Tag: Andy Reid

Chiefs return to practice, begin playoff preparation today

The Kansas City Chiefs are back in the building beginning their divisional playoff preparation.

The Kansas City Chiefs didn’t intend to spend too much time away from football on their bye week. They had virtual team meetings on Monday and Tuesday, but today they return to practice for the first time ahead of the divisional round of the playoffs.

Members of the coaching staff like Joe Bleymaier, Alex Whittingham and Terry Bradden have been working on the advance scouting, checking out the four possible opponents that the Chiefs could possibly face in the divisional round. Kansas City already faced the Baltimore Ravens earlier this year, so they’ll turn their attention to the three other possible opponents.

“It’s a strong field out there in the AFC, and so we look forward to that challenge,” Chiefs HC Andy Reid said on Monday. “Whatever one of the four teams that it’s kind of narrowed down to—we play the last seed that is seeded in the AFC, so there are about four teams there that we would need to be ready for. We’ve already kind of started that process. We had an idea of that going into this week so we had a little bit of a jump start on it, but we’ll go ahead and prepare ourselves. I mean, you look at the seventh seed in Indianapolis and that’s a good football team, so then you go right down the list and they’re all very productive and very strong.”

The Chiefs won’t know who they’ll face until the conclusion of the games on Saturday and possibly Sunday. They’ll play the lowest remaining seed in the playoffs. That means a lot of the game planning work won’t be in full effect until after this week of practice.

So what will the team get to work on this week if they can’t begin to prepare for a specific opponent? Getting better by any means necessary.

“For us, we have to get better,” Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes said following Week 16 against the Falcons. “Offensively I have to get better to put us in the right position so that we can go out there and execute at a higher level when we get to playoffs when we need to go out there and score.”

The Week 16 game against the Atlanta Falcons left a sour taste in Mahomes’ mouth. He believed that he could have played much better during that game, which is why he went to work right away when he was informed that he wouldn’t be the starter during Week 17.

Mahomes spent a lot of time at the practice facility, watching game film, drawing up plays and doing anything he could to improve. He still went through the week of practice leading up to the Falcons game as if he’d be the starter, despite working on the scout team. He went through his normal pregame routine, even though he didn’t dress for the game. It’s all for the sake of staying focused and making sure that you keep improving with the most important games of the season coming up.

“If you watched us throughout the season, it feels like we always raised up and played better in the big games,” Mahomes said. “I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. Knowing that the next three are going to be big games, I know that I’m going to get the best effort out of every single guy on this team and we’re going to raise our game to be even better. I’m excited for it because I know what this team can do. It can be a special run.”

The foundation has been laid with the Super Bowl victory last year. All of the Chiefs’ goals from this season still lay in front of them and the real “Run It Back” tour begins today.

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Who would you pick to lead your team to the Super Bowl? We ranked every coach in the playoffs.

Who would you want to guide your team over the next few weeks? We ranked them by how prepared they are to win this Super Bowl.

I think we can all agree that coaching matters just a little bit more in the NFL playoffs when games are more competitive, making the margins much smaller. A team might be able to overcome a coaching mistake (or two) against a team that will be drafting in the top-five a few months later, but not against the better teams in the league.

Because of that, ranking the coaches in the playoffs seems like a fruitful thing to do. Here’s the thing: It’s really freaking hard. Why? For one, Who would you want to coach your team for the next decade? is an entirely different question than Who would you want to coach your team for the next four games?

While locker room management and player development probably trump X’s and O’s and in-game decision making over the long haul, the more tactical aspects of the job take precedence for one postseason run. And that’s what these rankings are based on: Which coach would I want over the next five weeks? So just because I have one coach ahead of another here doesn’t mean I think they’re a better coach overall.

With that out of the way, let’s rank some coaches…

5 Chiefs assistants who could be promoted to offensive coordinator if Eric Bieniemy leaves

If Eric Bieniemy leaves to become a head coach, who will Andy Reid promote to replace him?

During each of the past two occasions that the Kansas City Chiefs had a vacancy at the offensive coordinator position, they’ve promoted internally.

