ASSISTANT HEAD COACH/SPECIAL TEAMS COORDINATOR DAVE TOUB
Q: How do you feel about going to Germany?
TOUB: “(I’m) excited. The guys worked hard all week, and everybody is excited. We got a lot of good work in, staying here, sleeping in our own bed, getting a good Wednesday and Thursday in before we leave. Got to get sleep on the plane. That’s obviously the key to this thing to make it work, everybody is excited.”
Q: On Mecole Hardman’s muffed punt return.
TOUB: “I’ve talked about this a lot of times, and with punters today, they can put the ball on the one (yard-line), they hit it at the five and can put it on the one. In that case, in his case, if you looked at the tape and saw that situation, he did the right things trying to field the football. It was wide open. There was nobody there. He’s just got to do the routine things routinely, which is catch the football, keep his elbows tight, take care of fundamentals, and we would’ve been fine. He probably could’ve had 10-15 yards on the play, I mean that’s what you want to do there.”
Q: Was part of the idea of Mecole Hardman trying to return the kick trying to get a spark?
TOUB: “We had a spark with the field goal block. That’s what we do on special teams, we provide sparks. In that situation there, he just catches the ball and gets 10 (yards), we’re not playing football on the one. If he lets it bounce, it’s going to stop and could possibly go to the endzone, but really I mean, punters put the ball on the one now, that’s what they do.”
Q: On Justin Reid blocking the field goal.
TOUB: “That was a great play, and a lot of credit to him (Justin Reid) because he studies teams. He’s a smart, smart football player. No matter where you put him, he’s going to work at it, he’s going to look at tape, and he studied those guys. He had the get-off down, and he told me, he goes, ‘You call New York,’ which is a right, ‘You call that, and we’re going to make a play.’ He called his shot, and he did it at the perfect time. We needed that right then, coming out of halftime they drove down field, used up a lot of time, and we prevented them from scoring. We got the ball back; it was a huge play at the moment.”
DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR STEVE SPAGNUOLO
Q: Are you going to pull out the old Frankfurt Galaxy gear?
SPAGNUOLO: “I had an old windbreaker, button down jacket that was purple, because we were purple, and I think there was a little gold, they’re great uniforms. That was a tremendous experience, I loved it. We ended up going to the World Bowl, which was in Frankfurt that year. The Berlin Fire beat us. You always remember when you get beat, right? It was a great atmosphere. The people there, the game was exciting – they cheer constantly. You can’t tell if you did good or bad because they’re always cheering – which is great, they’re really into it. It was a great experience. I wish I could find that jacket.”
Q: How concerned are you with injuries at the linebacker position with the speed of the Dolphins?
SPAGNUOLO: “It’s a great point. Nick (Bolton) and Willie (Gay) are speed linebackers. They cover as much ground as anybody in this league. We’re not sure (if) Willie is out right now, Nick we know is not going to play. We’re just going to have to rely on the guys we put in there. Now Drue (Tranquill) certainly is going to run around real fast and you guys can see that. Jack (Cochrane) will step in there if he has to. Leo (Chenal) will step in there. He made some plays for us last week. I feel confident in the guys we’ll put out there. We certainly would like to have Nick and Willie, but we’ll see what happens with that. If we don’t have them, we’ll use the guys we’ve got and rally around that.”
Q: How quick can Darius Harris work into the defense?
SPAGNUOLO: “The one good thing about Darius (Harris) is he was here. The other thing we remembered when we first brought Darius here – if you guys remember he had kind of a red shirt year because he had the injury, so he didn’t do anything that first year. What we knew right from the beginning – (former Chiefs Linebackers Coach) Matt House was here, and we interviewed Darius. He was a very cerebral linebacker, he’s really smart. So, I think he’ll pick up things quickly, and if we got stuck in a situation where he had to go, at least we know he’s had parts of the system before.”
Q: How big of a key in this game will it be for your front four to get the Dolphins off rhythm?
