KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City Chiefs coaches and quarterback Patrick Mahomes talked football past and future during a Monday presser. Following are their comments.

HEAD COACH ANDY REID

OPENING STATEMENT: “Quick turnaround here. We evaluated the tape and have had an opportunity to look at it. Obviously, yesterday wasn’t good enough. I didn’t feel like we took advantage of opportunities, number one, from an offensive standpoint, on the turnovers. We didn’t score touchdowns, which we pride ourselves in doing. We created too many negative situations for ourselves with penalties. We have to take care of that. Our time of possession is way out of whack. When given opportunities to stay on the field, we have to make sure that we do that offensively and get off of the field defensively. The fourth quarter is a great example of that. I understand there is a small margin between winning and losing in the National Football League. You see this every week. Teams come in when they might not be doing well, and they turn it around. It doesn’t happen automatically, though. There has to be hard work here. We have to fix the problems. As coaches, we have to do that. As players, we have to do that. Collectively, as a team, we have to do that. We’re on a short week here, so that’s what we’re working on today. We start today with a walk-through practice. We’ll go through it and then we’ll get on with the rest of it. But it is a quick turnaround. We have to learn from this last game. We have to put it in the rear-view mirror real quick and get moving forward. With that, time’s yours.”

Q: What can you do better offensively to improve the unit’s time of possession?

REID: “Without going through every play, there are certain things. Obviously, drops can become an issue and so on. You run. You want to make sure that you gain more yards and stay on the field. We can all do better. I can do better calling the plays. We can do better executing.”

Q: QB Patrick Mahomes seemed to not complete as many throws after it appeared that he re-aggravated his ankle injury. How much of that is coincidence and how much of that is mobility and stability?

REID: “I’m not telling you that it doesn’t bother him, but it’s not something that’s hindering him like that. There are other things that go into that.”

Q: What types of things specifically can you work on to try to limit the penalties?

REID: “Yeah, we have to do better, the best we can. I’m not saying that every one of them I agree with, but there are enough of them here where it’s becoming a trend that we have to stop that. We have to keep working the fundamentals.”

Q: Have you received any better explanation about the penalty called on Travis Kelce?

REID: “No. They gave me quite an extensive one on the field. I’ve had a chance to look at it, and I think you all have too. I’ll eventually talk to them somewhere here, but I’ve been trying to get ready for this next game.”

Q: What do you need to see out of Sammy Watkins over the next two days to determine if he will be able to play or not on Thursday night?

REID: “He worked hard last week in the rehab part of it. We’ll just see how he does here. He didn’t play, so he’s fresh to where he can move around a little bit and we can get an idea of where he’s at here.”

Q: Can you expand on the offense’s inability to capitalize on the defense’s takeaways?

REID: “We have to do that. There were some unique situations that came up there, but we have to take care of it. We have to score. That’s what needs to take place. We’ve been very good at that, we just didn’t do that yesterday.”

Q: How is Eric Fisher coming along with his injury?

REID: “He’s getting better, but I think he still needs a little time, probably.”

Q: How much of an added benefit is it that this short week leads into a divisional game, as opposed to a team that you may not have game-planned for before?

REID: “Well it’s a new coaching staff, but that doesn’t matter. It’s an AFC West game, so it’s an important game, obviously. They’re all important, but this week is pretty important. We have to buckle down here the next couple of days and make sure that we get the game plan under wraps so that we can go execute.”

Q: Is there any update on Kendall Fuller’s injury from yesterday?

REID: “I don’t have anything for you on that right now. They’re all coming in here in a little bit.”

Q: What is the stamp that new Broncos Head Coach Vic Fangio has put on this team that you’ve seen thus far?

REID: “I think he’s done a nice job. The last two games they’ve played well. They’ve won the last two games and have done a nice job with it. Aggressive defense. They’re finishing on the offensive side and doing well. They’re putting up enough points to win the game. They’re going through and playing good football right now.”

Q: After seeing Tyreek Hill’s backflip touchdown celebration, would you say that he is back to full health?

