KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City Chiefs Head Coach Andy Reid and Quarterback Patrick Mahomes on Wednesday discussed personnel and the upcoming game with the Indianapolis Colts.

Chiefs Head Coach Andy Reid

OPENING STATEMENT: “The guys that won’t practice today are (Eric) Fisher and then Dorian O’Daniel. Tyreek (Hill) will get out there and move around a little bit. We’ll see how he does. Damien Williams will do what he can do out there, too. We’ll just see how they do. We look forward to the challenge of playing the Colts. We know what kind of football team they are; they’re a really good football team. They’ve been banged up, so they’re most likely getting guys back. But we have to be ready to play a playoff football team. It’ll be a great environment. We look forward to being back here at Arrowhead with our fans. We know that it’ll be electric. With that, time’s yours.”

Q: Is the Colts offense drastically different without Andrew Luck at QB?

REID: “They’re different. I think the other kid (Jacoby Brissett) is doing a real good job. He’s accurate. He has good movement ability. Smart. He’s really done a nice job for them.”

Q: Is there any expectation that Hill or Williams could potentially play this week?

REID: “We just have to see how they do out here. I’m not going to say anything on that one.”

Q: What is the injury that O’Daniel has at the moment?

REID: “Hamstring.”

Q: It looked like Byron Pringle took a couple of hits on that reception late in the fourth quarter to set up the final touchdown. What did it take for him to make that play and set up the offense for a scoring opportunity?

REID: “I was impressed that he hung onto the football. Sometimes when you get spun around like that, that ball comes out. He was able to hang onto it. I thought it was a great catch in traffic. He did a nice job with that.”

Q: Was that catch the display of a player seizing the moment when an opportunity presented itself?

REID: “Yeah, he did a nice job. He’s a good football player. He did a nice job with it. He’s a young guy that’s getting an opportunity to play a little bit and, like you said, he took advantage of it.”

Q: Will we see Morris Claiborne this Sunday?

REID: “I don’t know. We’ll see how he does, too, out here. We’ll get him back in and see how it rolls with him.”

Q: When evaluating the Colts defense, what are you seeing out of Justin Houston?

REID: “He’s playing good football. Fast, strong. They have a good rotation. He’s got his hand down in the ground now. He can rush the passer. He can play the run. He’s a big, strong kid. He’s a good football player. A lot of experience.”

Q: Is the level of concern with Tyreek Hill returning to practice more so involving contact and seeing how he goes through this week of practice?

REID: “We’ll just see how he does out there. He hasn’t done anything, so we’ll just see how he does out here.”

Q: How have the Colts handled the retirement of Andrew Luck?

REID: “Yeah, well they’ve got good leadership in the front office with Chris (Ballard) and, obviously, with their head coach (Frank Reich). They’re playing good football. You have a quarterback that has over a 100.0 quarterback (passer) rating. He’s doing one heck of a job. We liked him coming out (of college). Good football player. Did well with New England and doing well here.”

Q: Do you sense that Frank Clark is pressing at all in trying to get home on a sack?

REID: “No, I think what he is doing is he’s playing both the run and the pass and doing it accurately. He’s doing a good job with everything. Listen, he’s been getting doubled quite a bit. I think you know that. He brings that every snap, 100 miles an hour.”

Q: How nice is it knowing that you have two games back-to-back at home?

REID: “I haven’t gotten to the second one (laughter). The first one, we’re focused in on that son of a gun. We know that there is a good team coming in here. It’s great to be home. We feel like we have the best fans in the National Football League, so it’s great to be back home. At the same time, you want to stay focused and make sure that you go through the process here in getting ready to play this team.”

Q: On offense, is there anything that you’ve noticed over the past three games that has given you an idea of why you guys have gotten off to slower starts to games?

REID: “We don’t really care what we see. We don’t wait around. We are trying to score every time that we have the ball. There’s not a lot of waiting around. The other teams have done a good job. But you can get rid of the ‘waiting around’ thing, that’s not how we roll (laughter).”

Q: I guess a better way of asking that is if there is something that you’re seeing from your guys on a consistent level in the first quarter that leads to potentially not getting the ball down the field the way that you want to?

REID: “No. We have to do a better job all of the way around. I have to give them better plays.”