When Doug Pederson left to become the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles following the 2015 season, the Chiefs promoted then-QB coach Matt Nagy and then-spread game analyst Brad Childress to cooperatively fill the role in 2016. Matt Nagy was promoted to a full-time offensive coordinator role in 2017. When Nagy left to become the Chicago Bears head coach following the 2017 season, then-RB coach Eric Bieniemy was promoted to offensive coordinator.

Now with Bieniemy taking a number of interviews for head-coaching vacancies, it’d only make sense that Andy Reid follows this same path and continues to promote from within his own coaching staff. So who could be the next assistant coach to rise through the ranks and become the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator? Here are the five most-likely internal candidates:

Prediction for matchup between Chargers, Chiefs in Week 17

Chargers Wire’s Gavino Borquez makes his prediction for the Week 17 matchup.

The Los Angeles Chargers are set to face off against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, Jan. 3 at 1:25 p.m. PT at Arrowhead Stadium.

The Chargers are looking to secure their fourth consecutive victory with the hopes of carrying momentum into next season. Meanwhile, the Chiefs are using this game for backups to prove themselves to the coaching staff since the majority of their starters will be out.

Quarterback Justin Herbert will look to get revenge after giving he could the first time out. Herbert has thrown for 4,034 yards with 28 touchdowns, setting an NFL rookie record for TD passes in a season. He’s also set a rookie record with seven 300-yard passing games, and he needs 340 yards passing to break Andrew Luck’s rookie record of 4,374 yards.

On the other side, QB Chad Henne will make his first start since Week 2 of the 2014 season when he was with the Jaguars. Henne will be without key skill players like Tyreek Hill and Sammy Watkins. However, he will likely benefit from coach Andy Reid calling the plays.

For Los Angeles, they want to snap a losing streak to Kansas City that’s currently at 10 games. Plus, some players and coaches, including Anthony Lynn, are looking to make a statement with their jobs on the line. For the Chiefs, they want to go 15-1 for the first time in franchise history.

Even though Kansas City will be resting their starters, it would be in typical L.A. fashion to lose this one due to poor game management, solidifying Lynn’s fate.

I expect Herbert to have a great game, not one where he surpasses Luck’s yardage record, but he will put up points. Kicker Harrison Butker hits the game-winning field goal to seal the deal.

I’ve got the Chiefs beating the Chargers by the score of 27-24.

Chiefs QB Chad Henne will try to recapture his youth in first start since 2014

Chiefs backup QB Chad Henne discussed his upcoming start against the Chargers on Wednesday.

The Kansas City Chiefs made it official on Wednesday, announcing that backup QB Chad Henne would be the starter against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 17.

While many suspected this was a strong possibility, it was officially announced at the start of the practice week. Henne first received word that he could get the start after the conclusion of the Week 16 game against the Atlanta Falcons. He has been preparing as such ever since.

“Well, kind of through the grapevine, kind of after the game,” Henne said of how he learned he would be starting. “Mike Kafka said, ‘Hey just be ready’ and then he gave me the phone call early yesterday and kind of just got the game plan going and so excited about the opportunity.”

This upcoming game will mark Henne’s first start since joining Kansas City back in 2018. It’ll actually be his first start since an abysmal 2014 campaign with the Jacksonville Jaguars. That year, the Jaguars had drafted Blake Bortles and Henne even admitted that he was on a “short leash” that season.

“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s been a while,” Henne said. “It’s crazy to think my last game was 2014. I mean I got all my games in when I was young and then I had like a five or six-year span where I didn’t get any playing time or just like some playing time just when we were up or down, but I’m really excited.”

The Chiefs, however, don’t want Henne to focus on his last start. Andy Reid wants the 35-year-old quarterback to go out there and recapture his youth on Sunday.

“Yeah, well listen, I think he’s excited,” Reid said. “I always tell him, ‘Act like you’re 20. Try to remember those days and feel it.’ So, he’s all in. He’s excited, so a great opportunity for him. I mean, these guys love to play the game. That’s the neat part about it. It’s not like guys are ducking out of playing, they all want to get in there and go, but that’s a decision that I had to make there. But Chad’s very excited.”