REID: “It wasn’t his legs that were hurting, it was the chest. He came out feeling pretty good. He was one of the guys that was in early here, so he’s feeling pretty good.”

Q: At what point do you and the coaching staff become alarmed at this run defense trend that has occurred over the last month?

REID: “We have to fix it. That’s what has to take place. Again, there’s a lot that goes into that. You can try, at times, too hard. It’s not an effort thing right now. It’s a maintaining your position thing. We have to do a better job with that. Getting ourselves working together, not over-compensating and giving up lanes, and then communicating better.”

Q: You’ve gotten out of a lot worse than a 4-2 start to the season – like the 1-5 start and some others – what are the traits or markers that you look for from a group that can overcome something like that?

REID: “That’s a good question. I appreciate that (laughter). I think staying positive is one of them, but also being real with the errors that are taking place. This is both coaches and players. Then, you have to trust each other, and you can’t lose that. If we can all do that and learn from it to make ourselves better, that’s where you go from here. With all of the parity in the National Football League, it’s not always a huge thing. It’s the small things that add up on you. You have to fix those.”

OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR ERIC BIENIEMY

Q: First game for Martinas Rankin, what did you see that was positive and maybe some things you saw that indicates he can get better as he goes?

BIENIEMY: “I thought he had some good spots. Obviously, him starting with the group for the first time there were a few rough areas, but I will tell you this, he played hard and gave us an opportunity.”

Q: There’s been a bunch of offensive penalties, what are specific ways to work on that during practice to fix it?

BIENIEMY: “One thing we strive with and one thing we take a lot of pride in is being fundamentally sound. The only thing that you have when you’re going through an NFL season, you have to keep demanding it and expecting it and keep working it in the individual periods. The only thing we’re asking our guys to do is go out there and do it the right way. That way we can give ourselves a chance. We’re making our mistakes at the most inopportune times which is not giving us an opportunity to be at our best. What does that mean? We’re going to keep demanding excellence from our players at all times. We’re going to keep coaching them up to make sure we’re doing it the right way.”

Q: Have the breakdowns been more about personal execution of blocking the guy in front of you or more scheme stuff?

BIENIEMY: “One thing I just want to get out there, I think the O-line takes the blunt of the blow. I will say this, our O-line has been working their tails off. Have they been perfect? Not at all. Collectively as a group and an offensive unit, we have to be better. That’s the important thing. We need to be better. We need to make sure we’re playing assignment sound. We can do it. We’ve shown it. We know how to do it. Now we just need to go out there, clean it up and do it when it’s all said and done with.”

Q: Where is Patrick’s involvement in this rough patch?

BIENIEMY: “Offensively, we’re just not clicking. We’re just not getting it done. So, when I talk about us as a group, I’m talking to all of us. We need to make sure that we’re executing and performing at a high level. Expectations are high and we need to play at that level. That’s what we expect from our guys and that’s what we demand from them.”

Q: You talked about the RPOs, are you confident Patrick is making the right read on the majority of those?

BIENIEMY: “Oh yeah. Very confident. We put all our trust and faith in Pat. If there’s something or an adjustment, we want to make we’ll have that discussion on the sideline.”

DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR STEVE SPAGNUOLO

OPENING STATEMENT: “On yesterday, not a great day. We’re a little disappointed, like everybody, but because it’s a short week, we have to put it behind us. Put it in the rear-view mirror and move on. With that, I’ll open it up.”

Q: Is it frustrating when you and the group experience inconsistency in creating takeaways?

SPAGNUOLO: “It is a little bit. I’ll share this with you. It was one of the years that we were in Philadelphia with Jim Johnson as the (defensive) coordinator, and we went through kind of a dry stretch. His point was that (takeaways) usually come in bunches. And they truly do. I would like for them to come in a lot of bunches, but I did think that we made two really good plays on the football yesterday. C-Dub (Charvarius Ward) had one and Juan (Thornhill) obviously had a really good play. We would like to be getting more of them. I mean the first play of the game was pretty exciting. It kind of got us rolling, and then it changed. I watched the film early this morning, there were a number of times that we got the ball on the ground. Now, I think one time they called him down, and then we ripped it out another time. It wouldn’t have been a fumble, but it’s good to see that the ball was coming out. Hopefully, somewhere along the way, they’ll become turnovers for us.”