SPAGNUOLO: “Huge. It’s a rhythm passing game and he’s (Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa) really good at it. What I think is really challenging – I was just talking to (The Voice of the Chiefs) Mitch (Holthus) about it as I was coming in here – it’s one thing to be a drop-back team and be rhythm because you know as soon as the lineman pass set, you’re in a pass rush mode as a d-line and then you go from there. This team has a lot of play-action rhythm passing. Everybody up front has to at least respect that it could be a run, and then, boom, all of the sudden it’s a pass play and he’s getting the ball out really quick. That’s what he's really good at. I think that’s one of the main reasons for the success and the high percentage completion rate. What would work best for us is if we can – we’re talking about the pass, they run the ball as good as anybody. We have to begin there, if there is a way somehow some way, we can get the game one dimensional then we have the chance to do what you’re talking about, up until that point it’s going to be a little difficult. We’ve got to play it honest, stop the run first, hopefully get them in longer down-and-distances, so we know what they’re going to do, then try to disrupt them.”
OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR MATT NAGY
Q: How fixable are the issues on offense right now?
NAGY: “It’s very fixable. There’s not panic – it’s there for us to understand. A few things, when you look back a few weeks ago, we put a pretty good game together. The players played well, they executed, we played complementary football with the defense (and) the special teams. This past weekend against Denver – in any football game, you can’t turn the football over, and we did that. We did it three times in the first half. We were not very good in the red zone when we got down there and didn’t turn the ball over. We didn’t score whether it’s a turnover or a field goal or just not getting a touchdown. We were I think one-for-eight in two games against that defense, so you’ve got to give them credit, but at the same point in time, we know we can be better. Going back to the drawing board, seeing where we went wrong, not placing blame but also accepting that we have to be better. We know we can, you get a great opportunity here for us to show what we can do in all three phases this weekend.”
Q: Where is the trust between Patrick Mahomes and the wide receivers?
NAGY: “There is trust. I think for every receiver it’s a little different based off the routes that they run, and it’s growing. We know that they know that Patrick (Mahomes) understands that. It’s just working towards getting the most trust possible with those guys. Again, when you have six or seven receivers and you’re using them all in different ways it probably slows down that a little bit in regards to just getting reps of specific routes with that guy and how that timing works. Then you throw a defense into it, you might throw some injuries, you might throw different factors that come into it. Every one of those guys Patrick has trust in, and they have trust in Patrick. It’s just different levels, and we as a staff have to figure out where those levels are and how we put it into the game plan.”
Q: What has Patrick been like this week coming off a game he wasn’t thrilled with, is he more focused?
NAGY: “The word isn’t more focused for us. To everybody – it’s human nature you win five or six or seven games, whatever it is for any team you start getting in a winning streak and you have to always make sure – one of the toughest things is the complacency and that’s not with him, that’s not with us, but for Patrick what I see is somebody that loves to win and hates to lose. When that happens and you lose, the first thing he does is he starts with himself. His teammates see that, his coaches see it and it’s infectious that there’s not pointing fingers. It’s that we all need to coach better, play better, and if we do that we have a pretty good chance of winning. I think that it’s an ability for him to say, ‘You know what, I get another chance.’ I think when we lost on Sunday, Monday morning couldn’t get here soon enough because he was ready to go. You have to accept what happened, that’s real, you give credit – because Denver played a great game and they made that happen to us so respect there but now what do we do moving forward? That’s the beauty of Patrick (Mahomes) and (Head) Coach (Andy) Reid is there is no looking back. It’s finding solutions, fixing it and moving on. I’ve seen a little bit of a tick of urgency in that.”
Q: As a play caller what are the biggest challenges inside of a game?
NAGY: “You want to be able to get rhythm is the biggest thing. A lot of that comes down to having a feel for what plays are working and not working in practice and then you take it to the game. Making sure your players the (Travis) Kelce’s and getting Patrick (Mahomes) into rhythm, they touch the football – you get them involved, that’s important. There’s also – probably the biggest part of any type of play calling is adjustments and being able to adjust within the game.”