 Did you take your daughter to the training on Monday? Yeah, we did. She had a lot of fun. It was fun to see her. She actually said happy birthday to somebody. She was a little confused there, but we had fun. She was Elsa. She loves Frozen, so she got to be Elsa. She won her wig on the whole time, so she had fun. Do you so well that they rank so well as a run defender? I mean, they do a lot of blitzes. They throw different combinations at you as far as the blitzes that they do. They're a solid group. From the D line and on back, then they play physical, they play fast, they fly to the ball, and they're tough. So make sure you prepare right to get ready for these guys. They play well together as a group. That's a 35-minute time of possession against the Texans last week. Is that an important element that you got to maintain this week, trying to maintain that time of possession and controlling the ball to keep their offense off the field? I mean, yeah, you want to do that because they're so explosive. And they can score at any point in the game. And you know, type of player Patrick Mahomes is, and have after-ceavers, Travis Kelsey, so they're supposed to offense. So we want to make sure that we're doing what we do to keep the ball at their hands, just so it gives us up. Give us up a chance. The one-yard touchdown run that you had. How unusual was it to see things so clear in front of you? What went so well on that, that there was virtually? I mean, everybody just blocked well. And I was shocked that it went how it did. You know, it wasn't nobody there. So yeah, that was probably one of the easiest ones I've probably ever had. A lot of credit goes to you for wearing down defenses like your fourth quarter success. But how much of that is being able to see something early and remember that look and get back to it later in the game? Yeah, I think that just everybody being locked in, seeing what the defense is giving you. And then if we run the play and they gave us one look and then remembering that on the next time you're getting in the drive and executing it perfectly, but that's just everybody being locked in, tied in, seeing what the defense is throwing at us, and then adjusting to it and making play. Derek, you're on the injury report with a foot. How are you feeling because everyone's starting to panic? Oh, yeah. My foot is fine. I mean, there's nothing wrong. I'd be out there on Sunday playing. So foot is fine. There's nothing to panic about. Everybody had a great Thursday. So it's the same foot. Paul, there's nothing wrong with my foot. The right or left foot is fine. So you had a conversation with Eddie after the game on Sunday. What's his support and been like since you've been here and you think he's really happy you broke his record? He's always been supportive from the time I got here. And doing the Hasmans commercials with him, just talking to him, picking his brain and hanging out with him a couple of times. That's just how he's always been. And he's a great ambassador for his organization. So he's like a mentor, a big brother, and somebody that I've looked up to growing up. And it was just surreal to have that moment and then actually talk to him on the phone. What's the challenge of running the football when everybody defends the whole stadium, knows that you're going to run the football, and what has to go well for that to happen? Well, you just, I mean, y'all have the mindset. I mean, they know it. Just make something happen. And I mean, that's just us all being tied in and locked in and executing our job and me trying to run hard and make a play out of the play that's called. So when everybody knows, you just got to go out there and do it. You've got to mention, you know, your ability to wear down teams in the fourth quarter. How much pride have you taken that with your conditioning that you're just as fresh in the fourth quarter as you are in the first? Yeah, well, I mean, Dernley, I just want to play good and do my job the best that I can to help this team. And whether it's in the first, second, third, or fourth, you know, I just want to be able to do my job at a high level and play the best I can to help us win the game. Derek, what does it mean to you to be named NFL offensive player of the month? You get credit to my teammates. I couldn't have success that I have without those guys. Office of line, receivers, you know, they being unselfish and, and rocking down the field on doing, doing things that they need to do to, for me to have success. So I give the credit to all those guys and they're our coaching staff and they make my job easy. Was it kind of cool to see Stonehouse in there too? Two guys in the two tone blue? I don't know if he's going to be in there. He boots the balls. So there wasn't no question. So I mean, there was no shock to me. I mean, we all see it. Derek, apparently teams are averaging more yards Russian per game this year than in almost three decades. Is it maybe just a confluence that this league is supposedly a passing league with all the quarterbacks and receivers there come along a group of running backs like yourself that remind everybody. The NFL, it's still important to run the ball. Is it a passing league? No, I'm playing, but no. That's some good guys in the league