Henne isn’t taking this opportunity lightly, either. There are only 32 starting quarterbacks each week and he knows the type of responsibility that comes with it. He knows that he has a chance to help his team achieve a 15-1 record for the first time in franchise history.

“I mean, it’s cool,” Henne said. “Anytime you get an opportunity to go out there and be the starter in the NFL, you don’t take it for granted and play like you’re 20.”

Henne has made spot appearances twice for the Chiefs so far this season. He won’t be worried about rust, especially when he’s already scored a touchdown this year.

The coaching staff has shown confidence in not only Henne’s ability as a passer but also his athleticism at the ripe old age of 35. They called a zone-read play in the red zone against the Broncos in Week 7 and Henne scored on the play.

“I was like ‘Are they serious right now? We’re going to run some zone right here,'” Henne quipped. “But hey, whatever they call as a quarterback, you try to make the best of it and make it work.”

Don’t expect an unfamiliar looking offense from Henne and the Chiefs on Sunday. The team won’t do much differently with Henne involved. He might not air the ball out as much as Mahomes does and they might lean on the run game a bit more, but this will virtually be the same offense that Mahomes has run all season.

“Yeah, I mean, there are definitely some different nuances, but for the most part it’s just what we’ve been running all year,” Henne said. “So, I have to be prepared if Patrick were to go down in a game and be able to run the offense, Coach Reid is not going to change anything in-game, so we kind of kept very similar offense to what we’re going to prepare for, for the Chargers, and go out there and execute.”

Another thing that Henne is also looking forward to in his opportunity to start —  the role reversal with QB Patrick Mahomes.

“It’ll be great,” Henne said. “I mean, he’ll be in the game plan, he’ll study the film, he’ll give me some tips, but he’ll be in it, very involved and he’ll help me out just like Matt (Moore) and I helped him out.”

Alongside Henne, a number of young players in the Chiefs’ building will likely get the opportunity to start for the first time. That fact has the building buzzing with excitement and no one is more excited to help lead those players than Henne.

“I’m excited about the group that we’re going to have out there,” Henne said. “You know, should be fun on Sunday.”

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Chiefs QB Chad Henne to start vs. Chargers

The 35-year old will make his first start since 2014.

The Chiefs announced that quarterback Chad Henne will start in the season finale against the Chargers this Sunday.

The decision to bench Patrick Mahomes is because Kansas City solidified the No. 1 seed in the AFC with their victory over the Falcons last weekend, which means that the team does not have anything to play for.

Henne, who’s in his 11th season, will start his first game since the 2014 campaign when he played for the Jaguars. The 35-year old has gone 7-of-11 passing for 59 yards in six games since his last start.

Besides Mahomes, coach Andy Reid will probably rest a handful of other key players on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball.

Los Angeles is looking to end the regular season with their fourth-straight victory, so the probability of that happening with the majority of the Chiefs’ starters not playing is high.

Chiefs’ Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes shoulder blame for offensive miscues in Week 16

The head coach and quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs shared the blame for offensive struggles against the Atlanta Falcons.

The Kansas City Chiefs didn’t play a great game on the offensive side of the ball in Week 16 against the Atlanta Falcons.

It’s easy to overlook it when the end result is a win for Kansas City that locked up the No. 1 seed, but their performance certainly matters at this point of the season. In the locker room, the Chiefs’ players and coaches weren’t doing much celebrating. If you had listened to Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes without the context of what had just occurred, you might come out the other side assuming that they’d lost the game.

Mahomes, in particular, was very blunt about his execution in relation to the Chiefs’ offensive struggles.

“I mean, first of all, I’ve got to focus on fixing the things I made mistakes on during the game,” Mahomes told reporters after the game. “There was a lot of reads, a lot of protection calls, a lot of adjustments at the line of scrimmage that I made wrong or that I didn’t make the right way that put us in bad positions, and so I’ve got to focus on getting myself better to help out the team.”

