The Kansas City Chiefs didn’t get off to the start they were hoping for against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday but learned valuable lessons that should serve them well in the coming season. The team will get back to practice tomorrow ahead of their preseason Week 2 matchup against the Arizona Cardinals.
Check out the top quotes from Sunday’s postgame press conference:
Andy Reid on Justyn Ross' performance
“Yeah, you know before I comment, I want to take a look at the tape. In general, I thought the guys did a decent job. I know he had the touchdown. That was a good play, that play. As a whole I have to see all the work they did.”
Andy Reid on Justyn Ross' participation after two years of absence from the field
“That’s the good part of the story, and he came out healthy. That’s a positive thing.”
Andy Reid on the Chiefs' botched tight end sneak
“After looking at it on the replay, we probably should have gone to the left
and not the right. They ended up pinching on that side, the left side, and we probably could have gone in that direction. We’re trying to get where we can do that. We can’t work on that in camp live. You get good work on it here. It didn’t work. That was the bottom line. We have to go back to the drawing board on it.”
Andy Reid on Felix Anudike-Uzomah and Rashee Rice getting their first NFL experience
“That’s so valuable for them. They’re two guys who need that – the speed of this, live, the whole deal – and not just a handful of reps, putting a series together. I think that was good for both of them. Again, I have to evaluate off of the tape. We’re going to look at it. There are going to be some corrections. I thought for the most part they held their own and did a decent job there. I’ll take a peek at that.”
Andy Reid on Shane Buechele's touchdown pass to Kekoa Crawford
“It was a good escape. That escape was good. The throw was good. The catch was good. All around that was a pretty good play. Glad he had a chance to get one in the end zone there.”
Shane Buechele on his touchdown pass to Kekoa Crawford
“Just a little scramble drill, and the guys did a good job of working for me. (It was) just playing football, man, just playing football. And, I have a good example in front of me where I get to watch him (Patrick Mahomes) make plays. Kekoa Crawford made a great play on that catch. It was just playing football.”
Shane Buechele on his touchdown pass to Justyn Ross
“That was awesome. Seeing the smile on his face after he caught that ball was the best part. He did a great job of running the route and just executing the play. I was happy for him. It was awesome…He did a great job of executing and both of us being on the same page. After that, we were all excited about seeing the smile on his face, seeing all of the hard work that he’s put in from all of his injuries. (It) was tough times for him, so for him to be out on the field, trusting his ability and executing was awesome. It was good to see.”
Shane Buechele on Patrick Mahomes' energy, message to Chiefs in second half
“Coming out that second half, the message was “energy”. We needed to have better energy on the sideline and field. We were able to put together a couple of drives where we were able to score. It was kind of cool. It is always fun to have those guys be pumped up and have energy on the sideline. That was the message going out in the second half…(that was the message) from him (Mahomes) and Coach (Andy) Reid (was to) just have energy, go out and try to win a ball game.”
Shane Buechele on his impression of Kansas City's starters
“There was just a lot of energy. They did a really good job of just playing with energy (and) playing within the system. Some of us, that’s the only time that we get to go out there and play. We always preach to just do your job. You don’t have to go out and do anything different, anything extra. Just do your job, play within the system, and we put together a couple of really good jobs where we had to go down and score. It was fun, a lot of fun.”
Justin Reid on his experience being back on the field
“It was fun. I got to go out there and make a couple of tackles. (There’s) a lot to learn from. (We’ve) got to start faster with the first group out there. I think there are a lot of things to build on. We got to see the young guys come and fight back. (There was) a lot of good things that they put on tape. (It was a) wild way that the game ended, a failed two-point conversion and an interception. It’s preseason. The most important thing is that some guys got some experience and got some tape on that we can continue to build from and learn from in training camp and get ready for the regular season.”
Justin Reid on his excitement for the Chiefs' younger players
“We wanted to juice them up. We want them to be confident. We would love for everybody to make the team. That, unfortunately, isn’t how it works in the NFL. There’s going to be cuts. We want everybody to go out there and put good tape out there so that even if you don’t make the team here, you still have an opportunity somewhere else. There are some guys who took advantage of some opportunities out there. (They need to) keep their heads high, keep them playing hard, playing fast, making plays. They did a lot of good things.”
Saints HC Dennis Allen's opening statement
“It’s good to get a win. I thought our first units, both offensively and defensively, really came out strong and played well. It was good to see the offense (on the) first drive of the game take it right down the field 11 plays and get a touchdown. Obviously with a few new pieces it was good to see Derek [Carr] out there. It was good to see Mike [Thomas] get a catch across the middle, so there were some good things that happened there. The second series offensively again we were able to take the ball downfield and get points. And honestly, I thought it went downhill from there. I don’t think we executed well for a good chunk of the game until obviously there at the end with the two-minute drive and then we get the takeaway at the end of the game to seal it. Kind of the same thing on defense. I thought initially we started out strong. We got a couple of stops with the first unit which was good. And then (later), when we gave up the deep ball, that kind of changed the momentum of the game. In the second half, I just thought we made too many mistakes. Mistakes that will end up costing us games. But like I said, I am glad we got the win. This league is all about winning, so winning in the preseason is important and I am glad our guys were able to do that. It was nice to see [Blake] Grupe get a chance to get to kick in that situation and be able to knock it through.”
