 |
My dad gave it to me. He was living in Boston at the time and read in one of the newspapers there that (Bill) Belichick built a lot of his philosophy off of it and liked the book. He got it and read it, and sent it to me.
Q: Was it interesting hearing his story in person?CP:
Yeah, it was great, especially after you read the book and you're hearing those stories first-hand. You're talking about a very decorated military man, and he's there addressing you and talking to you about real life and death. We talk a lot about 'going to war' on the football field ... but that's really war. That's where his background is. So having a guy come in and talk to you and share some of his stories and different things that have happened in his experience was pretty cool for us.
Q: What was his message?CP:
I think his biggest message was that he made everybody feel important. He talked about the guy on the ship that deals with all the sewage, and how if he didn't do his job, the whole boat suffers. Whether you're a special teams guy, a backup DB, whatever it may be, everybody's important and everybody needs to feel important, and he made everybody feel important. He made everybody feel that they had ownership of what was going on, that their work and their time and their efforts had to all come together as a team to get that job, to reach that goal.
Q: Do you think it will carry over for the rest of the season?CP:
That's the objective of having him come in, and for us listening to him and taking notes on his different experiences. We're trying to find ways for his stories to carry over and relate to what we do as a football team. You try to find a way to put what you've heard into what we do, and what our goals are, and what we're trying to get done during the day in practice. And you hope there's some carryover there.
Q: What are your thoughts on Willie Anderson being out for the K.C. game and Stacy (Andrews) moving to RT?CP:
I didn't know that was going on for sure, but I'm as confident as anyone is in Stacy. He's played left guard, right guard, right tackle, and I don't know if you can ever count Willie out. Willie is basically banged up at the beginning of every week and somehow finds a way to suck it up and play week-in and week-out, so I don't know that you can ever count Willie out. But whoever replaces him, whether it's (Scott) Kooistra or Stacy (Andrews), whoever it may be will come in and do a good job.
Q: Willie told us he wouldn't play, and Marvin also allowed that Willie would be out.CP:
I'm always the last to figure things out here. I learn a lot from you guys during the week.
Q: This team has lost to some real inexperienced QBs in the past. Is that just a coincidence?CP:
We've lost to inexperienced, we've lost to experienced, we've lost to great running backs, we've lost to third and fourth-string running backs. I think it is coincidence. I think you look back to the Denver game, we just didn't play well as a team. Derek Anderson ... I mean, you don't play well as a team, it's not because of the quarterback always. I think it's just a coincidence.
Q: Do you think teams tend to rally around their backup QB in situations like this week?CP:
Yeah, possibly. Every situation is different, every quarterback is different, every team feels different about their starter and every team feels different about the backup. If he's a well-liked guy and he's the guy that the team felt like should have been the starter and that's the case, I'm sure they will rally around him. Not to say that if they don't like whoever the starter is that they're not going to play well for him. Just different cases, different scenarios.
Q: Has the Chiefs defense evolved under Herm Edwards?CP:
I think so. I think they've gotten away from the original coordinator's scheme a little bit and taken on Herm's Tampa 2 style. I think Coach Cunningham was a little more of a pressure guy, likes to get up and show Cover Zero and bring Cover Zero, and Coach Edwards is more of a Tampa-style and likes to cover more and not pressure as much. So I think they are moving more towards Coach Edwards, but you can never say that they're just going to play Tampa and they're not going to show that Cover Zero blitz and bring it. So you've got to be ready for both styles and be ready for anything.
Q: Don't you have to get the ground game going to get teams away from Cover 2? CP:
Definitely. That's something we're working on all bye week this week and all season and training camp. We've got to do a better job in the Cover Two run game. It starts with me and it moves on to the running backs, to the offensive line, to the receivers blocking downfield. It's something we've been working extremely hard on, and hopefully this week we'll get a chance to watch Kenny get up in there and get up to the average we expect him to be, which is plus-4 yards, and get a chance to kind of get them out of that Cover Two and the two-high zone looks.
Q: Is running the ball the antidote to Cover 2?CP:
No. There's more than one weakness to two-high zones. But running the football is where it starts. The easiest and fastest way to get them out of playing Cover 2 is gashing the ball down the middle of the field.
Q: Are you expecting Kenny (Watson) to play a lot this week?CP:
Yeah.
Q: This team is 1-3 after byes under Marvin ... just another coincidence, or is there a letdown when you don't play for a week, and could this be a turning point?CP:
Oh, this could definitely be a turning point. It's definitely a coincidence. I don't feel that this team has been lackadaisical after byes or been a step or two behind teams because of that week off. We didn't really have much of a week off. A lot of teams get a whole week off, but we went last week and we're going hard today in practice, and we'll go hard tomorrow and be ready to play. We're not worried about history. We're worried about the Kansas City Chiefs and after that, we'll get ready and start worrying about the New York Jets. So we're not worried about past records and history as far as that's concerned.
Q: When a defense is depleted like yours, do you take that knowledge into the game at all, does it affect the game plan?CP:
No. Whether we've got our starters in there or all backups, you've still got to execute on offense regardless. I'm not sure exactly who's up this week. I know that unit's banged up. We need to take it on our backs on offense to give those guys rest, to not get three-and-out, to go out there and have four-, five-, six-, seven-minute drives to give those guys a rest because they're banged up. But we're not changing our game plan or doing anything like that. We're going to try to help those guys out as much as possible by getting up early and trying to sustain more drives.
Q: Are you bumming about the (USC) Trojans?CP:
I'm just hoping it's two one-loss teams for the national championship,and that's their only loss. We'll see what happens.