Q: With Juan Thornhill’s interception, if he would have just knocked it down, the offense probably would have been in better shape and field position. Is that something that you guys go over?

SPAGNUOLO: “That’s a great point. I’ll be perfectly honest with you. When he caught it, I was fired up for him to catch it, too. Then quickly, when I realized where we were, that we now had the ball and it was fourth down. My guess is that it would have taken a real savvy veteran that’s been back there for a long time, someone that it all registers with, to knock it down. I just think it was a really good job covering. We were in man (coverage). They caught us in man and took a shot. I don’t think that’s really what they wanted to do, but they saw an opportunity and Juan took it away. I was happy for him to have done that, but your point is a good one.”

Q: It looked like you guys were trying some new things by moving Frank Clark around along the defensive front. How did that go?

SPAGNUOLO: “Pretty good. We’re trying to get him into as many good situations or places that we can. Now, that takes a little bit of work – guys are moving – but we’ll do that as much as we possibly can. We want him to be comfortable with where he is.”

Q: Everybody seems to be a little banged up right now in Week 7 of the season. Is Clark all good?

SPAGNUOLO: “Well you would have to ask him. He’s a warrior, so he goes, but I’d be willing to say that there are a lot of guys with a nick, a bruise and a bump, and they’re fighting through things. You can see it on the sidelines. Guys hang in there and they keep going. I’m proud of them in that regard.”

CHIEFS QB PATRICK MAHOMES

Q: Do you feel like in your career you have had a stretch like you guys are now where it has been a little bit rough?

MAHOMES: “I mean I think there were certain times at Texas Tech we didn’t do the things that we wanted to as an offense to find ways to win. I’ve definitely been through adverse times when I was in college of not winning the games I feel like we could have won. Then, my first year here whenever the team went through a little stretch when they weren’t winning games was something I can always look back on and realize it’s a long season. You can figure it out. That team my rookie season started hot, had a few games they didn’t like and then picked it back up as the season went on. There’s just difficult times in the NFL. There’s teams that are good and we’ve played some great opponents so far this season. We’ll have to find a way to get this thing rolling again on a short week against a great opponent.”

Q: In this instance, how do you get to the other side?

MAHOMES: “You just have to keep trying to execute and trust in what we’re doing. I feel like there’s plays in every single game that change the outcome and that’s how close it is in the NFL. Every team can win every single week. It’s about the little plays here and there that can change the whole aspect of a football game.”

Q: Your first 16 passes, I believe you completed 10 for 186 yards then it was nine for 19 for 80-something yards, was there an adjustment made for maybe ankle protection?

MAHOMES: “I don’t know if any was ankle protection at all but they played a similar defense the whole game and we didn’t execute at a high enough level. I didn’t make the throws at a high enough level as the game went on. I mean, I felt like we were doing the same things, we were running the plays we had gained playing before and we just didn’t get some of the series rolling the way we wanted to get going to have success later in the game.”

Q: Travis Kelce may be one of the best tight ends in the league, from your perspective how much are you seeing defenses being as physical as possible to prevent you and him from getting into a rhythm as the game goes on?

MAHOMES: “You can see it that last few weeks. Defenses are going to put their hands on him and try to hold him and try to rough him up on the line of scrimmage to disrupt our timing. All we can do as an offense is just keep going through our offense and keep trying to execute at a high level. Me and him both have to be better at trying to find ways for me to give him time to get open and make better throws when he does get open and then for him to keep working those routes and trusting his technique and his abilities. That’s stuff we’ll work on as the season goes on. Obviously, this will be a time to look back upon and learn things about ourselves as a team and as an offense and hopefully grow as an offense with a lot of the young guys we have on this team.”

Q: With Tyreek coming back could you see a difference in how defenses were going about coverages towards you?