that's running the ball well, that's efficient and been playing at a high level for a new amount of years. So just credit to all the RBs in the game and you know, just keep killing it. Derek, I saw it just Kobe Bryant, a guy that you looked up to your whole kind of athletic career and some of the things he goes by. Can you just share some of that and why you kind of follow those words? Which one was it? Kobe Bryant put the Instagram post, Kobe words of wisdom, I guess you could say. Yeah, I'm a Kobe fanatic. So anything I've seen from Kobe on the internet, I screenshot and hold on to. So anything I can implement from when he played his mindset, his work ethic, I just try to take it and try to implement it in mine. He's a great player. I'm always stayed hungry, never was satisfied. So one of my favorite athletes all the time is, well not my favorite athlete all the time, but just a guy who was great, won championships, but was always hungry and always had that drive. Did you ever get to meet him? No, so funny. It was right after I got drafted, I was going to the S because I was up for college for my play of the year. We were on the red carpet and I think his wife was pregnant at the time and I was standing on a red carpet with somebody who works for my agency. And he was walking by and she was like, you gonna say something, you gonna say something? And I couldn't say anything, I just, every since then I've never seen him again. I was like, man, that still haunts me to this day. What would you have told him? What would you have told him? I might have hugged him, if I know what I know now. So, but yeah, that's the only time I got to see him and I was gonna hush him, I ain't saying nothing. You were, you were mic'd up over the weekend. What's the reaction from other guys when they hear you're mic'd up? And I mean, and do you have to watch what you say and you enjoy that? The reaction, that was my fault because I was the feds and I didn't let nobody know. So I kind of forgot. Most of them didn't even know the whole time until after they seen it on Instagram or when they posted it. But I gotta pay more attention to let everybody know I'm mic'd up. But yeah, it was fun and see the footage from it. Just interacting with everybody. When other guys are mic'd up, do they sometimes signal? I know other guys talked about it around the league, like that they make a gesture, like to remind team and say, I'm wearing, I'm hot. Yeah, that's pretty much the call. I'm gonna fan today, so make sure, you know, send that crazy. But yeah, usually somebody's, like say something to somebody that's not in there. Let them know they're mic'd up. So yeah, that's how it usually goes. Who's the craziest guy mic'd up? Who's the guy that says the craziest stuff on Sundays that would be entertaining mic'd up? Bud, I'll say Bud the free for sure. Yes. If you were speaking, if you were encouraging your teammates, if you saw you were encouraging the league, is that always you who's, then why is it so important to be there for the team? You just gotta stay with it. In the games, you're gonna be ups and downs and highs and lows, but you just gotta stay with it. You know, just let them know that, you know, we all behind them, we got each other back and just stay with it. And then the player will be made when it needs to be made. All right. We have a game like Sunday. What's, I guess, what's the balance between just sticking with what's working and trying to find something else on the call sheet just to keep the defense guessing a little bit? Yeah, we were on the ball at a pretty good clip. So there wasn't too much reason for me to be searching for things to keep them off balance. You know, we were, it was pretty impressive what those guys did up front and the way that the tight ends and receivers bought into how we were gonna win that game. And so I was proud of the effort they put forth. You know, we're gonna do what's best for this team. And sometimes I'll mean more runs, sometimes more passes, but, you know, I was proud of what those guys did. So I wasn't searching too much. But those 32 carries, was that the, what you wanted to do going in or was that flow of the game that kind of dictated that? Or was it both? Yeah, I would say we certainly went in with, you know, the intentions of running the football. But again, when you start drives and you call a run and then it's first and 10 again, and then it's first and 10 again, or it's second and two again, that provides a lot of rhythm to continuing to call runs, you know. And so, you know, it was fun to be able to see some efficiency and, you know, sustained success there in the run game in the second half. That was good. I guess when he found out he was officially getting started and how do you kind of think he handled the whole process? You know, I'll let him speak for how he felt and what went through his head. I, you know, saw some excitement. I think that, you know, he handled things well from a maturity standpoint, not knowing, you know, that he was going to be the starter until, you know, later in the process, obviously. And there were some great learning opportunities, which are for every young quarterback that plays in this league. And then there were some things that he did, did well and managed