Q: When you watch the film, what sticks out to you the most about how Travis Kelce gets open and why it happens consistently?

REID: “He’s got a good feel. He and the quarterback have trust in each other. And, the quarterback knows that he will continue to work for him. Yeah, he was doubled quite a little bit the other day. He just keeps working and finds a way. When the quarterback moves, he’s able to utilize him. When he’s not doubled, he runs good routes. He’s a tough one-on-one match. He’s a good route-runner.”

Q: Are there any places that you would not line Kelce up at?

REID: “No. He was at about every position the other day. We had him flexed out as the outside receiver, lined up on the inside – outside of another receiver, so that he wasn’t just solo out there. He’s done it all.”

Q: Earlier this year you said that you speak with Chris Ballard all of the time. What makes him such a special football mind?

REID: “Chris was here. He’s got a real good feel for the game. He knows personnel. He played at Wisconsin, at a high level. And, he knows what he wants. He’s done one heck of a job of getting that program where they want to be, as a playoff football team.”

Q: There has been a rise in offensive holding penalties this season. As a former offensive line coach, what are you telling your offensive players and offensive linemen to be aware of and what are some of the challenges with these rules?

REID: “The officials gave everybody a head’s up that they were going to be strong in that area and be keeping a close eye on it. I think this past week it let up a little bit, so I think everybody is kind of getting a feel on it – I’m saying league-wide. They’re just trying to get the point across that you have to keep your hands in tight and not grab. That’s all of the way around, not just offensive line. That’s all of the positions, offensively and defensively.”

Q: Mecole Hardman is playing more snaps than maybe you guys have anticipated early on. It still feels like him and Mahomes are figuring out their timing on the intermediate passes, what have you seen over the past couple of weeks when they do run those routes?

REID: “It’s just that. Those aren’t the highest percentage throws, but they’re working together and they spend extra time. He’s a young guy. For him to even play at the level he is playing at right now is a pretty amazing deal. He’ll keep coming. He’s a smart kid and he works hard. Those things, once they keep doing them, they all work out.”

Q: Is that timing and chemistry what is needed most on those sorts of intermediate throws?

REID: “I don’t know which ones you’re picking on there, but they’ve had some pretty good connections. I think we’re saying two things. They’ll keep working, keep going with it and keep getting better with time.”

Q: Has managing the clock at the end of halves to limit the opposing team’s scoring probability become more commonplace in today’s NFL?

REID: “One of your primary things is to score points at the end of the half, and then not give them the ball back. We were in a situation where we were going to get the ball (after halftime), right? That’s kind of the big picture. You can micro-manage that down. I also mentioned that the last couple of weeks we’ve been right in that gray area where you could do a couple of different things. I chose to go with the points, and we were able to finish by not giving them the ball back. That’s a big part of it.”

Q: Are you more able to do that now, compared to when you first got into the league and it was more of a defensive league?

REID: “You probably have already done your homework, but I’d have to go back and look at that. Some of you guys have been doing your homework, I can tell (laughter). I’d have to go back and look at that. Putting these two questions together: Every time, as an offensive coach, that you have the ball, you want to score. There are points in that two-minute area where you can get caught up in being a little too greedy, and then you don’t come out with anything. You have to manage that and make sure that once you get down there, you get points.”

 

QB PATRICK MAHOMES

Q: Are you excited to be back home for the Sunday night football game?

MAHOMES: “Very excited. Anytime you get to play at Arrowhead, it’s exciting of course. From the experience I got these last few years in a primetime game to see how the fans show up and are loud, it’s an awesome feeling getting to go out there and play in front of those guys.”

Q: It looks like Tyreek Hill is coming back to practice today, how long do you think it will take you to get back with what you had with him before he got hurt?

MAHOMES: “I don’t think it will take long at all. We worked all offseason, in training camp and everything like that and having the guys that we have, we just rotate guys through and get guys reps. I think just having him out there and being able to just pick back up where we left off will be something easy to do.”

Q: When were you able to start throwing passes with him, we saw some in pregame on Sunday, but were there any other times?

MAHOMES: “The pregame was the first time I was able to, so I’m glad to have him back this week and get back to throwing to him again.”

Q: Can you talk through the pass to (Byron) Pringle at the end of the game?