Mahomes only completed 24-of-44 passes for 278 yards, two touchdowns and one interception on Sunday. He had a number of near-interceptions as well. It wasn’t his best performance, but Reid also shared in taking some of the blame. Atlanta’s defense got the best of his offense for the majority of the game.

“I take responsibility for that,” Reid said. “We’ve got to just kind of get ourselves back into a rhythm here. I think we just weren’t as sharp as we need to be, and I’ve got to go back and look at the plays, make sure we’re dialing up the right things and then executing them, or at least dialing them up in the right order and then go from there. Then, I’ve told you before, I’m going to look at what I did, what we set up for the players, and then we’ll look at what the players could do to get better.”

In Reid’s estimation, it’ll amount to some combination of better play-calling and better offensive execution on the part of the players. He’ll have to look at the tape more thoroughly to figure out what exactly went wrong. The offense will have a lot to work on over the next two weeks in order to come out firing better in the divisional round of the playoffs. There were some good things to take away from this game, however.

“One positive was they battled like crazy, and then here’s Pat (Patrick Mahomes) just ripping their heart out with that last throw to D-Rob (Demarcus Robinson),” Reid said. “I mean, he could’ve hung his head and he’s going, ‘Give me more. Like a good pitcher, I’m going to keep firing.’ So, he did that and he worked through everything that was going on before, any frustration or whatever was going on before, he worked through it, and here came out on the right end.”

When the playoffs arrive you have to find a way to win games, even when things aren’t necessarily going right for you. We saw that last season with all the adversity this team overcame in individual games, including Super Bowl LIV. We’re seeing that show late in the season with Kansas City, especially in the most recent non-conference games against the Saints and Falcons. Mahomes would have you believe they’re getting back that mentality that helped them win a Super Bowl title a season ago.

“At the end of the day, the defense played their tail off in that game and to give us a chance,” Mahomes said. “And the offense found a way to score a touchdown when we needed to, so that’s just that championship swagger as Tyrann (Mathieu) would say, of knowing how to win a game even when you’re not playing well.”

Even with the offensive miscues in Week 16, this doesn’t seem like such a bad spot to be in. They found a way to win as imperfect as it was, recapturing their championship swagger from a season ago. Now they’ll surely be focused on ways to improve with the playoffs around the corner.

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Chiefs HC Andy Reid provides injury updates following Week 16 vs. Falcons

Kansas City Chiefs HC Andy Reid gives updates on Sammy Watkins and Ben Niemann.

The Kansas City Chiefs suffered a pair of injuries during the Week 16 win over Atlanta Falcons.

Chiefs HC Andy Reid gave his usual injury update to kick off his postgame press conference. He only had two injuries to report and both were already previously announced by the team during the game.

“Really, the two injuries are Ben Niemann, who has a right hamstring strain, and Sammy Watkins has a calf strain,” Reid said.

Reid didn’t have much more to report on the severity of the injuries, simply that they both occurred. Niemann pulled up lame chasing down a play fairly early in the game and ruled questionable to return. The team eventually ruled him out of the game.

Considering how thin they were at the linebacker position, I’d expect this to be a more significant injury that could keep Niemann sidelined for a few weeks. A short-term injured reserve stay could even be an option for the third-year player.

As for Sammy Watkins, he left the game in the fourth quarter with a calf injury. If you’ll recall, Watkins missed several weeks earlier in the year with a hamstring injury suffered in Week 5 against the Las Vegas Raiders. He was tracking to return in Week 11 but suffered a calf injury during practice that kept him sidelined another week.

Reid didn’t give any indication whether this is or isn’t the same calf injury that hampered Watkins in Week 11. Thankfully, there is time to get him healthy and ready for the playoffs. Week 17 is now meaningless with Kansas City clinching the No. 1 seed and a first-round bye. That’ll give Watkins two weeks of rest before the playoffs.

Some more good news is hidden in the injuries that Reid didn’t report on after the game. For instance, Travis Kelce hobbled off the field in the fourth quarter but would return and finish out the game. He doesn’t appear to have suffered any significant injury, but I’d anticipate him showing up on the injury report next week in some capacity regardless. Remember, any player that receives treatment for something is required to be listed on the injury report.