the game well. So a lot to improve on and grow from. And, you know, I think he did a nice job. What do you think? You know, something really good with Chig there, who was wide open on that play, it seemed to be, like, the perfect play for a rookie quarterback. Yeah. And still it didn't work. Can you talk us through what Malik didn't do or could have done there that failed it? Yeah, I think maybe just picked him up a little bit late, you know, in terms of what Angle he set. It was one of those long foul balls. Would have loved to have it and we got to connect on those when you have those opportunities and you have, you know, the look that you prepared for and it's executed well from a tight end position. You know, we got to be able to hit those and Malik knows that, you know, but it just was a matter of, I think, not picking up Chig and his vision until a little bit later in the down. During training camp that was a kind of, what you guys talked about with Malik a lot, was knowing where to go with the ball was there, but getting his body to a point where timing was there was something that he was working on. Is that an extension of that, still something he's working through or has there been improvement that you've seen him make in that area? Yeah, I think that's always part of the process with a young quarterback, particularly one that can throw from so many different platforms and arm angles. And so as you process through some of those hard play passes, getting your body and your eyes back around, I think that's an ongoing process for all young quarterbacks. In particular ones that didn't spend a whole lot of time under center in college, you know, so that's part of the process for a lot of guys. Who end up not running the ball a whole lot either on scrambles or by design runs? Did you guys want him to kind of stay in there and kind of see the play through and make his reads rather than just abandon it and take off? You know, I think there's a delicate balance there. We had some, you know, designed opportunities for him where if one or two wasn't there, he could take off and run like on the first drive of the game, those types of things, but you don't want to force anything, you know, and you don't want to force the issue, particularly when a team knows that that's part of his skill set. And so, you know, we want that to come naturally to him. Obviously there can be some design things or scheme things that you look into. But, you know, I thought he made good decisions when to, you know, kind of go through his progressions and when to take off. What was the challenge of running the football when the defense, everyone knows you're gonna run the football. What do you still have to do in order to be successful and kind of how rewarding is it when you are? What's rewarding for me is the culture that I get to be a part of and the guys that are out there blocking their tails off because when you have a defense that knows you're gonna run it, they bring extra bodies down into the box. The only way to account for those is wide receivers being unselfish and going and blocking those safeties. And so I tip my cap to our wide receiver department, Cody Hollister blocking his tail off, Nick Westbrook blocking his tail off, Robert Woods, even Chris Conley got in the mix a couple of times. That's where it starts. And that's a culture here. That's a team buy-in that we're gonna do whatever it takes to win football games, even if it means having great energy and great focus on the sideline to figure out how to get Derek into his fourth and fifth step. So it starts there. The second piece of it I would say is that you obviously have to be sound schematically and rule-wise and we're fortunate enough to have a center like Ben Jones that can get things identified and get people going to the right spots. How ready is Conley to do the receiving part of the receiving? Very, very sharp player. I think he's able to do some translation of stuff he's done in the past. I've seen him grow each and every day. He's been here. He's been working hard, meeting extra with the coaches. So he's coming along nicely. You went through this last week. But what kind of challenge will present you when you begin the week when you're not really 100% sure who the core box is gonna be? Whether Ryan's gonna have his set box from as far as division or reps to maybe what kind of plane you put in? Yeah, I think some of it's just figuring out what the load management throughout the week's gonna be so that you feel like you have preparation in all scenarios and we do a great job here of laying out the schedule so that we can make sure guys get whatever looks or whatever kind of cans or visuals they need to. And so I feel comfortable with where we're at in that process. What all were you able to see from Ryan yesterday in practice? Yeah, I'll leave the curtain closed on that one but I can tell you that he's working hard to get back and he's a competitor. Touchdown run that Henry has walks in. Nobody touches him. What went into that being so easy to get into the end zone when again everybody's probably expecting that to happen? Yeah, I think there was an adjustment to our motion, you know, bringing Jeff across in the motion, kind of loosened up the front side a little bit