MAHOMES: “We have ultimate trust in him. He’s a guy that’s gotten the reps in and worked his tail off in the offseason and in training camp, but he got in the game, he got in the game the week before and made a catch and then came in this week. He had a little shallow cross in man coverage, so he got open and beat his guy, so I put it on him and it was a tough run, taking those hits, and getting down there to the three-yard line to set up the touchdown we ended up getting.”

Q: Can you say the same thing about Deon Yelder?

MAHOMES: “It’s the same thing. He got the reps in training camp. He got a little banged up at the end, so he wasn’t able to get going these first few weeks, but as he got evolved into the offense more and more and he got his number called. He wasn’t the first read necessarily, but he beat his guy in man to man coverage and I was able to find him and he made a play once he got it in his hands.”

Q: Without your injured guys, what does it say about your team being able to win without these guys?

MAHOMES: “Yeah, it shows the guys are ready. The guys that aren’t necessarily the starters are ready when their numbers are called and it helps tremendously with the depth that we have with this team. We can just shuffle guys in and pick up where the last guy left off. Whenever teams try to take away certain guys from us, we’re able to trust other guys to make plays, it will help us out in the long run.”

Q: What do you think you have missed not having Tyreek in the lineup?

MAHOMES: “Obviously the attention that he gets, how explosive he is, he can take a little shovel pass and take it to the house. We have a lot of guys like that but he’s the kind of guy defenses have game plans for. Defenses have to account for him with one or two guys to try to figure out a way to stop him, it helps everybody else out. Having him back and when he comes back, we will utilize him and the other guys to expand our offense and really take it to another level.”

Q: Can you tell that he is ready to get back out there?

MAHOMES: “That’s how he is. That’s how all the guys are but Rick (Burkholder) and the training staff do a good job of putting them on the right track to get out there and them being able to play at the top of their game whenever they’re ready.”

Q: You talked about how you feel more prepped for defenses this year, do you see that throughout the week or in-game, reading how defenses are reacting in the moment?

MAHOMES: “I think it’s a little bit of both. Obviously before the games I can see what they did to similar offenses this last year and what they’re kind of thinking or preparing for us. Then when you get on the field you know what plays you can go back when there’s certain things we weren’t necessarily prepping for and adjust on the fly to make stuff happen to move the ball down the field.”

Q: Talk about your old friend Justin Houston and how you have to look at him this week?

MAHOMES: “It’s going to be really cool to play against him. Obviously, he was a really good player for this organization for a long time and is still a great player now. Hopefully he’s not hitting me too much but hopefully I get to talk to him a little bit on the other side of the football.”

Q: In the play where you tried to strip the ball from the defensive lineman, did the coaches try to say anything to you about it?

MAHOMES: “No. It was mostly my fault the ball got knocked out with that missed cue I had with the handling of the ball. I was just trying to get the ball back, I realized he wasn’t looking at me and he was a big dude, if he was looking at me I probably wouldn’t have went for it. It was a thing where I was trying to make a play happen but knowing what I was doing in the moment.”

Q: What is the balance of protecting yourself but having the natural instinct of competing for the ball?

MAHOMES: “I think you have to catch them off guard a little bit and hope they’re not running full speed at me when it’s happening so I can go in there and get the strip and maybe then get the guy down in whatever way possible.”

Q: The first scramble in the game, it looked like you looked back at the referee, there was speculation to see if you were looking for a penalty on the play, was that the case?

MAHOMES: “That was exactly it. I looked back to see if there was a penalty and I saw that I had to run the run and I thought I could probably get the first down but I didn’t want to run 50 yards if I was going to get called back and have to run another play. I kind of looked back to see if there was a penalty and when I realized there wasn’t one, I took off.”

Q: How did you develop that or how did it come to mind in that moment?

MAHOMES: “I have no idea (laughter). When I look back on it, I was like ‘man don’t know why I did that,’ but in the moment I thought about and looked back and there was no flag so I took off.”

Q: That was a first in your career?

MAHOMES: “Yes, that was a first for sure.”

Q: What would you have done if you had seen a flag?

MAHOMES: “I still would’ve gotten the first down, it just might not have been a full sprint to the first down. Obviously, there could be hands to the face in the defense and stuff like that but once I saw there wasn’t a flag, I made sure to turn it up a little bit.”

