Judging by the Chiefs roster and Andy Reid’s comments after the game, it’s clear the head coach is only thinking about the postseason.
The head-scratching started early on Sunday night for the Kansas City Chiefs.
If you watched Sunday Night Football as a Chiefs fan, the entire night was like ordering repeated cocktails of excitement and exasperation. Unfortunately, the elements of such a drink weren’t even crafted in equal measure; instead, it was one part of the former to two or (what felt like a hundred) parts of the latter.
While Seattle deserves plenty of credit for pulling off a 38-31 win over the Chiefs—the biggest deficit for K.C. all season—including a nicely called game by Pete Carroll and some serious heroics from Russell Wilson and Doug Baldwin (who might be the most underrated wide receiver in the NFL), the Chiefs were intent on making things harder than they should be.
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There are no good answers—at least not from someone like myself—for the disastrous playcalling down the stretch. The same can be said for the clock management concerns. Certainly, only the players can speak to/account for the tackling issues that continue to raise their head. But maybe it’s possible to shed some light on why some of us were questioning things once the line-ups were announced.
If you’ll remember, the curveball came when the defensive line-ups were announced. For the first time all year, starting safety Ron Parker wasn’t just out of the line-up but he was rendered inactive. After talking positively about his potential to play despite recent surgery, Kendall Fuller was also placed on the inactive list. Instead of assuming greater responsibility, veteran Orlando Scandrick was cast aside for a new secondary.
Suddenly the Chiefs were giving the first meaningful reps of the season to sixth-round rookie cornerback Tremon Smith. Coming into the game, Smith had played only 16 total snaps on defense thus far, and not a single one of them—not a single defensive snap—had been assigned in the last five games. Smith was not a rookie who had slowly been earning more playing time. He was a settled young special teams player/returner who was suddenly thrust into the spotlight on primetime.
It turns out that Tremon Smith was the second biggest surprise of the night in the Chiefs’ secondary. Charvarius Ward, an undrafted rookie free agent acquired from the Dallas Cowboys just before the regular season began, would be starting on the outside. Before the game, Ward had a total of 11 defensive snaps of experience in the Chiefs secondary, all but one from Week 7.
Both Ward and Smith had not played a single down on defense since Week 9, but on Sunday night, Ward trailed Doug Baldwin in primetime for 79 snaps. Smith followed up with 55 more snaps. That’s 134 snaps spent experimenting in the secondary, and it’s that word—experimentation—that explains what head coach Andy Reid was thinking.
Following the game, Reid not only took ownership of the changes but explained that these shifts had been in motion all week in remarks to reporters.
"There were some good things. There were some things we could learn from. I played some young guys tonight, that I could help us, add some learning experiences that they battled through. There were some good things in the mix of it. We have to learn from that and get better. Those are young guys that are in those positions doing that and there’s somet things they can take out of this to mke them better down the road they were in position they just have to make the lay. that’s the bottom line."
Ward also said after the game that he knew he’d make his debut as a starter all week long. Together with Reid’s comments, it makes it clear that the Chiefs weren’t in the same mode assumed by everyone else.
Coming into the game, the presumed focus was a win in Week 16 for the sake of securing a first-round bye and home-field advantage. From Reid’s perspective, it was one last chance to experiment before the postseason.
A road game in Seattle, with a home crowd comparable to Arrowhead, is the Chiefs last chance to prepare themselves for a playoff atmosphere. The secondary has been a source of frustration all season long, so Reid rolled the dice on the two young developmental players they’ve been coaching up all offseason. Given one more slot to test their mettle before it really counts, Reid opted for 134 plays of training in the hopes of unearthing some potential options when it counts the most.
If Reid was solely focused on winning Week 16 and nothing more–if there’s no primary focus on the development of the playoff roster—then you’d likely see Kendall Fuller playing with an injury and Orlando Scandrick manning his typical post. You’ll likely see those very guys back in the line-up in Week 17 when Andy Reid knows he absolutely needs that win.
For this week, however, Reid was clearly looking to the future while hoping to maintain success in the present. Like it or not at least it provides some perspective on some of Sunday night’s changes.