there and obviously our guys did a nice job firing off the football. You know, we go through our goal line rules each week and say if we want to score touch-downs on the goal line, the blockers got to score with their man and you know, I think that was a good example of that coming into fruition. That goal has been a successful DC in this league for a long time. What makes his defenses, you know, so effective? Yeah, obviously they're well coached, you know, and they're good in their adjustments. He does a nice job of balancing different looks, showing you the same thing and then changing the picture on you at the snap. I have a lot of respect for Coach Spagnola. I actually was set to interview with him with the Rams when he got the head job and I was hoping to stick around as a young buck. But yeah, it's been a long story career of him, you know, producing good defenses and coaching his guys well. A lot of respect for those guys. His ability to kind of adjust to this person, how obviously he started off with like, you know, Justin Tuck and OZ Human, you were in straight-in that one year and you know, obviously players change and everything like that. What about his ability to adjust to the players that he has? Yeah, obviously he does a great job of figuring out what the recipe's gonna be with the ingredients he has, you know, and sometimes that tweaks and changes week by week and you can see that their staff's committed to figuring out ways to win with who they have. More back to that culture, we heard with, well, we heard what Derek Henry had to say to Malik when he was mic'd up on Sunday. What were some of the things that you were telling Malik on the sideline to kind of keep his confidence up? Yeah, just to remember what got him to this point, you know, and to enjoy the moment. You know, I think sometimes we can, all of us can get caught up in the stresses of the job and sometimes in the stresses of the moment. And one of the things that makes Malik such a special player is his ability to lift those around him and to play with joy and passion that's contagious, you know, and I think that that's something that's gonna serve him extremely well going forward in his career. And I just tried to remind him he's out there playing a game for a living, you know, so it's gonna be exciting to watch his development. Thanks. Appreciate it, great thanks. No challenge this week, Shane, right? You just have to go into Arrowhead prime time and oh yeah, there's some guy named Patrick Momes. Having seen him and defending him the last couple of years, does that help at all as you go into this game? Yeah, I mean, Topson the league in just about everything for a reason, right? He's an extremely special player. They got talented guys around him, you know, so we gotta have a plan together and hopefully our guys can go out and execute and we gotta be able to execute technique fundamentals, do all the little things. Because if you get caught, like it's a big play, they're gonna make you pay for it. So we gotta make sure we're on our gameplay and then play out. Have you ever seen them third down defense, their first and third down offense? What will ultimately determine what wins there? Yeah, I think our execution and then whoever makes more plays, you know? I mean, they got a bunch of playmakers out there. We're gonna have to do a good job of understanding whatever coverage we're playing, being able to execute that, being able to affect the quarterback and rush, all that plays a part as well, but ultimately whoever makes those plays on third down, it's gonna play a big role in the game. Have you seen them continue to have that success in the passing game? Even though Tyreek Hill isn't there? Yeah, I mean, I think they've done a great job schematically with what they do. Obviously Kelsey's having a monster of year right now. I think those other guys have came in there. They've gotten all on the same page. I think they understand kind of how it's what they've done in the past and they fit in well with that. And, you know, ultimately my homes is able to create some plays that most aren't, right? Able to allude pressure to extend plays and you get all these faster guys, these stronger guys that catch it and they're able to separate and Kelsey's the same, recognize coverage and be able to separate and find the boys in the zone. And as those plays get extended, they catch them and they're tough to tackle once they do get the ball. So, I mean, I think it's just kind of continued from where it's at. Those guys have stepped in and they're rolling. How about they push the ball down to be able to as much even though Cheetah's not there anymore? Yeah, we'll take the shots. I mean, they have a big one against San Francisco. I mean, some of those other big plays have been Miss Tackles or some Busta Times, but they're down there, you know, they're running. So, I mean, we're gonna have to make sure we're staying on top of things and making them earn it and doing a good job when they do throw underneath, coming up and tackling those guys. This is a team that isn't afraid to come back in a game. Just how much do you preach them to start to finish in this one specifically? Yeah, I mean, sure, we lived it in 2019 along with a lot of other teams have lived it