Herm Edwards Postgame Comments - Raiders

Dec 01, 2008, 8:36:06 AM

HERMAN EDWARDS: “I thought it was a hard fought football game by both sides. I thought the Raiders defense is very, very good. It was hard for us to move the ball at times. But I think what we did was we just stayed in the game. We made it a close game and that’s what you have to do when you play on the road. We were able at the end to take a drive down and score after we had turned the ball over to give them a score.

“We have been in a lot of games in the fourth quarter now and we had to find a way to win one. This is one we finally did.”

On unlikely hero Maurice Leggitt:

EDWARDS: “You know, he had to start about three weeks ago, the rookie from Valdosta. We’ve started three rookies (at defensive corner). He went through some growing pains earlier but I thought that last week, although we didn’t win the football game, he played one of his better games. He’s a guy who’s kind of been growing through this whole process along with a lot of other young guys. When you dress 18 rookies on your football team and you play them as much as we play them, a lot of them are growing up. Some of them grew up today.”

On the Raiders fake field goal that early in the game:

EDWARDS: “They have their reasons why they do things. You never know. This is a rivalry game and everything goes. They had some nice plays: the one where they pitched it back to the runner was well designed. I kept preaching to our players – and this is a young team that’s going to be together for a long time – is your rivalries are important because you play them twice (in a season) and they’re going to play against the Raiders a lot. But this is the first time a lot of them had been here and I thought it was important that they understood that.”

On when he began feeling good putting the game away today after coming so close in other games:

EDWARDS: “When Bowe made the catch. That was a heck of a catch. The guy had him covered pretty good and it was high throw. If we got one more first down we would probably be in good shape. We sure did when Larry went around the corner and made the first down and you know at that point they have no more time outs that you can feel pretty good, unless you fumble it.”

On getting the ball back with three minutes left after not being very good in prior games in that same situation:

EDWARDS: “I thought we kind of mixed it up and tried to throw it some and run it some. Now, I think you have to run it some because you just can’t throw the ball and go three-and-out. They just had a nice drive and kicked a field goal – a 51-yarder. You knew that we had to do something offensive and take time off the clock and make them use their time outs. If we didn’t convert a first down, then punt it way down there and see if they could score without any time-outs.”

On the difference before the first Oakland game and this one:

EDWARDS: “What we had to do was make sure we take care of our run defense. We’ve been a little hamstrung here lately with some guys playing out of position and guys getting hurt. We had a lot of guys who went in there today and played halfway decent. Rocky Boiman started as our ‘Mike’ linebacker and three weeks ago he wasn’t even on our team. So you have to give credit to our coaches and our players. It’s a long season and we hadn’t won a game in a while.

“Oakland has gotten better than the last time we played them, in my opinion. They’ve always had a good defense and I think they do some things on offense now that give people problems. We were fortunate; turnovers were a key again, for them as well as us. That was the key to the game. They turned one over and we scored and we turned one over and they scored. Then we scored a touchdown and we only scored one offensive touchdown. I thought both teams played defense pretty well today.”

On the Chiefs growth as a team:

EDWARDS: “Our key again was at the half. We had a lead and in the second half of football games we’ve been close or had a lead and we finally put one away. It was tough. It got sticky again and you started wondering.”

On Thigpen’s first win and if you plan to say anything to him:

EDWARDS: “I will. I’ll talk to all of them. I like what he did after he threw the interception. I don’t like that he threw an interception, but he came back. That was the key. He turned the ball over a bunch last week and throws one today, but he came back and kept playing. The whole team kept playing. That’s the key. We didn’t get down or think it was over and were fortunate to make some plays ourselves and got back in the game.”

On Thigpen looking for Gonzalez so much:

EDWARDS: “If I was a rookie quarterback I’d look for him too. You’ve got a hall of fame tight end and I’d try to find him. That’s the MO and any smart quarterback would try to do that. Look for that guy because most of the time he catches it.”