As far as the injuries go, Gardner (Minshew) hurt his left knee. We don't have any results for you here. We'll get that when he has a chance to have an MRI on it.
As far as things go, I appreciate the effort of the guys. We've got a lot of guys that are having an opportunity here to play. It's not as smooth as you want it, obviously. We've had penalties all over the place. That's not helping us get off the field or stay on the field. We've got to clean that up. But the positive that you can take out of this is an opportunity for guys to play. Obviously, we have a short week here, and we need to get ourselves back and going for a good Denver team.
You said you appreciated the effort. How would you characterize the energy overall in terms of having guys ready for this with all the things going on?
Yeah, so the guys I thought were good. I didn't think that was an issue. They came out, they played hard and did their thing. We were just short on a few spots there. That got us, along with the penalties. As far as the other part goes, they were — I appreciate Chris's (Jones) and (Nick) Bolton's and (Travis) Kelce's and Creed (Humphrey) and Trey (Smith) for pushing through and playing. Those guys very easily could take a day off, but I appreciate the effort they put in.
You're missing guys every game, that's the nature of the league; in what ways do you miss Patrick Mahome's presence besides his on-the-field play and leading up to the game?
Yeah, I certainly don't want to take anything away from that because he does bring great energy. You expect other people to step up and go. I thought I saw that this week, with guys trying to step in and raising it up a little bit. It wasn't good enough but going forward you have to eliminate these mistakes. That's the biggest thing in a game like this.
What did you see in Chris Oladokun's performance?*
Yeah, I thought he did okay. He was able to get us moving a little bit. I probably could give him better stuff to work with. In particular, give him some more reps during the week. He didn't have any reps to lead him in, but for what he was asked to do, I thought he did a nice job.
Could you see what happened on the safety there? Looked like some linemen didn't know if it was a run or a pass.
Yeah, I can't answer that. I thought they knew what they were doing.
What goes into the decision to play someone with experience versus a young guy?
We got them a few reps in there, so 24 (Brashard Smith) had a package and so did — well, they all did. They all had a little bit of a package in there. But the other guys want to play, too, as they go. They want to go win the game. So that's what you do. You try to come out on the top end of it. But we did have packages in for (Jalen) Royals and 24 (Brashard Smith) there.
Where is Jalen right now in his progression as you sit here in Week 16?
Yeah, he went through the injury part of it. He came back, and I felt like the last couple weeks he's been doing better. This week we gave him a little bit more during the week to work with. But he's going to be okay down the road here.
This will be your first losing season here in Kansas City. What's the state of belief you had prior to the season and your reaction to how this season has gone so far?
Yeah, nobody likes to lose in this business. But my hat goes off for the guys that put together all these years. That's part of it. We can learn from it and need to do that going forward. Sometimes a good kick in the tail there helps you, coaches and players.
How difficult will it be to prepare Chris Oladokun and bring somebody in if it comes to that?
Just by numbers, if that's the case, Brett (Veach) is on it and looking at different people there.
It seemed like Trey Smith and Creed Humphrey were trying to light a fire under some teammates. What have you seen from them, with Patrick Mahomes not being here?
Yeah, I thought they did a good job with that. We had a mistake there that needed correcting, and they got to it before the coaches got to it, before we could get them off the field. But that's all part of it.
