The Kansas City Chiefs are 4-2 on the season after a Week 6 loss to the Buffalo Bills. Before the team shifts its focus to the San Francisco 49ers, Andy Reid addressed media members on Monday. He spoke on what went wrong in the loss and what the team needs to improve upon moving forward.
Here are some quick takeaways from what Reid had to say:
Mistakes cost the Chiefs a win in Week 6
Starting off his presser with an opening statement, Reid reiterated some of what he said the night before. When you make mistakes against a good football team, you’re going to come out on the losing end.
“I kind of still see it the way I saw it last night,” Reid said. “Two good teams playing against each other. The team that made the least mistakes ended up winning the game. Turnovers. We talked about this during the week — when (the Bills) win the turnover battle, they’re undefeated over the last few years.”
While the focus moving forward will be on fixing those mistakes, Reid feels the team earned valuable experience against a tough opponent. He expects that they’ll be able to build on the good things and improve on the bad.
“A lot of good things took place, but then there’s some things that we’ve got to clean up,” Reid said. “We’ll do that. Again, my responsibility to make sure that we get that done. I appreciated the effort that the guys put in. I appreciated the young guys and the way that they competed. Everything wasn’t perfect but they competed – and did it for four quarters and we came up a bit short so we’ve got to take care of business there and get better – which I know our guys will do and continue to work hard.”
Offensive line working toward finding their identity
The offensive line was challenged by the Bills’ defensive front in Week 7. A lot of people see that as a big problem and are calling for the team to make some changes. Reid sees this as valuable competition and experience as the team continues to progress through the season.
“Yeah, so we’ve been fortunate to play some good defensive lines and that helps you get better,” Reid said. “So, the guys are competing. You’re going to lose every once and a while. That happens all throughout the league. You’re striving to win every battle. At the same time, we’re playing a talented defensive line. I mean, that’s the bottom line and we have another (talented defensive line) coming up this week. We look forward to those challenges, it helps you down the road to become better. Andy (Heck) is always looking for things to do upfront to work the protections and that. That’s not going to change.”
Asked about the identity of the offensive line, Reid emphasized their toughness. At the same time, he recognized that there are some things in the run game that need work.
“Well, listen, they’re a tough group,” Reid said. “They did a decent job with the pass protection yesterday against a good defensive front. Run game, we’ve got to clean a couple of things up there. There were some good things and there were some things we’ve got to take care of. What their identity is — I think it’s probably too early in the season. . . but I know they’re a tough group — a feisty group. You can take that for right now and then we’ll see how we grow.”
A lot goes into getting into field goal range in 12 seconds
We heard a lot about the 13-second drive in the divisional playoff win over the Bills. Now, we’re hearing some about the team’s ability to get in field goal range in just 12 seconds ahead of halftime on Sunday afternoon.
Speaking on how they were able to accomplish it again, Reid feels they might be tempting fate a bit.
“I don’t know, we’re kind of testing the clock here now,” Reid said. “I mean, that’s a pretty low number, 12. It’s tough to get that much yardage that fast, but I’m proud of the way the guys handled it. I think we were on top of it, whether it was the execution of the plays or whether it was making sure the officials called the timeout. Everybody kind of has their piece of the pie in getting it done as fast as possible. I thought it was all well done and then the kick, obviously, was tremendous.”
Harrison Butker did say after the game that the kick unit was ready to come out and kick from over 70 yards to attempt an NFL record. The offense made it so that he didn’t have that chance, but they did give him the opportunity to reclaim the franchise field goal record.
Andy Reid doesn't seem bothered by the defensive line's performance
The defensive line took a lot of criticism following the game given their struggles to get after Josh Allen and help out a youthful secondary. Chiefs HC Andy Reid didn’t seem to see it that way, though. He feels there is room for improvement, but he was impressed with one facet of what they were able to do.
“Yeah, I thought we did a good job,” Reid said. “When we didn’t get there, we at least blocked a few throws. I mean, you’re not talking about a shorter quarterback. (Josh Allen) is a big kid. We were able to block a couple of them there. We’re always growing there with it, but we seem to get decent pressure at times on them. That’s an important thing that we keep getting better at down the road.”
Darius Harris, Carlos Dunlap and Chris Jones each notched a pass batted against Josh Allen. They did a good job getting their hands up when they were unable to get to Allen, which proved to be important on a few drives. Now, they just have to work on converting some of the 23 pressures they notched on Sunday into sacks.
