Q: What kinds of problems does the Kansas City defense pose to you guys?
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A: Looking statistically, they have taken the ball away more than almost any other team. They have 18 takeaways, the leader has 19. They've done a phenomenal job of getting turnovers and creating opportunities for their offense. Certainly the emphasis for us is to take care of the football.
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Q: How do they do that so successfully?
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A: They're great at stripping the ball. 11 fumbles maybe. You look at the film and a ton of balls have come out whether they recover the ball or not. Balls are on the ground quite a bit. I think it's something that they teach and they are obviously quite good at it.
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Q: Are they a deceiving 1-8?
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A: They very well could have won these last three games and when you flip on the film they don't look like a 1-8 team. We know we have our work cut out for us playing at Arrowhead. When I played for the Chargers, they were an AFC opponent and we'd go there once a year and it was always an extremely difficult place to play.
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Q: Do you have a better read three days later after the last game as to what you guys did wrong and have to do better?
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A: When you look at it, certainly the turnovers and I put that on myself, especially the ones in the fourth quarter. We could have cut it close enough to have a chance to win at the end, but unfortunately we can't go three quarters with only scoring six points. I thought there were some opportunities there. If only we could get that first first down, get in a rhythm and get going and unfortunately we had a couple of three and out scenarios, just scenarios where for three quarters where I felt like we weren't on the field very long. Granted, they did a good job of possessing the ball and keeping us off the field. You walk off the field saying, consider the fourth quarter where we had those two minute drills and marched right down the field. Prior to that we didn't feel like there were other opportunities for us.
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Q: Do you feel a sense of urgency on the practice field?
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A: Absolutely. We're tired of sitting here talking about getting over the hump. We're not that team. We're not a .500 team. Obviously that's the way we've played for the last year and a half. That's not the type of team we are. We've gone back to the drawing board and identified the things that win football games and the things we're good at, so that's what we're going to do.
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Q: Is there a certain formula?
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A: Yes there absolutely is a formula. A lot of times the formula is if you do things the right way things work out for you. Sometimes you don't get the breaks in this league. The teams that end of making the runs at the end kind of have things go their way. I think in order to put yourself in that position you have to do things the right way, have a lot of confidence and if you do that long enough, things will happen.
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Q: Is that confidence more difficult to come by after two difficult losses to divisional opponents than earlier in the season after close losses?
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A: Yes, we're well beyond saying we could be or should be 6-3 or whatever, because you look at these two games against divisional opponents on the road where we had very lackluster showings and just felt like we were outplayed. It seemed like they played with more intensity and more emotion, which is not us at all. We're going to have to fix that.
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Q: What is the answer?
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A: The same thing that got us out of that 0-4 hole last year, just getting back to what we do extremely well, the things we are all very confident in, because when you step on the field on Sunday, you want to be prepared, you want to feel as confident as you can about the gameplan, which means you feel good about what you're doing and that you're comfortable with what's going to happen. Obviously do what you're going to do during the week and get your body ready to play as well. We've been beat up like everybody else. As long as we can get to that point and play physically on gameday, we'll be fine.
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Q: Are there other guys that need to be challenged? Has complacency set in?
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A: I think there's always guys that need to be challenged. I think I'm always a guy looking for the next challenge. I think there's plenty of those guys. I know what you're getting at and we have the right type of guys on this team. We don't have the type of guys that need to be motivated necessarily. We have a lot of self motivated guys on this team that are always looking for the next challenge. We have a huge challenge ahead of us which is win this game on the road at Kansas City and find a way to get on a roll here. We've proven that we can win a number of games in a row in the past. We rattled off four in a row after starting off 0-4 last year. The year before we had a couple of runs. We need to get back to feeling that way.
