What the PLAYERS had to say after the loss
Chiefs-Raiders Postgame Quotes - Players
Sep 14, 2008, 5:05:51 PM
DAMON HUARD
On the interception in the first half: “I just made a bad read on the slant that was intercepted. It was a bad throw and I threw it probably a little late and the defender made a nice play getting a hand in there and batted it up for the interception.”
On leaving the game with an injury: “I hurt my neck a little bit there on the play where the linebacker came up the middle on the screen we tried to run. I got a little stiff neck. Tyler was going to play today and that was our game plan. Together, collectively, we’ve got to get it done.”
On playing next week: “Hopefully, I’ll get my neck a little better. It’s a little stiff right now. It’s part of football – taking hits.”
On the offensive performance: “We couldn’t do anything today – we couldn’t run it, couldn’t throw it. It was just a tough day all around. The Raiders came out after a tough national television game last week. They brought the pressure and we just had a tough time dealing with it.”
On getting a rhythm at quarterback: “It’s something Chan (Gailey) has had success in Pittsburgh doing. We can make it work. We just didn’t execute today. It’s not really that big a deal. As a backup I come in and out of games as it is. It’s not an issue.”
On struggling running the football: “We couldn’t get anything going offensively until we went into the two-minute drill at the end of the game. It was real frustrating. When I was in there we couldn’t get anything going and watching it we couldn’t get anything going. It was hard to watch. Like I said earlier, it’s one game.”
On missed opportunities against the Raiders at home: “They’re all missed opportunities when you don’t win, especially at home. We’ve had a lot of success in this stadium and I don’t understand why we have such a hard time at home now.”
TYLER THIGPEN
On your performance: “I felt like I’ve got to get better. Our offense didn’t move the ball and you have to put it on my shoulders. We didn’t convert third downs. We wanted to establish the running game. We’ve got to convert and keep the defense off the field.”
On knowing you were going to play this week: “Yeah, I knew I was going to play. I didn’t know when I was going in. Damon came off the field and Coach Curl came to me and said, ‘Get warmed up, you’re going in. I didn’t know if I was going in for one series and I ended up staying in the entire game. As a backup guy you’ve got to expect you’re going to play after the first play. What if Damon goes down on the first play or something? You’ve got to be ready to go in there and play the whole game. You never know what’s going to happen in football.”
On why the team struggled on offense: “As an offense we’ve got to get on the same page. We’ve got to establish the running game as an offense and that will open up the passing game. It’s the way football sometimes is. Sometimes you can’t get things going. We’ve got to come back Monday and get better.”
On trying to make things happen when running the ball failed: “I don’t want to put any extra pressure on my shoulders. When the coach calls a play and I’m expected to make a pass I’m expected to make it. I’m a quarterback.”
On the success in the two-minute offense: “As on offense when you can spread them out and see what the defense is doing you’re able to get in a rhythm. The receivers made a couple of good plays and the offense did a good job of protecting and blocking. When we were able to move the ball it definitely gives us more confidence. As a quarterback, you’ve got to be ready for anything. If the offensive coordinator comes out and says we’re running hurry-up right now, or we’re running regular offense, you’ve got to be prepared for anything.”
On getting more comfortable as the game progressed: “As a quarterback the more you play, the more you’re going to feel comfortable. I struggled on a couple of third downs but as the game went on I get a little more confidence. I had no clue that Damon had gotten hurt. I just knew we had a package for me going in. I hadn’t talked to Damon to ask him what he had seen to help me out. That was the coach’s call and he told me to go warm up. I had no clue that Damon was out for the rest of the game.”
C RUDY NISWANGER
On the game: “It was disappointing. We came into the game wanting to run the ball and convert third downs and we really didn’t do either. We didn’t play like the team we can be, the team we’ve played like and the team we are. It’s up to us to play that way, especially when we come into Arrowhead. This is a place of pride for us and we haven’t been playing like it. That’s something we need to focus on and turn around.”
On Oakland’s game plan: “They did a little bit that we didn’t expect, but not that much – nothing that should have thrown us off that much. It came down to us not executing and not doing the things we practice and obviously they did.”
On the change in quarterbacks early in the game: “It was what we worked on. We had planned to throw some changes at them, being that Brodie was hurt. We wanted to throw some different looks since we have three quarterbacks, or three people – two quarterbacks and a receiver – that can do some different things. We wanted to see what they could do, so it was definitely in our game plan and, at times, some of those things worked. But, obviously as a whole they didn’t.”
On where the team goes from here (after two losses): “You win. You show up every day and you do the things that will make you win a game. That’s what we have to do.”
On Herm Edwards’ attitude after the game: “He’s just as disappointed as the rest of us. He cares about this and puts just as much out there as the people on the field do. [Oakland] came in here and the way they played embarrassed us. Hopefully we can take that embarrassment and use it to fuel us to play better in the future.”
P DUSTIN COLQUITT
On the game: “It was a tough loss. It’s one of those games where we have to go back to the drawing board when we get back tomorrow and just figure out what went wrong. I had a bad punt in the first half – the wind was kind of blowing in my face and went off the side of my foot and that’s kind of how the rest of the game went. Air passes, we couldn’t stop their run, just little things here and there that we really have to figure out and start from Point A again and figure out who we are and what we’re going to do to win football games.”
On his punting game: “After that first bad punt I had, I wanted to come out and hit it a lot better. I think after [the bad one] I got it out of my system, I changed field position a little bit. Really, our coverage was great today and that’s what makes a difference – when you have a bad punt in there, you’ve got to have those other 10 guys rallying around you and they did today.”
RB LARRY JOHNSON
On the game: “It was one of those games where you try to put a finger on it but you just can’t. Some things happened in the game today where we weren’t ourselves.”
On the inability to run well against the Raiders today: “It was a combination of a lot of things but it had nothing to do with the offensive line. We didn’t have momentum – you come in, you come out. It’s tough in my position as a running back; I’m not like Jamaal (Charles) and Kolby (Smith) where they can come in and thrive. I’m somebody that needs to warm up to get going. It just didn’t happen for me today because of personnel changes. I’ve always needed 20-30 carries, that’s always been me. It’s tough not being able to get in a rhythm.”
