On Friday night, the Kansas City Chiefs will finish their preseason schedule with a matchup against the Chicago Bears on GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. When head coach Andy Reid spoke to reporters on Monday, he explained that going into this game, the team would simulate its normal routine during the regular season, in which Wednesday, Thursday and Friday practices lead into a Sunday matchup.
That’s fine by offensive coordinator Matt Nagy.
“I think what’s great about this is it really allows us,
as coaches and players, to really focus and prepare,” he said on Tuesday, “[to] get back to the building [and] get into a mindset of what we do during the season.”
With training camp now behind them, the coaches and players are now stepping into the hyperbaric chamber that is an NFL facility from early September into January — and hopefully, February.
“I don’t know what day it is in the real world, but for us it’s a Thursday,” added Nagy, smiling. “Today is a Thursday, so we’re doing a Thursday practice. For us as coaches, we have some new guys on staff — offense, defense [and] special teams — so it allows us to get through that. And then, for instance, the quarterbacks — the process they go through, it’s different (and easier) when you’re here than it is when you’re at camp. It’s a little bit different setting.”
Still, this won’t be exactly like a week of the regular season. The focus will be less on the upcoming opponent than it will be on determining the precise proportions of the 53-man roster the team must set by 3 p.m. (Arrowhead Time) on Tuesday. To a large extent, that is about Reid, his assistant head coach (and special teams coordinator) Dave Toub and general manager Brett Veach finding ideal roles for every player.
“[They] do a great job of trying to figure out, ‘OK, if this guy is on the roster, how can we maximize what he does best?’” observed Nagy, who was right in the middle of that process during his four years as head coach of the Bears. “And then vice versa: if there’s a guy that’s a special teams guy — and we need him in a certain role — how do we get him in the offense and use him? Because you want to maximize those guys that are up for game day. You want to try to stay away from having a guy that’s playing [only] four, five or six plays a game. You’d like to use those guys as much as possible.”
As for the most scrutinized positions in his own unit, Nagy is at peace with the job offensive line coach Andy Heck (and his assistant Corey Matthaei) have done in getting rookie tackle Josh Simmons and second-year guard Kingsley Suamataia ready for Week 1.
“I feel really good right now where it’s at,” he said of the left side of his offensive line. “I think that’s a credit to Coach Heck and Coach Matthaei — and then, obviously, the players there on that left side. They’ve done a great job. Josh has done great. I think really, every day, he gets a little bit better [and] he feels more confident, which is natural. So we want to keep that going.”
But Nagy has realistic expectations about the young men who will protect quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ blind side.
“There are still going to be times where some things happen,” he predicted, “and that’s OK. Let’s just learn from it and then just try to eliminate those as much as we can.”
As for Kansas City’s 2025 offense, we probably have a pretty good idea of what Reid and Nagy will do. After all, except for his years in Chicago, Nagy has been one of Reid’s assistants in every season since 2008. So the team’s ban on quarterback sneaks — which haven’t been run since Mahomes suffered a patellar tendon injury while running one in 2019 — is likely to continue.
“That’s a critical part of the game that you got to be great at,” acknowledged Nagy, “and we’re hard on ourselves when we don’t do well. We know that the quarterback sneak for a lot of teams is very, very important. They do it. They live by it. [And] you have the tush push that several teams do.
“Obviously, we don’t live in that world. But schematically, we feel like we have our own ways of kind of getting to that quarterback sneak — even if it’s not that play. But then there also is, maybe, the element of surprise when that does come. You never know, right? So I think that’s kind of an advantage to us. But it is, for us, to also know, ‘Hey, there are different ways to be successful, whether it’s running the football [or] throwing it.'”
Pressed for a specific answer on whether the team would consider running a sneak, Nagy doubled down.
“Well, I’m telling you that we’re not in the world,” he repeated.
Then he grinned.
“But maybe we are — and you don’t know it,” he added, getting a laugh from the reporters. “So I’m just not going to say it right now. That’d be pretty sweet if you know you don’t really know.
“So maybe we come out the first third-and-1 and do it. It’d be pretty cool.”
