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Andy Reid began his Wednesday press conference giving his usual spiel.
“We look forward to the challenge of playing the Jets,” Reid said. “They’re a good football team, well-coached.”
Those aren’t exactly the comments you’d expect to hear in reference to a New York Jets team that hasn’t won a game this season, but that’s part of what makes Reid such a successful NFL coach. He doesn’t pay attention to the fact that the Chiefs are 20-point favorites over the Jets. He doesn’t care about season records. He cares about putting together a gameplan and executing it each week, no matter who lines up opposite his football team.
“This league is all about parity,” Reid said. “That’s what the league strives for. It’s never as good as you think and it’s never as bad as you think. Whether it’s driven by the gambling or the media or whatever it’s driven by that presents those numbers — I don’t pay attention to them first — I go off of what I see on tape. Every week, somebody gets picked off that was one of these ‘favorites’ or whatever. So you go back and you focus on your agenda. You study the opponent, you respect the opponent and then you get yourself right and make yourself get better every week. If you lose focus on that, then you have a problem in this league. These are good football players and good coaches — the best in the world, right? You don’t lose focus on that.”
Reid’s philosophy has trickled down throughout the locker room, namely to his quarterback Patrick Mahomes. After the Week 7 game against the Broncos, Mahomes was caught giving a fiery postgame speech in the locker room.
“Make sure you come in prepared this next week,” Mahomes shouted. “I don’t give a f*** who we’re playing. We go out there and dominate.”
During Wednesday’s media availability, Mahomes echoed his head coach when it comes to preparing for a winless Jets team.
“I think people understand that in this league, you can’t overlook anybody,” Mahomes said. “If you watch the tape and don’t look at the record, you’d understand that this is a good football team. It’s a team where a lot of guys are making a lot of plays and they have a lot of guys that have made plays in other spots on other teams. So you understand that it’s going to be a great challenge for us and we have to go out there and play our best football if we want to win. That’s not an overstatement, that’s just true and how this league works.”
New York might be using the point spread and media commentary as bulletin board material this week, but now they’ve heard it loud and clear from the people in charge in Kansas City. The Chiefs won’t be underestimating or overlooking the Jets in Week 8.
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