Mike McDaniel – January 10, 2024
Download PDF version
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Head Coach Mike McDaniel
(As you know because you’ve been involved with this, some teams when they play on the West Coast or overseas, will go out early to acclimate themselves. Did you guys give any thought to flying out say, tonight, tomorrow, practicing fully Thursday night in those arctic conditions, walkthrough Friday night, instead of how you’re doing it? And why ultimately did you opt to have a normal type travel?) – “It’s a fair question. Really every situation I approach, I know how historically things have gone in the past. I’ve been fortunate to be on so many different teams that I have a lot of different angles to look at things and I think you have to take the exact situation at hand. I think with the Saturday night compounding with some of the best access for rehabilitation and all of those resources, combining all of that with last year, whatever month on the road regular season in Buffalo, that game kind of influenced me a little bit too. That game specifically, there was like 30-40 percent – I can’t remember off the top of my head – but I want to say 30-40 percent of the team that hadn’t ever played under 50 (degrees). It was uncharted territory, so we spent a good amount of time talking through that. I think the individuals that had never played in the cold, their response really put my worries – I can look, I can know how they’re going to respond, or I can extrapolate how they’ll respond to a situation that will be up there in the ranks of the coldest NFL games ever. You can’t really replicate that without being there, so you have to stack your priorities. Obviously we went out to Germany early. Teams make decisions upon what’s best for that team. That doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s going to be the difference. Obviously we were rested and we ended up a touchdown short. Those type of experiences, when you’re playing football in colder weather than you’d hang out in, it can be one of two things. It can be an excuse, or it can be something that galvanizes a team because you’re going through it together. Look, I don’t think you guys would mistake me for a cold weather body. But I’m really excited to go do that with the team because it’s a mindset thing that you do together, that you have to choose for it to be as minimal of an issue as possible. You already know that it’s going to be the coldest game that we’ve had all year and might be one of the coldest in history. You can put those in a bucket with all the other things that we don’t have or we haven’t done. That goes in a bucket, and you can decide whether or not you want to just hang out with that bucket all day or if you just want to go and try to put your best foot forward, come together as a team and chase something special. It will be cold and the air conditioning in that huge (indoor) space gets down to 50 or so. I’m not even going to really – I think that’s kind of insulting to the weather at this point to be like ‘oh, yeah, we’re ready.’ (laughter) The bottom line is you have to have a collective mindset. Everyone has to be all in and I’m confident that our guys will be up for the challenge. Everyone talks about the bad, but it’s going to be a primetime game at Arrowhead. Like, I just got goosebumps right now. And that’s kind of the way we’ll approach it. I’ll probably have goosebumps in a different way on Saturday. It’s erroneous at this point.”
(You brought in three linebackers yesterday. Realistically, how fast can they catch on and be ready to play Saturday?) – “There’s problem-solving left and right in NFL football. That’s a unique challenge. I know everyone has a collective ambition to do something cool. The coaches on the defensive side of the ball, you talk about Vic (Fangio) and Ryan Slowik and Wade Harman, are up for the challenge to try and get these guys up to speed as fast as possible. We’re fortunate that there is overlap in scheme. We’re fortunate that our personnel department is on top of it the way they are and we can have guys join the team that I’m not going to have to really inspire to understand what the moment is. Veteran players in this league know how precious each and every playoff game is. They know exactly what you’re preparing for. It’s football at its finest. You can feel the energy. When the team that loses’ season is over, there’s a different energy in stadiums. And that is as good as it gets. So they’ll be preparing diligently. They’ll know what that kind of looks like. The relationships on the team with players already, those will grow this week and we’ll see if we can do something cool with a little adversity in that realm.”
(LB Justin Houston and LB Bruce Irvin have pretty impressive resumes known as impact pass rushers. Obviously they are very late in their careers. How did the team go about determining how much, if anything, might be left in their tanks?) – “The old eye test. (laughter) You put guys through a workout, see where they’re at. You standardize those workouts over time so you can have a relative appreciation for what guys are doing. You do those in the offseason, you do those for guys coming out of school. You do it really year-round so you have a nice kind of perspective on what the drills should look like and how they’re executing them. So that’s what we’re happy about. It wasn’t like we just threw darts at the old dartboard. You have a list that you’re prepared for. You keep your contacts. Chris (Grier) and his staff do a great job keeping in contact with agents. This is not something that just came out of nowhere. There have been discussions just in terms of where he’s at. We’re trying to keep our ducks in a row in terms of you’re always preparing. That’s what Chris lives by. He’s always preparing for the worst. It was a quick and expeditious turnaround to get that done, and that’s to the credit of the personnel department led by Chris.”
