AFC Notes: Davante Adams, Broncos, Chiefs, Raiders

Broncos

Broncos veteran S Justin Simmons credited defensive coordinator Vance Joseph for the defense’s midseason turnaround.

“‘VJ’ has been nothing but outstanding,” Simmons said, via BroncosWire.com. “I can speak for the defensive room when I say this: We’ll go to war for ‘VJ.’ Week-in and week-out. He never flinched, he never wavered. He knows how good we can be and how well we can execute. Today I think kind of showed that.

“In so many ways … it wasn’t perfect … but that was almost the standard — getting some takeaways, setting our offense up to get the ball, obviously, leaving the game with no touchdowns is huge — and ‘VJ’ was the driving factor of that. The attention to detail, the film study, the communication, talking to us in and out of the offensive plays when the offense is out on the field, on the sideline letting us know what he’s thinking, how plays are going to go so we aren’t shocked or surprised by any calls — I think all that plays a big role into it. I can’t say enough good things about him. We’re going to just keep this ball rolling.”

Chiefs

When asked about his chemistry with Patrick Mahomes, TE Travis Kelce said it comes from being on the same page with Mahomes. 

“It’s one thing when it goes right,” Kelce said, via Nate Taylor of The Athletic. “Then you want to do something based off of what you just did, knowing that the defense saw it. It’s nonstop playing chess with the guys across from you. You’ve just got to make sure you’re on the same page and you’re not putting the team in a tough spot or putting Pat in a tough spot.”

Mahomes said he just has an uncanny understanding of when Kelce is breaking the script. 

“Don’t know why,” Mahomes said. “I just kind of understand when he’s going to do some stuff that he’s not really supposed to do.”

Mahomes recalled Kelce’s touchdown in Week 3 against the Bears, where the tight end broke his route for the score. 

“In practice, where we were thinking about making a call for that, when we get that look for him to (change his route),” Mahomes said. “I remember I was telling the coaches, ‘I mean, I don’t know why we need a call; he’s going to do it anyways.’ So of course he does it and it’s a touchdown.”

Raiders

Despite his frustrations, Raiders WR Davante Adams wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t applauding former GM Dave Ziegler and HC Josh McDaniels losing their jobs.

“At this point, don’t get it confused, it’s not a celebration that we have a new coach and changes were made,” Adams said, via PFT. “Obviously, I think it was time one way or the other, it was time for some sort of change. Just to bring a little juice in and revitalize the team a little bit.”

Adams went on to say he appreciated Ziegler and McDaniels for the opportunity to bring him to Las Vegas.

“I really appreciate Josh and Dave for bringing me here and going through what they went through in order to make this happen for me,” Adams said. “I’m really appreciative of them because if they didn’t fight as hard as they did to make this happen then who knows how it would have panned out. It didn’t end up being the storybook finish that we all hoped that it would be, but at the end of the day, you can’t live your life saying how ‘what if I wouldn’t get here? what if they’d never taken the job or make decisions? I just want to put it out that I appreciate them for this opportunity to get here.”