since. So, I mean, it's gonna be a four-quarter game, you know, and when they got my homes back there and these guys on the perimeter making plays for them, they're never out of it, right? They're always one play away from getting them back to a one-score game potentially. So, I think they understand that, they believe in their ability to come back as well. So, we're gonna have to keep playing regardless of how the game goes early. We know it's gonna be a four-quarter game regardless. How much did you realize that Simmons had done on the play where he pushed his alignment into the ball carry and would you think when you washed it back on tape? Yeah, it's impressive. I mean, you see the pad level, you see the technique and you see just the brute strength, right? And it was great to show because it kind of illustrated a lot of the things we talk about, just being able to play a hands-in-side and whenever you're able up front to play with that technique, you really are able to release all the power, all the explosiveness that comes out. When you're not playing with technique and pad level, that's when all that ability kind of gets hindered a little bit. So, it was a great teaching point, great clip for us, but he's a special player who's playing really well for us right now. This year in terms of past Russian, particularly, have you seen him? Yeah, much improved, much improved. I think Thierry's gained a ton of confidence this year. I do. I think he's playing at a different speed, not as reactive maybe. So, he's able to kind of unleash a little bit of his power and explosiveness as well. And he's a tough matchup just because he's so big and so strong. And he's found ways to counter off of it, which has been good for us. He's impacted quite a lot in the past Russian. Which is a help out, Jeff. I mean, obviously, he's still gonna get the attention, I think a ton. I mean, anytime we tell these guys all the time, anytime you're one-on-one, you better find a way to win. It's a one-on-one league, matchup league inside, outside, regardless, you get the one-on-one, we gotta find a way to win. And then they're not able to kind of do whatever they wanna do with Jeff because they gotta worry about somebody else also. How good to get Elijah back out here and maybe what does he need to show you to prove to you he's ready to go? Yeah, really good. I mean, he's been engaged, he's been around. Obviously, he's done a lot for us in the past. So hopefully this week here, as the week continues, we kind of see where he's at. Don't really have a lot of concerns in terms of mental for him. What we do schematically, he's done it, you know. It's more or less just where he's at from physical standpoint as the week goes. With this being a prime time game and against one of the top offenses, do you kind of look at this as like a GPS game to show the rest of the league where your unit is? Yeah, I mean, to me, it's week to week. I mean, we're worried about us. We're worried about how we play, that we're showing improvement, which I think we have here these past four or five weeks. I think there's been some improvement and it's just continuing to improve throughout the season regardless of who we play. We got to keep improving, making sure we're hone in on details of whatever call we're making, the fundamentals, all those things. Those are the things you want to see as the season goes and hopefully we can continue that trend. But I'm excited for the guys. They're excited for the opportunity to go out there and play. Obviously, you play against the best. I mean, they're excited for that opportunity. What kind of a step has Christian taken in your secondary to really be an anchor over there? He's talked all week about wanting to be that next level NFL corner. Just kind of what have you seen from him in his growth this year? Yeah, it's great to want to be that. But you got to go do it. You got to be consistent. I think he's been out there. He's been challenging. He's been tight in coverage. I think he's done a good job of not panicking for the most part down the field. He's on body. He's tackling really well for us right now, showing up in the run game and the screen and some of that type of stuff. So he's developed in his game into being really able to do everything for us. So the biggest thing with him is just continue to challenge himself to do that, right? Like, let's not talk about it. Let's go out there and show it weekend and week out. That level Mahoney said this week that y'all kicked their ASS last year. So it's still on their minds. Are you all thinking about what happened last year? Is it a new year? It's a new year. You know, like, I mean, they're a different team. They got different pieces as well. We got some new pieces out there. Again, it's another game right now. It's a big game. Don't get me wrong, it is. It's a big game. But last year was last year. Like, we know there ain't many games like that with the Chiefs. Very, very rare. We caught them out on the right day, right? And we played well. They probably didn't play up to their standard, obviously. And they know that. So we're ready for the challenge this week. We know what's coming at us come Sunday night. Ryan Stonewall, AFC, special teams player of the month. What are your