(When you played them in Germany, despite what happened in the first half, you had the ball with a chance to tie late. Same with on Sunday night. Each time you came up close. What do you think QB Tua Tagovailoa needs to do better to finish those situations? Obviously it’s not all on him, but why do you have confidence he’s got what it takes to close it out in those games?) – “Sometimes I have to take a step back. The biggest thing with Tua that you guys have all been witnesses of is development and learning, and so to sit here and say whatever is to happen last week or the week before, is the end game final result, you’re always learning things. That’s one thing he’s proved extremely adept at. On top of that, I think every situation is different. Every game is different. I think you fall into a trap as a player or a coach if you over-categorize in that regard because you take, ‘okay, what individual play, what was your decision, how did we get to that point?’ That was the first time we had that rep really all season where we started the half with the lead and had three plays in the third quarter. That’s a long time to sit in a game that you’re super prepared for. That’s a learning curve, just like luckily I can also go back and rely on, okay, well what happened Dallas or even the start of the season against the Chargers. So every game is different. It’s a constant development. One thing I do know is as much, if not more, than any player I’ve been around, this guy has, in front of our very eyes, learned and continued to grow, and no situation regardless of how much weight is on his shoulders or how much noise is out there, he continues to find a way to improve and I would take those – the last game since it’s the most recent – I would say there were some lessons learned and that’s the point because if it’s going to happen, you better make it worth your while and help propel you in your ultimate direction and goal. I think he’s done a great job since I’ve been around him at learning so I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
(I know you’re preparing for the game this weekend, but the Panthers announced that they requested to interview for Offensive Coordinator Frank Smith for their head-coaching vacancy. Just wanted to get your thoughts on that and just what Frank has meant to you and this team?) – “I can talk about Frank. Should I be frank? (laughter) One of the million cool parts about this profession and what I get an unbelievable opportunity to do is watching people earn things over time. Similar to my story, Frank has been in the National Football League a long time and how I first got connected with him was through stories of his relationships with players. So we really connect at the most foundational element of what our profession is, and that’s developing, maximizing, really serving the NFL football player and their dream, to try to help solidify their goals and help them reach their best selves. He sees a lot of things very, very similarly to myself. He’s instrumental here with just my day-to-day and then also connecting me to the rest of the football staff and the players. He brings it every day. He doesn’t take anything for granted. I’m not surprised and he’s very deserving of the opportunity to interview and it’s not if, but when. Whenever that does come, I know he’s going to do an outstanding job because there’s not any guessing what I see on a day-to-day basis. So I am sure there will be plenty of teams and he’ll do a great job interviewing, and however that works out, I know that he epitomizes for me the NFL, ‘not for long.’”
(A lot of top quarterbacks don’t see many blitzes. QB Tua Tagovailoa is one of those guys who doesn’t get blitzed a whole lot. But the Chiefs blitzed you guys more than anyone else this year. How does Steve Spagnuolo’s defense impact the best quarterbacks when it comes to their blitz?) – “I think you are seeing a guy that’s had control over his own system for an extended period of time, that has never been afraid to be bold. He was blitzing corners when that wasn’t necessarily as in vogue back in the early 2000s. But the system is his own and because of that, within it, it has answers for pretty much everything, which keeps you off-balanced. They do a great job teaching it collectively as a coaching staff. You can tell because of the ownership the players have, the non-verbal communication and how orchestrated people are. There’s a lot of communication. It’s an intricate system that you can see time has helped them to the point that they’re a top five defense in the National Football League and play like it every week. I think really what they do, you’re going to see coverage and you’re going to see blitz. He’s going to try to keep you off-balanced. It’s not like blitzing is necessarily a bad thing to face. There’s a lot of times that I actually prefer that just because if you’re on your P’s and Q’s, there’s less field covered. However, you have to be on your P’s and Q’s. Everyone has to be coordinated. So a lot of times it can be a big play for either team. It just depends on who is executing better. I fully expect them to do what they’ve done throughout the season. On the defensive side of the ball for the Chiefs, I see something similar with the offense they’re facing this week with us, is that they worry about themselves and how they execute their craft and what they are over worrying about whatever problems the opponent presents. A lot of ownership. It’s a very well-coached and cool unit to watch, and it presents a pretty good challenge for us.”
(How concerned are you about the quad injury for WR Tyreek Hill and how concerned are you with S DeShon Elliott’s calf injury?) – “Should I be concerned about Tyreek Hill this week? Probably not. He’s been a captain and really this year, he’s just been the best version of himself and then some. There’s been games, specifically the first time we played the Chiefs, and this past game, where you can tell the opponent has made a major emphasis to create violent collisions with him. And you want to talk about a tough football player that shows his stripes in those moments, that’s a competitor. I had no idea about any quad until there was an injury report, really. He wasn’t even leading on that it was going on. I think that speaks to where he was at and what he was trying to will his team to do. I know he’s going to be very diligent in the training room to maximize this opportunity for sure. Then with DeShon Elliott, he will be really focusing most of his attention in the training room today. He won’t practice but we’re hopeful that he’ll be able to get himself right for game day. That’s what our main objective is.”