MAHOMES: “When Tyreek’s out there, defenses have to pay extra attention to him and I think you saw that at the beginning of the game. They kind of started off with more press-man coverage we had been seeing and he kind of got them a couple times. Then you saw they kind of backed off of him earlier and played more of press and the safety was cheating over there to kind of help out the guys over there. He’s a guy that takes added attention so we need to utilize that and whenever he gets those matchups, take them, and when he gets that attention we need to use other guys to have success as an offense.”

Q: How do you handle and accept the responsibility after back to back losses that there’s going to be a lot of guys looking to you and how you’re handling it during practice or meetings?

MAHOMES: “You have to go about it as you just need to get better each and every week. I think you have to have the same mentality after a win that you have after a loss, that you’re trying to go out there and get better. So, after back to back losses, we aren’t happy with how we’ve performed the last few weeks but we know we have a short week against another opponent and we still can control our own destiny as far as our division and trying to win the AFC West and doing those different things and so it’s an important game this week. We’re playing Denver at Denver, they’ve won two in a row and are playing good football right now. For us we have to make sure we have our game plan and execute at a high level in a hostile environment.”

Q: How do you go about self-scouting and deciding ‘Did I make the right call here to pass and did I make the right call here to run the ball?’

MAHOMES: “You look at the positive parts of each play and a lot of the RPOs we completed a lot of the passes. I think there was one time if I look back right now, I’m about to watch the film after this, but I think there was one time I made a throw to (Byron) Pringle that we almost hit on that missed that the run could’ve been out from the pictures I saw on the tablet. For the most part on those things, I’m kind of always throwing them to Tyreek on the side where he’s getting nine yards a catch and stuff like that whereas those RPO options and you get plus nine on those throws, those are success plays for us.”

Q: The O-line takes a lot of criticism, what is your message to them that you still have confidence in them?

MAHOMES: “I’ll always have confidence in them. Those guys are working their tails off to protect me and we put a lot on them as far as letting them have those one on ones with the pass rushers with the Texans and these last couple weeks. They’ve been holding their own and doing their best job and I’ll keep trusting those guys to do their job. I have to get the ball out of my hands when the play isn’t there. I think you saw that with the play before half. I held onto it just a little too long instead of just burning it and living the play to the next half. Those are mistakes you can’t make when you’re playing an opponent like that.”

Q: Confidence-wise as a group, does it feel different than last year when you were losing in shootouts? How is your confidence in getting back to scoring what the fans expect of 30, 40 points in a game?

MAHOMES: “I feel like we still did a good job yesterday of moving the ball up and down the field for the most part. There was a couple drives there at the end where we just couldn’t get it rolling and put our defense in a bad situation by putting them right back on the field. I think the biggest difference you have is missing those little plays as far as third down conversions and little things like that we were making last year that we haven’t made these last few weeks that we were making at the beginning of the season is what changes the whole aspect of the game. Knowing that and guys seeing that on film, they understand that we’re this close to being that same explosive offense we were at the early part of the season so it’s about just executing as we keep getting guys back and keep getting more and more opportunities, we have to make sure we’re executing at a high enough level to have success.”

Q: Last year the Thursday Night Game was in December and your body is tired from the season, what can you do to make sure your body is ready to go for this Thursday night against the Broncos?

MAHOMES: “I think last year we did a good job of executing at the beginning of the game and we kind of faded at the end. Just knowing that it’s going to be a full game, you have to make sure that you are going to play a full entire game against a division opponent, knowing they’re going to give their best effort since it is such an important game.  For us, we’re going to go out there and get this game plan down today, make sure we prepare ourselves to play a full 60 minutes or however long it takes.”

Q: With their shutout yesterday, it looks like their defense is coming around, what kind of challenge does that present?

MAHOMES: “They have great personnel with their defensive players that they have that came back and have been there for a long time. With Coach Fangio, he was a really good defensive coordinator and now head coach. For them to have that combination you know they’re going to have a good defense so as an offense we need to understand what they’re trying to do and how they’re trying to do it then find ways to have success whenever we get our opportunities.”

—CHIEFS—