Chiefs Coach Andy Reid: “We’ll get the receiving things taken care of”

OPENING STATEMENT: “I really don’t have anything to tell you on the injuries other than (Travis) Trav (Kelce) is getting better. He’s progressing. We’ll see how he does the rest of today and tomorrow and then we’ll go from there. As far as Chris (Jones), updates on Chris; I really don’t have much of an update for you there. There is communication going on, however, and that’s a plus. (General Manager) Brett (Veach) is taking care of that. As far as the game goes – listen there was some good things, there was some things we obviously need to work on. We’ll get the receiving things taken care of. I feel good about the receivers that we have that was just a – we’re not normally guys that drop the ball, but we did, that’s reality. We’ve got to fix that. I think we still have some talent there that they’ll just keep improving there the more they play. I’ve seen what they can do before, so I’m figuring we’ll get that worked out. Defensively, there were some good things, there were some real positives, the third-and-12 got us, but there were some positive things in there again that we can work on and there’s some things that we need to clean up. I thought the effort was there. I thought that was good. I thought for the most part the plan was good on both sides, and then the special teams part of it – we had worked real hard on all these different fakes, and they got us. I mean they got us in a position there where they needed a couple yards, and they were able to get that. The penalty before that that gave them just two yards to go wasn’t good. With that, time’s yours.”

Q: How do you explain the struggles of Kadarius Toney in the game on Thursday?

REID: “You know what I would probably take the blame on that – when I said that after the game, I meant that. Listen, he missed all of training camp from honestly the first punt return pre practice on through, so he literally had no training camp until just the last few days when he got back here – and we measured that, we didn’t give him a lot. With that, I thought him getting in the game was important. To be fair, I’ve got to look in the mirror on that one. I probably didn’t put him in the best position there because he doesn’t drop the ball, that’s just not his deal. He’s a very secure catcher. I think that the only way we’re going to get him back is playing him. I think this week will be different than the last week. But I thought it was important that he got in the game, got caught up on the speed, but I probably put him in bad positions – primary position there especially later in the game – he’s still getting his legs back and all that.”

Q: Are there things you need to do with Kadarius Toney to get him back on track?

REID: “Listen he’s had some time here now to keep working, which I think will benefit him. Getting in that game I thought was an important thing – I mean that part was important, putting him in the positions I did, I probably shouldn’t have done that. I think you’ll see better as we go down the road here from him.”

Q: Is the goal to have a couple top receivers separate as the main guys or just have everyone rotate through?

REID: “We’ve got the three guys that have been here and then ended up doing probably the best in the game. And then we’ve got three younger guys we’ve got to bring along, and then you’ve got (Richie) James who has been in a form of this and then is really tied into the special teams too. I think those three younger guys whether it’s four (Rashee Rice), eight (Justyn Ross), 19 (Kadarius Toney), they’re all kind of new in this and learning in games. As much as we think Kadarius is a seasoned veteran, he hasn’t really played a lot. I think you’ll see growth from them as we go. We’ll just see how that continues to work. Eventually you’d love them all to be where we want them, and then if they separate, they separate, however that works, works. I can’t predict that part.”

Q: How did you analyze the overall wide receiver performances?

REID: “I think the route part was good, I just think that we got – for the most part there were a couple that we got to work on. You guys that asked me about the crossing route, we kind of goofed that up, but we can fix that part. We’ve all got to do better, that’s the thing I took out of this. Whether its coaching, whether it’s playing, whether it’s the O-line, D-line. We can all take something out of this game and get better at it. I didn’t think all the way around. There were spurts of good, and then there were spurts of not so good. And then we were right in the position to go win the game and normally we do that. We didn’t do that, but normally we take advantage of those situations and defense had a big play on the batted ball and then we had a couple – we had a holding penalty; we had a drop there down the stretch that would have put us right in position to finish it off. I’ve told you guys this before and I tell the team this all the time and I tell myself this all the time, there’s a small margin between winning and losing in this thing but you have to take care of business when you put yourself through four quarters and a position to go get it then you take care of business and finish it.”

