Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports
1.) Andy Reid’s mea culpa
This is the main thing that is keeping my spirits up about the 2014 season, honestly. Reid called a putrid game last Sunday and he knows it. We can’t get back the loss, but at least we can learn from it. Reid said giving the ball to RB Jamaal Charles just 11 times was an act of “negligence” on his part, as was call to take a shot downfield just before half when the team was backed up against its own end zone. In the press conference after the game he in great detail and candor went through the various errors he made that contributed to the loss and I agreed with every one.
Some of the things that turned against the Chiefs in the second half, including the fake punt, I don’t have too much of a problem with. The team turned to some high-risk plays to get things moving and had they worked we’d be calling them great calls. But, they failed so that makes them errors. I don’t agree with that. Sometimes you have to take some risks to win the game and accept the consequences of those risks not panning out.
One way or the other, I much prefer to hear Reid acknowledge his failings than to hear Romeo Crennel saying “I don’t know” why Charles didn’t get the ball more often when he had his own psychotic break and thought it would be a good idea to call 34 passes and only 5 handoffs to Charles against the Raiders in 2012.