(via NFL Communications)
(on what they dialed up to stop Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City offense) “The biggest thing was to cover up the receivers and make him hold the ball a little bit, so our rush could get there. And I think mixing up the coverages and moving some guys around and making him think a little bit and taking away his first read allowed the guys to get off up front and covering the guys in the back.”
(on what was the biggest key to avoiding plays where Mahomes breaks out of the pocket and gets a big gain) “Well, we’d rather have him run than throw. We just tried not to have him have the 15, 20-yard gains. He got them a few times, we knew he was fast enough to get through our interior. He’s a great quarterback, but for the most part, if he’s not throwing the ball 30 yards down the field, we’ll take it. We’ll take those little five and eight-yard runs all day.”
(on what the game plan was against Tyreek Hill tonight) “To make sure he doesn’t beat us over the top and make sure we tackle him underneath. He’s an explosive receiver, one of the best in the game, and our guys were up to the challenge and they played a heck of a ball game.”
(on what goes into giving the defensive players the confidence to win against such great competition) “Just trying to put them in the best situation possible with the other defensive coaches and making sure they understand what the team did to them the first time and understanding what they might do to them the second time, while at the same time, executing our game plan to the fullest, and those guys did a good job tonight.”
(on holding Kansas City to no touchdowns and the pressure they put on Mahomes all night long) “That’s a credit to the guys up front getting the pressure, but mostly for the guys in the back because we kind of took away some of the underneath throws and it took too long for the guys to get deep. While the guys up front hunted, the guys in the back covered them, so we worked hand in hand tonight.”
(on what his success represents for the Black community) “It just shows that we’re good at our job as coaches and it gives younger people inspiration, hopefully, just to see us as coaches and see that we can be one of these type of people if we put our mind to it, and anything is possible.”
(on Ndamukong Suh’s play tonight and what this win means for his career) “This late in his career, for him to finally win a Super Bowl is outstanding. I thought he was pushing the pocket all night and he didn’t step up in the pocket too many times, especially in the second half. He’s been great for us all year, he’s a great leader, he’s a great pro and I’m extremely happy for him.”
(on what were the most key things that the defense did tonight) “The biggest thing was trying to take away the first read. If you take away the first read, you know he’s got to drift and hold it, and you know that that’s a dangerous thing because he can run and he can make plays with his feet, but we didn’t want him sitting in the pocket, just zinging dimes on us all day, either. So, the d-line got some pressure on him and was making him run and making him a little bit uncomfortable, and I thought that was key for us.”
(on what the defense did on third down to prevent Kansas City from moving the chains) “We mixed up some coverages, tried to show some disguises and tried to make one thing look like another. Again, if we can make him hold it and pause and look at it a little bit, those guys up front were allowed to hunt and they were getting them off their spot. And for the most part, they chased him around pretty good, although he outran us most of the time, it kind of worked in our favor.”
(on how sweet it is to hold the Kansas City offense to no touchdowns after how their Week 12 meeting went) “Well it’s great to win the Super Bowl. We know they’re a great team, they’ll be a great team next year as well. Great coaching, great quarterback, great team as a whole. But for us to come out and perform tonight, it means the world to us and we’ve got a couple months to say we’re world champions and we’ll start up again.”
(on what their blueprint was to shutting down Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill, to allow the linebackers to swarm) “Well we tried to pay a lot of attention to them early and make sure that they didn’t get off to start the game. Last time that we played them, they got off to a fast start and we never recovered and lost by three. This time, we thought if we cleaned up some mistakes and tried to cover them up a little bit, we could get going and get in a groove, and those guys did that and that’s a credit to them, studying the game plan for two weeks.”
(on the process of taking Tyreek Hill out of the game) “It’s a hard process. Again, he’s a great receiver. I have a lot of respect for Tyreek, and Kelce as well. But the guys studied. We studied the first game and studied the rest of the games and we came up a game plan as coaches on our side of the ball, and we put together a heck of a game plan last week and the guys followed it to a T, they believed in it and they executed it pretty good.”
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