thoughts on that? Proud of him. That was the original thought. And also, we had to let Ryan know it's just not that's helping him out of getting that player of the month. There's a lot of guys that are helping him out, starting with Morgan Cox and the guys that are on the punt team. But he's doing a great job for us. Really proud of him, the way he goes and prepares each and every week. But we're telling him it's what he does in November, too. What is he going to do to improve? And I know he will. And we're excited for him. How much different has this year been for you? Like with Brett, I'm sure it was really just small tweaks. If anything, I'm sure sort of bigger issues and different things to work through with Ryan this year. Yeah, anytime you have a rookie, there's going to be some tweaks that you want to do with him, whether it's each and every day or during the week. But Ryan, we want to play to his strengths, too. And he always hits a big ball. So we don't want to do anything that takes him away from that. But there's always certain things, whether it's his drop, whether it's direction, things like that, that we can work with them. We're always going to try to do. And the best part about him is he's willing to learn and try to improve on those things. And also, the fifth most pressured punter since 2018 before the next gen stats. Is that a ticking time, mom? No, I think our protection is doing really well. How is it doing really well if the fifth most pressured punter since 2018? Yeah, well, I think the big thing is we're hitting big balls. And we do a great job of coverage. So now what a punt return team tries to do is, all right, well, if we can't get big returns and get a net of 40 yards, well, what can we do to help that out? So punt return teams now are saying, well, let's try to pressure and try to get, one, a bad punt. Or two, they can try to end up blocking a punt. Because right now, I think we're one of the top ones in net punting. So now teams just got to try to do something different for us. So one of the things is maybe try to put pressure on a rookie punter. And from a special teams perspective, some stadiums got swarming wins. Some are known for other things. You've been at Arrowhead a lot of times. What's unique about that place? Yeah, when I was with the Chargers, we played them obviously twice a year, but we'd always play them over there. The one thing that teams, when you get under the end of the year, weather changes, obviously. And it'll get a little bit windy. I think right now the forecast has a halfway decent. But the one thing that we've got to work on, along with our offense, obviously, is account. When we want to snap the ball. Because it's going to be loud there. They do a bunch of different things with the guys on the outside, whether they're creeping inside. So we've got to really work on our communication with the guys, because it is going to be loud there. That's one of the things that we've been focused on all week. Anything you saw from Robert Woods last week? Yeah, disappointing with the fumble. And the one thing that we talked about obviously is ball security. The other thing that we really focused in on is how it happened. And we had two guys on one guy that end up making the play. And one of our biggest things that we talk about all the time is we've got to protect our returners, whether it's our punt returner or a kickoff returner. And we felt we let that slip a little bit, because the guy who ended up making that caused fumble was a guy that we had double teams. So we've got to do a much better job of protecting our returner. And it comes down to the end of the day of Robert putting two hands on the ball and giving the ball to our offense. Robert's still going to be that guy going forward. I mean, you don't see any other options right now? Yeah, as of right now, he'll be the guy that's going to go back there. We've got to continue to harp on ball security with him and continue to harp on the other guys of doing their jobs to block form. But once Robert gets his hands on the ball, he gets over 10 yards. So that's one of the other things, along with giving the ball to our offense, is we want to get a first-first down. So if we can average over 10-yard a punt return, we feel like we're doing well. You a fan of Ray Guy growing up? Did you see where he passed away? Yeah, I saw that. That's a sad day, obviously, for his family. He's one of the originals, hall of fame guy that's done a great job. And I'm sure the younger punters, hopefully they know about him and all the great things that he used to do with the Raiders. But yeah, just a sad day with Mr. Guy passing away. Did you ever see any of his stuff live? I can't imagine you were alive at that point. But in special teams, do you study what some of the things that he did that made him such a great punter? No, to be honest with you, the only time I got to watch him was when I was a younger kid. I grew up in the country, so we only had five channels. So we didn't get the Raiders very much on TV. But you know, he did a really good job. I don't know how much Ryan has studied him or even us. But what I do know is the guy would just bang the ball and did a really good job. And obviously a guy who did it for a long time in his career.