TODD HALEY: “Good to be home. Obviously, back to work today after the game and a couple of days off, more or less. They ran and lifted yesterday but today’s the first day back to practice. Little slow start but I thought we picked it up as we went and it ended up being a fairly competitive and productive practice.”

Q: You didn’t see, to put it in your words (last week after breaking from River Falls), “guys throwing papers out the bus window?”

HALEY: “I think some papers were thrown out the window, the way it started. I told them it was like pulling teeth early on and we can’t have practices start like that ever if we expect to be any good.”

Q: Still no arrowheads on the side of helmets.

HALEY: “Not yet.”

Q: When are we going to see that?

HALEY: “When guys start making the team.”

Q: So officially nobody has made the team yet?

HALEY: “Not in my book.”

Q: I saw Vrabel had one arrowhead on one side of his helmet.

HALEY: “Must have been a slip.”

Q: What’s your arrowhead budget for those stickers?

HALEY: “Our budget went up in that area, that’s for sure. The arrowhead thing, I didn’t do it to start any kind of controversy of any kind. It was more of a point of we’re starting from ground zero and we’re going to earn the right to be Kansas City Chiefs.”

Q: What about guys like Brandon Flowers and Jarrad Page? Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t they doing things the way you want them done and haven’t they had pretty good camps? Haven’t those guys earned their spot on the team yet?

HALEY: “As I said during camp, there are probably some more obvious positions where guys are further along than others and I think that’s natural. But again, this is a ground zero start here and trying to get everybody on the same page and thinking the right way and thinking team first and individual second. We’ll see how that all plays out, but I’d say there are some more obvious shored-up positions than others. But I don’t want to get into it in any way right now. But I think that will all take care of itself here before too long.”

Q: You have said you can’t beat yourself with offensive mistakes, fumbles in particular. How much are you emphasizing that you’ve just got to control the ball?

HALEY: “We do a lot of emphasizing in that area. That’s why we have the gauntlet out here and you see us go through stiff-arm drills, all the different things that help us protect the football. In game two of our fumbles happened with guys having the ball in the wrong hand. That’s a little thing that becomes a big thing. We’re coaching it all the time; when we see it we’ve got to talk about it and if we miss it on the field we’ve got to correct it on tape. That’s a great example. Two fumbles in that game would not have happened in my opinion if the all carriers were carrying the ball in the correct arm.”

Q: There are certain guys like a Jamaal Charles who have a string of fumbles over the course of their careers. How do you get to a guy and get it corrected?

HALEY: “You just teach proper technique. There’s a way to hold the football and there are a lot of ways not to hold it. There is one way to hold the football correctly and you’ve got to coach it properly so they understand how they’re supposed to be holding it and then you’ve got to make it them hold it that way all the time, then you’ve got to get it in the right arm and hand. It’s like anything else, you’ve got to teach it and then you have to stay after it all the time.”

Q: What are your thoughts on Jamaal Charles through camp and these couple of games?

HALEY: “The thing I’ll say about Jamaal, after a very critical turnover which we cannot have, I put him right back in the game the very next play and handed the ball to him to see where he was at mentally. I would say from that point on Jamaal did some good things: he caught a kickoff, he took it up in there like he was trying to run it, he put his head down on the big third down he caught and took it up the sideline. So, there were some positives, but we can’t be a yo yo team and we can’t have yo yo guys. You’re going to hear me say it over and over but that’s the best analogy I can see. We need to be the same all the time.”

Q: Is he not quite as consistent yet as you’d like to see him be?

HALEY: “Not when you fumble in a game. To me, whatever else you do positive (this is) going to hurt your chances to win. If we don’t cause a turnover and he has one fumble the percentages say you probably lose the game the majority of the team.

Q: You have probably started talking about roster. How many guys would you say are there right now?

HALEY: “I don’t know. I’d be throwing a number out there.”

Q: Roughly, is it more than half the team?

HALEY: “I would say there would be maybe half the guys who are going to find their way onto the team. But you don’t know what’s going to happen. For me to make a statement like that and then maybe the Chicago Bears or somebody releases somebody that ten of our coaches start doing back flips over or Scott says this guy makes us better, that’s why you can’t make those kind of promises.

“We’ve said from the start here: we will do anything and everything we can to make the team better. If that means adding somebody on the day before the season starts, or today, tomorrow or in a week, we’ll do it. We’re not disrespecting anybody, we’re just keeping our word that we will do everything we can to improve the team. If there is somebody out there who makes us better at any position we’re doing it.”

Q: Are you behind in that regard?

