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Kansas City Chiefs rookie DB Zayne Anderson has been the subject of much outside scrutiny over the past few weeks.
Anderson was signed to the Chiefs’ 53-man roster from the practice squad ahead of the Week 15 matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers. It wasn’t his first action of the season, as he was a COVID-19 replacement for Tyrann Mathieu in Week 1. Anderson made a special team’s tackle against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 16, but in the weeks following, he made crucial and costly errors.
The first, an illegal block on an 86-yard kick returned for a touchdown by Byron Pringle. The penalty cost the Chiefs a chance at six points in a game they lost to the Cincinnati Bengals. Dave Toub shrugged off that penalty as something that could have gone either way.
“We talked about this,” Toub said. “The thing about Zayne (Anderson) is he is playing as hard as he can possibly play. He’s got to play a little smarter in some spots obviously, but I still love the guy. The holding call that happened two weeks ago, could’ve happened to anybody on the field. That could’ve been called, it could’ve not have been called.”
Unfortunately, the miscues for Anderson continued and bled into the Week 18 game against the Denver Broncos. After forcing a quick three-and-out, Anderson went for the blocked punt, but he ended up with a running-into-the-kicker penalty instead. That penalty allowed the Broncos to march down the field and score their first points of the game.
“Running into the kicker, he was two inches away from being the hero of the game,” Toub explained. “That’s the way I look at it. He comes clean, he does everything right, he probably just false stepped a little bit, didn’t get there early enough, but he was two inches away from blocking that punt, scooping and scoring and now it’s 14-0 with a blocked punt and they have no life at all. Now it didn’t happen that way. We rough them and that gives them a little bit of life. There’s a fine line. You want to stay aggressive as a special teams coach and as a team, you want to try and make a play, but also you got to realize when you get there early enough to be able to just take it off the foot and then when you get there late enough, and you have to pull off. There’s a fine line there, but I don’t want to slow him down by any means by turning him into a passive guy because he’s worried about making a mistake. I want him to stay aggressive and I want him to get the block next time. No false step, get there early enough, get the block so we can get a scoop and score and help our football team.”
Anderson is on the wrong side of Toub’s fine line right now, but Toub’s coaching point with Anderson is for him to not worry about the mistake and execute better the next time around.
“My teaching point is simple,” Toub explained. “Don’t let one bad play mess up the next play. You got to forget it. I mean one bad play happens, you got to come in the next play and execute the next play at 100 percent and be where you’re supposed to be, be on the field, do your job. Those are the things that we try to coach. Mistakes are going to happen especially with a young kid like that. But we still love him. We still love the kid, he’s a good player, he’s going to help us down in the road in the future and he’s going to help us in the playoffs. We’re not down on Zayne by any means.”
What Toub’s seen from Anderson in the meeting rooms and in practice encourages him that he has what it takes to play in this league and do so at a high level.
“We see him in practice every day,” Toub said. “We see his speed. I mean we saw it on the field. He’s made plays for us while he’s been in there. Good plays, running down kick returners from behind, his speed, his size, he’s got a great combination of those two things and he’s got the right temperament. He is not afraid. We just got to get it under control a little bit more, just be a little bit smarter in some spots, but he’s going to be a good football player for us.”
As for the one player who could push Anderson off the 53-man roster and back to the practice squad, it doesn’t appear he’s ready to return. Chris Lammons was designated to return from injured reserve, but his activation to the 53-man roster might not happen until the divisional round, should the Chiefs advance.
“Lammons is a really good player for us,” Toub said. “He’s a four-phase starter, he’s obviously our starting gunner, him and (Marcus) Kemp. I know he’s still working to get back. We’re not sure if he’s going to get back this week or not, but he’s working hard at it and he’s a guy we’re missing right now. But we have other guys that are going to step up and a lot of guys not only on our team, but on our practice squad that we can elevate going forward during the playoffs, so we feel pretty good about that.”
For now, the Chiefs will ride with Anderson into the playoffs, for better or for worse. With mistakes increasingly magnified in postseason play, for both Toub and Anderson’s sake, let’s hope the penalties are a thing of the past.
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