Q: During the game, how did the connection between you and Offensive Coordinator Matt Nagy feel?

REID: “Yeah, we had great communication, I mean, that’s how we go about it. It was just as if EB (former Offensive Coordinator Eric Bieniemy) were there. It’s the same type of communication that we had during the game. I thought that part was relatively smooth. I didn’t have a problem with the way that went.”

Q: Do you feel like you have to talk to Kadarius Toney to get a better understanding of where he’s at and what went wrong?

REID: "Normally the player knows probably better than anybody. I have talked to him a couple different times; we just need to keep going through the process here. You’ve got to keep playing and the more he plays – that’s just not his thing. He’s not a guy that drops balls. He’s got great hands. We just have to keep working through it.”

Q: Last night Kadarius Toney posted some things about the Giants, how do you deal with social media controversy?

REID: "Yeah, to be honest with you I didn’t know that. You’re saying recently I presume. I didn’t know that. If it is a problem, then I will obviously talk to the person about it.”

Q: Jawaan Taylor has a quick first step. How does a tackle develop that as far as getting on the quarterback’s cadence and being able to get that first quick step on the outside?

REID: “Yeah, so, he works on that hard, he gets pretty close at times and sometimes too fast. We just got – we have to make sure it’s not too fast because then that hurts the team. He takes a lot of pride in that and works very hard at that. Try to make sure that he gets off well and you know you watch the rest of the games this weekend, that’s what these defensive ends, the way they can roll that helps you get into position a tick quicker – but you don’t want to be offsides that’s for sure.”

Q: What do you tell the tackles about where they can line up?

REID: “Normally, you’re able to split the center’s hip there. The guys – you don’t want it to be a tell when you’re running or passing, you also have the officials there, they will normally help you out with that if you are too deep. They’ll give you a warning and you go with it. They do a good job with that, I think. The guys are trying to get every advantage they can. This has been a life – since the passing game has come into fruition, that’s been one of the things tackles do. I mean, that’s been around for a long time and then you just have to make sure that you don’t take advantage of it and get yourself either too deep or leave off the snap too quick.”

Q: How did you feel about the run and blocking in this first game do you think it’s something that can get better week to week?

REID: “We can always do better, and we need to, we need to do better there. So, we’ll get that taken care of. That’s a good group up front there, so we have to clean up some things too.”

Q: You guys have struggled with short yardage, what lead to some of those plays breaking down?

REID: “Yeah, we’ve been practicing it. You know, they got us from inside and so normally if there is going to be a breakdown, you’re thinking off the edge or something but definitely not inside. You want to have the guy to be able to dart on the inside if he needs to and whether it’s the B gap or the C gap, but you know, we just over set that thing too far. You can’t do that.”

Q: Would you consider putting Blaine Gabbert in for short yardage plays?

REID: “I’ll tell you what’s crazy, when you play these Thursday games, you get to see all these other games and the QB sneaks didn’t look too good yesterday, honestly. We’ll go back and we’re going to figure it out here, I mean that’s what we do. We (will) try to make sure we get this covered, but we have to do better. I mean we just have to do better. We’ve got to take care of it.”

Q: It seems like companies kept asking you to be in commercials. What was it like shooting another one with Patrick Mahomes?

REID: “They did. Listen I’m sticking to my day job. I’m not an actor for sure. It was something in the offseason that I did, and the reason I kind of did it was for (Patrick) Pat (Mahomes), and they asked us to do another one so I did it, but I know I’m not very good at it so I’m going to keep my day job here (laughter).”

Q: How did you feel about Rashee Rice’s performance regarding creating space on his touchdown catch?

REID: “He did a nice job. Both him and Blake (Bell) did nice jobs on theirs, kind of feeling the area. And that’s one of Rashee’s strengths, and we could use them a little bit more in those types – different situations where space is important. We’re trying to bring these guys along as we go, and I thought he sure did a nice job right there.”