Q: Did you think someone was held on the play?

MAHOMES: “I couldn’t see that so I knew whenever you hold the ball for a long time like that and I knew they were pressuring us on that play, I knew the offensive line was doing a good job of protecting me but I wanted to make sure before I really took off running.”

Q: On the final sequence knowing there was a real chance you could lose the game but knowing your team can get it done, what does that do for the team long term?

MAHOMES: “Anytime you’re put in that situation, obviously Coach Reid puts us in those situations in training camp but its different when you get to live action. I said it after the game, you aren’t always going to win by two or three touchdowns, a lot of times in the NFL you are going to have to find a way to score at the end of games. Getting into the meat of the schedule and keep playing more and more games, we’re going to be put into that situation again and to have an early instance where we found a way to win is going to be able to help us out a ton in the long run.”

Q: With your talent, you can improvise to make plays but now it seems contagious with Travis Kelce and LeSean McCoy, are you expecting to see more of that?

MAHOMES: “Hopefully not. Hopefully, we just do it the regular way. It was an awesome play and it was super heads up for Kelce to do but hopefully we aren’t trying to do that too much and we’re just focused on getting the completion and move the ball down the field.”

Q: Did it surprise you to see Kelce doing it?

MAHOMES: “Not at all. It was like the perfect two guys with those two veteran guys who had the trust in each other to do that. I saw it in his eyes when I threw it to him that something was going to happen. We kind of talked about it and it was an awesome play, but hopefully we can stay away from doing it as we go along in the season.”

Q: After watching the tape from Sunday, how much of it was what they did defensively or you just not being exactly where you wanted to be and learning from it?

MAHOMES: “They obviously had a good defensive game plan and played good man coverage and really got up there and pressed us and were physical. There were times where either I missed the throws or the receivers didn’t run necessarily the perfect route or a mixture of everything like the offensive line didn’t block for a certain amount of time. That’s just stuff we have to get better at as a team. We can’t just miss something here or there when we get those opportunities against a good defense like Detroit, you have to take advantage of those.”

Q: The sack rate right now is very low in the league, how much goes into that other than the offensive line blocking?

MAHOMES: “It goes with the whole offense. Everyone has to be on the perfect page. The offensive line knows the plays so they know what the timing is like and the receivers know the same thing. They know how much time I have back there so if they have to shorten up their route, they’ll shorten it up. That’s stuff that we’ve worked on. Last week I could’ve done a better job hitching up in the pocket where as more throughout the year I had been hitching up in those pockets, whereas last week I was fading a little bit. That’s all what I’ll be working on but it’s still the offensive line has to win their matchups and they’re doing a good job of that.”

Q: When you say last week, did you mean this past game or the Baltimore game?

MAHOMES: “The Detroit game. Just making sure that I hitch up a little more.”

Q: There with Kelce, on the broadcast where it looked like a guy cut off his route, was that what happened and how do you build chemistry with a guy where you know you think he’s going to stop his route even if that’s something that was improved?

MAHOMES: “I think it goes to coverage. Coach Reid does a good job of talking through every single coverage on almost every single route so there’s times where they’re cutting off their route or changing their route on the fly but we’ve talked about it before and we’ve worked that look in practice so I know they’re going to do that so I can throw it to them and trust that they can make that adjustment on the fly.”

Q: How often would you say that happens?

MAHOMES: “It happens a lot. I feel like that’s one of the reasons why this offense is hard to stop because we aren’t running just what the lines say, we’re basing it off the coverages and Coach Reid is explaining it to us in the week and putting us in those situations to execute at a high level.”

Q: Athletics obviously runs in your family, but your cousin now playing basketball at UMKC, what’s that like having him play there and to see what he’s doing?

MAHOMES: “It’s awesome for him. He’s someone who has worked his whole life to play basketball at a D1 college, so he’s super excited to be there at UMKC and they’ve had a great program the last few years. I’ll be excited to hopefully make it out to a few games.”

Q: He has a little no look pass like you?

MAHOMES: “He has a little swag to him. He can shoot the three and all that other stuff. I still think I can beat him in one-on-one but we won’t talk about that.”

—CHIEFS—