HALEY: “No, I think it’s when things heat up right about now. We’ve had scouts at every pre-season game. All those games are being watched. In one of my early meeting with the players I had the scouts stand up and I said how many games are you going to be at? I told (the players) you’re not competing with just the guys in this room, you’re not competing with just the guys at your position. You are competing with every player in the NFL and maybe some other leagues out there. They know that. We’re studying everything that’s going on and our scouts are chomping at the bit when these tapes come out. We’re looking because some of these guys are going to get released. Everybody can only keep 53 (players).”

Q: In general, are you happy with the level of competition or has it been less?

HALEY: “I think for the most part I have been happy with it. Now, I wish we had more talent at spots to create more competition and that’s where over the next couple of weeks we might be able to improve that aspect of it. I would say, generally happy, but there are some spots that I wish there were better competition.”

Q: Is that trade you made today aimed at fixing that problem?

HALEY: “Nothing is official. When that is we’ll let everybody know. But if something does happen that’s probably what we’re trying to get done. There are physicals and a lot of stuff to be done yet.”

Q: As you look at the tape, how did the team perform the other night?

HALEY: “About what I thought. I was encouraged in some areas and discouraged in others. In the end, we had a chance to win the game. I think that was important despite the fact that we probably committed too many mental errors, which I won’t get into specifics about. Too many mental errors usually cost you a chance at winning, along with losing the turnover battle.

“Now, I thought we created some pressure on their quarterbacks, thought we did a good job against a pretty good running team that will be a good running team. I thought that offensively we did a nice job on third down where the week before we weren’t so good. I thought that helped us. Time of possession I think we were plus 10 minutes on (the Vikings) which is always a pretty good sign. I think there were enough things in that game to be encouraged about, to feel like we’re making progress.”

Q: How about the right side of the offensive line? Can you comment on Mike Goff and Barry Richardson and what you thought?

HALEY: “I think the offensive line in general I was a little let down about. If there is a game you’re going to get up for it’s against that group. That’s a good defense and specifically a really good defensive front seven. I just expected our guys to get up a little more and take the challenge. Now, a couple of their guys didn’t end up playing but they’re still a pretty good defense without those guys.

“So, just in general I was let down and didn’t think we won the physical side of that match-up early.”

Q: Corey Mays has been making a lot of plays.

HALEY: “I think that Corey is again been a pleasant surprise from the standpoint that I didn’t know a lot about the player. He is a player who hasn’t had a lot of playing time other than on special teams. First and foremost, and knowing we were going to have more linebackers on the field, we were looking for special teamers. Then he comes in and you see he can play some linebacker. I think he’s been a bright spot for sure. He’s got to continue to get better every day and he can’t be a yo yo. He was real good in the first game. In the second game he was not as sharp as he was in the first one. That’s part of the deal: you’ve got to be the same guy every day.”

Q: How close is Tyson Jackson to where you’d like him to be?

HALEY: “When you draft defensive linemen it is a real process with these guys. History shows that some of these high round defensive linemen take some time to come into their own. It’s a work in progress with him and he’s doing a good job at this point. There are some things he’s got to work on but I don’t think we can race to judge him real quick.”

Q: With such an emphasis on process, how much does it set players back when they’re out of camp for a while?

HALEY: “To me, that’s the worst thing a player can do. You see it over and over again. Guys aren’t here, hold out, and then they get hurt. It’s a reoccurring pattern all the time. Now, knock on wood, he’s kept himself in shape. I think I said that to everybody the day he did the run test. I was impressed with that. The kid worked hard when he wasn’t here and now that he’s here and it’s given him a chance to progress.”

Q: Your thoughts on Derrick Johnson’s play.

HALEY: “Derrick needs to get it going a little bit I would say. He probably played better in the first game than the second game clearly. Derrick is a guy with a lot of ability that needs to show that ability every day and be the type of guy we’re looking for – the same guy every day who’s doing it how he’s supposed to be doing it and how he’s coached to do it. He’s definitely got the ability. He’s got to work at being the same guy as his ability lets him to be.”

Q: Do you expect Tyler Thigpen to play Saturday night?

HALEY: “If he’s practicing I would expect him to play at some point.”

Q: With two pre-season games left, do you ratchet up the scheme this week a bit more?

HALEY: “This will be a run-through on how the regular season will be traditionally. They’ll get their real gameplan books, whereas the first two games were a little bit more scaled down. It might have been hand drawn plays as opposed to a computer drawn play in a hard cover book. It’ll be a like an in-season game as far as how we present everything. I don’t think it’ll be a lot more than what we’ve done for the last game.”