Dennis Allen on his impression of Derek Carr
“I thought he was in control, poise, threw it to the open guy. Kind of the way you want your quarterback to operate the offense. He did a nice job stepping up into the pocket a couple of times, so I thought overall it was a good experience.”
Dennis Allen's impression of young Saints
“We had some young guys score their first NFL touchdowns; we had some guys kick their first NFL field goal. So, it was good to see some of those young guys make some plays. Certainly, we are in a race to improve from now to week two and we have a few days before we get on a plane and head out to L.A. and get some work in against the Chargers, so we still have a lot of things to improve on.”
Dennis Allen on New Orleans' ability to force turnovers
“We have talked a lot about taking the ball away and we got two of them today. I think takeaways are contagious. When you start getting them, they tend to come in bunches, so everything is about the ball and we have to continue to emphasize that as a coaching staff and make sure our guys understand the importance of the ball, both protecting it and trying to take it
away.”
Dennis Allen on how the Saints pulled out their improbable win
“You know it’s a preseason game, and when we didn’t get the two-point conversion, we could have said let’s get out of here and save our pads a little bit. But, I thought it was important for us to take the timeouts. We figured if we got them three-and-out and they had to punt the ball back to us, we’d get the ball with about 15-20 seconds left and maybe we could get ourselves in long field goal range and see if (Blake) Grupe could hit a long one. Our guys on defense made a play and you never know when those plays are going to come so you just have to keep playing.”
Derek Carr on starting his first game for the Saints
“When I woke up this morning, everything was new to me. Where’s pregame meal? I followed Erik McCoy in and I was like, ‘bro, I don’t know where to go to park.’ He was like ‘follow me.’ As soon as I got in here, Reg (Reggie Stone) was showing me everything like everything there is in the locker room and I was like, ‘alright, where’s the shower? Where’s the snacks?’ Everything was new. For me to get out there more importantly and play football in the stadium, this time when it wasn’t loud, we can operate and do those kinds of things. It was important to me to do that no matter how old I am and how many years I’ve played the NFL, to do it with a new group, all new receivers and for everyone to be in there and playing, I think is a mark of this team that any chance we can get to go out there and coach (Allen) will let us, we just want to compete and play.”
Derek Carr on what he could have done better
“We had a false start. I will look at that and I always put false starts on myself. Was there something in the communication process that I did not do, right? Everyone wants to look at the jersey number that they put it on, but I have a lot to do with that too. I have to look at that. I’ll always try and put those on me. Because I’m always trying to deflect from those guys as much as I can because, again, if there’s a way that I can help us be better, that’s all I’m looking to do. I’ll check in with those guys, especially after we watch it. Especially with what kind of play it was and what we were trying to do. Is there something there that I could have done better to help them out.”
Derek Carr on the Saints' offensive line
“When we have those five guys out there in practice all together. Sometimes
some guys are limited and things like that. But when they’re all five out there, it’s like wow, this is pretty impressive, man. That’s the first thing I told him when we came off field, I was like ‘I got to go through reads and make decisions, play quarterback, I appreciate it fellas.’ Because those guys man,
they did a great job on that. It is one drive, but it is okay to get excited about, it’s professional football. I think those guys are really good players. We’ll watch the film and there’s going to be things that they’ll want to fix and that I’ll want to fix but just playing the game and being able to see things and all
that, I thought they did a great job.”
Saints DL Khalen Saunders on facing his former teammates
“Also fun. It really felt like practice. It just really… I felt like I saw a lot of plays that I’m used to seeing. I was out there calling out some stuff and kind of cheating a little bit but not cheating because I know them. But it was fun, getting to talk to those guys too before and after the game. Because, like I said in my introductory press conference here, I’m a big team guy. I’m going to treat them…treat those guys like my brothers. I still talk to those guys daily
and so it was good to kind of reconnect with them and share sentiments and all of that stuff like that. But they also know who I am and they know that I’m a team guy so they know I take the Saints seriously and it’s not like no, ‘man I wish I can be back.’ Like no, I love y’all to death but I’m a Saint. So that’s how it is now and it was a good experience and it was a good competition.”
Khalen Saunders on if he wanted more reps
“Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s the competitor, the football player in all of us. Don’t nobody wants to just be done completely playing, especially when you getting some tackles and getting back into it finally, like, oh, man, this how football feel. And then you get taken out. But obviously this opportunity… this is not our time, this is not my time. This is an opportunity for the younger guys. This is obviously for me just to sharpen my skills and polish up and get ready for the season. But one thing that I will say that I’ve learned over my career so far is it’s not about your first team. It’s about those guys who’s given those guys a break. Those guys are coming in there should never be a drop off. And that’s one thing I preach to the guys, the younger guys, the
rookies, and just the guys on you know behind me is like, ‘Man when 99 comes off the field…’ (Malcolm) Roach…I love playing with Roach because there’s no drop off at all. And I kind of relay that to the younger guys and I’m like, yo, y’all got to… when me and Roach not on there, it should look like me and Roach on there. That’s just kind of our mentality and mindset.”
