Tyquan’s (Thornton) return, and then obviously (Xavier) Worthy got hurt, so we had to take him out of that, (and) now he’s like the third or second wide receiver, so it’s going to be tough to use him back there now. So, we’re going to have to dig down into our depth a little bit this week and have some different guys back there. Brashard (Smith), he had a couple nice returns. He had a nice one (where) he probably should have stayed in the endzone, fake the ball up the 35 (yard-line) but he got it out to the 35 (yard-line), so that was nice.”
OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR MATT NAGY
Q: How do you establish the run game?
NAGY: “Well, the simple (and) obvious answer is being able to be better when we run it whether it’s the scheme or the execution, you tie it together. It’s a credit to their (Los Angeles Chargers) defense, they did a good job in some of the stuff that they wanted to do. Really in football in general, the more balanced you are, and especially when you look at a team like Philadelphia, it’s always going to help. But if we’re throwing the ball well, we’ll stick with it (or) if we’re running it well. And then there’s that balance of mixing the two, but you’re right, we want to be able to be more balanced when we can, but we also want to continue to just trust each other and use what’s best in that game.”
Q: What makes Tyquan Thornton ready for his role?
NAGY: “What tells me he’s (Tyquan Thornton) ready is what he’s done in training camp. The whole entire time he’s been ready. For the guys that we have in that room right now, I said it in training camp, ‘the depth that we have from top to bottom is one of the best I’ve ever been around’, from top to bottom, one through six with all the guys when they’re there. It starts to get depleted a little bit with the injuries and other stuff that’s going on but that said, we have guys, they’re on our roster for a reason, and they’ve done a great job. And so now they get their opportunity to show who they are, and I think the biggest thing is the trust. We (have) got to keep working that trust and then when you get an opportunity, you make a play. Tyquan (Thornton) did that on that one corner route. You know he made a great play with the ball in the air, so we want to keep that going.”
Q: From an execution, discipline and mentality perspective, what do you need to see from this offense on Sunday?
NAGY: “All of that from the very first play. The energy (and) the execution is very, very simple. The energy is organic. It can’t be fake energy and it’s not going to need to be in this game. (Philadelphia Eagles Defensive Coordinator) Coach (Vic) Fangio, we all have a ton of respect for and what he does. He does what he does and he’s going to have some curveballs and changeups that he throws at you. But in the end, it’s about playing football fast and whoever does that better, and I think a fast start, playing fast (and) being able to be aggressive (while) mixing all that together, you’ll have good results. And so we’re really looking forward to the challenge.”
DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR STEVE SPAGNUOLO
OPENING STATEMENT: “I just wanted to open today is September 11th, and (it is) a monumental day in this country. So, we haven’t forgotten about that, and (when) I get a chance (I’ll) mention it to the players this afternoon because none of them were born around then. I remember, I was in Philadelphia. It was a pretty traumatic day. With that, I’ll just kind of open it up. I mean, I’m only going to go back real quick in saying none of us defensively were real happy with the way we played last week and certainly hope to be much better this week and the whole focus of this week is to chase improvement, which is what we do, win, lose, or draw. But especially this week when you don’t perform real well in the previous week. With that, I’ll just open it up.”
Q: The defense had a hard time with pressure early on. Was it because you were looking for the running game?
SPAGNUOLO: “You might have hit on something right there because quite frankly going into the game we all felt like they were going to establish the run first. To their credit, they kind of shifted gears right from the beginning. Maybe it threw us off a little bit but that’s football. We did talk a lot about in the first game of the season or in the first quarter of the season, it’s going to be about adjusting in game. Maybe we could’ve adjusted a little bit quicker. I thought we did a nice job coming out of the locker room in the second half where we needed a three and out and we got that. Actually, the second drive we kind of got a second, three and out. But there wasn’t enough good plays. When we talked after the game in the locker room and I think our guys are great. We all felt like everybody took a turn making a mistake, myself included. There was about four or five calls I would have liked to have had back. I think every player to a man said the same thing. So, if we can eliminate those, we’ll be better off.”
Q: On the challenge of playing the Eagles.
SPAGNUOLO: “Yeah, I wish the other part of it was a little bit better. I always look at the point total and I certainly didn’t like the point total. We did play them pretty good for three and a half quarters, here in (GEHA Field at) Arrowhead (Stadium) the last time we played, (there) were different people (and a) different offensive coordinator. I got a great deal of respect for this team, the organization, the quarterback, all the skill they have and the running back. There’s a lot of pieces there to defend and we didn’t have a good game last week, so it’s time for us to put us all together too.”
Q: On defending Jalen Hurts.
SPAGNUOLO: “Yeah, it seems like we play one of these quarterbacks every week. I mean, the guy (Chargers QB Justin Herbert) we just got done playing he’s a really good athlete. I give him a lot of credit for what he did with his legs. The guy (Eagles QB Jalen Hurts) we are getting ready to play this week is elite at that. We’ll talk till we’re blue in the face about pass rush lanes and containing and we’ll have some things that we hope will take that away. Part of the whole, you know in football, with the spy, however (or) whatever you want to call it. You got to get them in those situations, when you’re in first and second down you can’t be spying people because they’re going to run the ball right at you. So, we got to try to dictate it somehow by having some negative plays on first and second down and get things kind of steered in our direction.”
Chiefs Player Quotes
September 11, 2025
DT CHRIS JONES
Q: What should the response be from the defense this week?
JONES: “Listen, I think the energy in the building is great. Everybody (is) excited to be back in (GEHA Field at) Arrowhead (Stadium) (and) to be back at home. The energy is good. The energy is good, everybody has a positive mind frame of (the) Philadelphia Eagles coming into town. We still have a bad taste in our mouth from the Super Bowl. So, everyone is in a good space.”
Q: What do you have to be mindful of when playing against Jalen Hurts?
JONES: “Just our lanes in rushing the passer. Got to be aggressive on rushing the passer, more aggressive than we were the first game of the season. We (are) going to put that behind us, and we got a lot of skillset guys in our room that we got to be aggressive in rushing the passer and making sure we take the quarterback down.”
Q: What is it like playing against the defending Super Bowl champions and how is your energy higher going into the game?