As they lose grip in the race for the AFC’s top seed, Sunday’s lateral/offsides controversy had to hit the Kansas City Chiefs really hard. It certainly seemed to affect Mahomes, who had an overdramatic and extremely emotional reaction to the sequence that led to the Chiefs’ fifth loss of the year.
Funnily enough, none of this potentially would have ever happened if Travis Kelce had simply listened to Andy Reid. Let me explain.
In an old episode of the New Heights podcast from this October, Kelce said that he’s been trying to build lateral plays into the Chiefs’ playbook. In every instance, Reid has rebuffed him. So when Kelce launched that key lateral to Toney, he was effectively ignoring Reid’s general wishes. And offsides over a pass to get into field goal range, compared to a touchdown, rings very differently.
Chiefs TE Travis Kelce said that he tries to get HC Andy Reid to put hook-and-lateral plays in their gameplan, but that Reid says no.
So, Kelce took it upon himself to make it work on Sunday with his lateral to Noah Gray🤣
(@NewHeightsShow/YT) pic.twitter.com/ZcqfHqkNEm
— Arye Pulli (@AryePulli) October 18, 2023
Don’t you just love little moments like this from pro football?
Kelce is indeed a Hall of Fame tight end — you don’t have to worry, Mahomes — so he can get away with improvisation like this. It’s just ironic that it led to one of the bigger Chiefs’ meltdowns of the Mahomes, Kelce, and Reid era.