On Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs fell to 0-2 after recording a 20-17 home loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. On Monday, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid had his weekly Zoom session with local reporters as his team began preparations for its Week 3 matchup against the New York Giants on “Sunday Night Football.”
Reid had no new information about injuries in his opening statement, explaining that the players were just then beginning to “trickle in” to the facility — although in response to a later question,
he said that when rookie left tackle Josh Simmons temporarily left Sunday’s game, it was simply because he was dehydrated.
The team’s trainers were apparently able to get him the liquids he needed, because in the fourth quarter, he saved a Philadelphia touchdown by tackling safety Andrew Mukuba as he was returning an interception.
“I’d say that was pretty impressive,” the head coach said of Simmons’ heads-up play. “I mean, for a big guy to be able to run like that, first of all, it’s something [where] you got a chance to see his athletic ability, body control and all that. You hate to have it [be in] that situation for it [to] show up, but that part was impressive. Just his ‘want to’ to get there, I thought, was impressive.”
Then Reid took a little jab at some unnamed players.
“A lot of guys in this league would stand around and watch,” added Reid, “as opposed to chasing. [But] he chased along with the other guys. They just weren’t quite fast enough to get there.”
According to NextGenStats, Simmons did run very fast — but also had a better angle to catch up. But any way you slice it, it was a great play by the rookie.
Unfortunately, it was one of only a few Kansas City highlights in Sunday’s game.
“As far as the game goes, [we’re] obviously disappointed that we didn’t come out on the right end of it,” said Reid. “I thought the guys battled hard and aggressively — and that [Eagles] defense played very well.
“Offensively, we’ve got to clean up some things there, in the pass and the run game. We’ll work on that.
“Then [on] special teams, I thought for the most part did a good job. [Harrison] Butker would like to have the one back, but he came right back and had a nice kick there.”
Just as he did on Sunday night, Reid made a point of taking responsibility for the team’s aggressive approach to the matchup with Philadelphia. In one instance, that led to a failed fourth-and-1 attempt in Chiefs’ territory — which almost immediately led to an Eagles’ field goal.
“We obviously have to improve — and that’s our focus,” noted the coach. “We’ve got to detail our work. I take responsibility for that — and for this game, with the aggressiveness as far as the fourth downs go. I felt, going into this game, because [the Eagles] stay aggressive on fourth down, you’ve got to match that to some extent — within reason — and a couple of those didn’t work out. I’ve got full confidence we’ll get that cleaned up, too.”
Reid also believes his players will do what’s necessary to get out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves — and support each other along the way.
“I trust this group,” said Reid. “I mean, this group’s a good group. [It’s] got good leadership and they’ll stay together. They’ll work hard on cleaning things up; there’s nobody more aware of [the problems] than the guys. We’ll make sure we get back to the drawing board.”