As always, we’ll find out more on Monday and Wednesday about the Chiefs’ injuries. Keep in mind that Damien Wilson’s knee injury, which has kept him out for three weeks now, wasn’t something reported after the game. Things can pop up between now and the upcoming practice week.

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How do Chiefs plan to handle potential absence of LBs Anthony Hitchens, Damien Wilson?

Andy Reid spoke about the potential absences of the Chiefs’ top two linebackers on Wednesday.

When the Kansas City Chiefs kicked off practice on Wednesday, they were without both of their two top linebackers.

Damien Wilson has been dealing with a knee contusion for the past two weeks now and hasn’t yet returned to practice. He is at risk of missing his third consecutive game. On Tuesday, Chiefs’ MIKE linebacker Anthony Hitchens was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list as a high-risk close contact. He’ll likely be unable to practice this week because of that.

Hitchens has been referred to by Steve Spagnuolo as the “glue guy” on defense. That’s in part because he wears the “green dot.” He’s the one who gets the defensive plays from Spags and gets everyone lined up where they need to be. Thankfully, the Chiefs are prepared for Hitchens’ potential absence because of how they prepare during the practice week.

“We always put [the green dot] on a couple of different guys, so we keep it that way and then go from there,” Reid said. “I think we’ll be alright with that if he can’t go.”

In the past, when Hitchens suffered a hand injury against the Las Vegas Raiders, it was Ben Niemann who took over and got the plays from the sideline. That’d likely be the case again this week if Hitchens is unable to play.

As for Wilson, it seems that they’re being extra precautions with his injury. Reid says he could probably play on Sunday without practicing this week, but he doesn’t seem to anticipate the need to rush him back out there before he’s ready.

“Well, he probably could, but right now the other guys are practicing and getting ready,” Reid said of Wilson. “We’ll just see how he progresses through the week. He’s another day to day guy, so he’s running around pretty good, but we’ll just see how he does.”

If Hitchens is cleared to return for the reserve/COVID-19 list ahead of the game, you can expect him to play.

“Yeah, he could,” Reid said of Hitchens. “I’d tell you the same about Damien. Both of them are the same deal, they’re both real smart guys, if that were the case.”

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Chiefs TE Travis Kelce’s touchdown from Week 15 carries a familiar play name

Andy Reid strikes again with a unique play call and a unique play name to go with it.

Kansas City Chiefs HC Andy Reid isn’t letting TE Travis Kelce live down a piece of his past that he’d rather forget.

Joining former NFL defensive end Chris Long on his podcast, Kelce spoke about his unique touchdown catch in Week 15 against the New Orleans Saints. Long was fascinated by the ways the Chiefs have been able to scheme up unique plays to Kelce in the red zone. Sunday’s touchdown was one of the more interesting plays the team has used.

“You’re asking all the right questions and, man, this is probably the most embarrassing play,” Kelce told Long. “Because we’ve literally put a lineman in that situation and he scored. It’s like, ‘Hey, let’s give a guy a touchdown.’ Nobody is expecting that play to happen where you’ve got three wide receivers or tight ends in front of you and it’s like a wall.”

Of course, the play also carried a unique name — one that was a call back to Kelce’s reality dating show on E! Entertainment back in 2016.

“It’s called ‘Catching Kelce’ and I hate the name,” Kelce said. “Andy (Reid) knows, he just digs it in my side. If you don’t know I had a show — don’t watch it — it was called ‘Catching Kelce’ and he knew what he was doing when he called it that. At the same time, every time I score on it, he comes over to me and says, ‘they can’t catch ya.'”

Not only was the play design itself embarrassingly easy for Kelce to execute, but the play call itself was equally embarrassing. It’s great that Reid has the type of relationship with his players that he can give them a hard time and there are no hard feelings. It again speaks to the incredible chemistry between the players and coaching staff on this football team, which seems to translate to success on the football field.

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