Chiefs special teams film review, Week 3: What the heck happened?

Special teams was an abject disaster for the #Chiefs on Sunday. Our @WesleyRoesch takes a closer look at what went wrong:

If you need an example of why special teams matters, look no further than the Kansas City Chiefs’ embarrassing Week 3 loss to the Indianapolis Colts.

The Chiefs’ special teams unit had about as bad of a day as one could have. A missed field goal, a missed extra point, a muffed punt, a nonsensical fake FG that failed miserably, and a kick returner who simply fell over mid-return all played a part in the story that was the 20-17 loss to a much inferior opponent on paper.

By default, much of the blame goes directly toward special teams coordinator Dave Toub. We’ll talk more about him later, but Chiefs fans must remember that Toub remains one of the best special teams coordinators in the league. Every coach has bad weeks. Chiefs coach Andy Reid will be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame one day and even he has bad games (Week 3 among them). Toub is dealing with a young, inexperienced crew, so he should be judged less on one bad game and more on whether he can set up his players for success moving forward.

This week we’ll highlight the punt and kick return subunits, and go over some quick notes on other subunits as well. My snap counts and grades for individual players are available via Google Sheets, though charting for Week 3 won’t be available until later this week.*

*Sorry! I’m running a little behind this week. Expect snaps and grades to be late after Week 4 as well given the late game coming up Sunday night.