KC Chiefs make Shaq Barrett look silly for pre-game comments

Tampa Bay Buccaneers pass rusher Shaq Barrett ended up looking rather silly for his pre-game comments about dominating the Chiefs on Sunday Night Football.

Look, no one can fault Shaq Barrett for feeling confident. He had every reason to think he and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were going to enjoy hosting the Kansas City Chiefs given the recent track record. It’s just that he should have kept those feelings to himself.

Barrett spoke to reporters earlier this week as part of the typical pre-game media process for some players leading up to games, and Week 4 was a big game for both the Chiefs and Buccaneers. Given the star power involved and the primetime placement on the NFL schedule, everyone knew this was going to be a highly-publicized game with a significant viewing audience wanting to watch Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes at work.

For Barrett’s part, he was looking forward to “dominating” again, in the same way that the Bucs steamrolled the Chiefs in Super Bowl LV. In that game, the Chiefs gave up three official sacks on the stat sheet but the truth is that Mahomes was running for his life on almost every play. After a season in which the offensive line had been decimated by injuries, the Chiefs’ patchwork efforts just couldn’t make it work for yet another week in a long and grueling season.

Coming into Week 4, Barrett decided to give the Chiefs some bulletin board material with the following quote:

In case you need a transcription of what Barrett said: “We have a lot of favorable matchups. I think we have an opportunity to really dominate the game. I think we have an opportunity to really impose our will as pass rushers, edge rushers, this game. We could really have a coming out party. I know we had six sacks the other game but we could really have a coming-out party as edge and as a position group for this game.”

As it turns out, the Bucs did sack Mahomes just as much as they did in the Super Bowl two season ago—Carl Nassib, Mike Edwards, and Anthony Nelson each had one sack—and six QB hits is nothing to sneer at. However, what those numbers won’t tell you is that the Chiefs were in full control of this game for all four quarters—it was never not a tw-possession game for the Bucs after the first couple of drives.

While Barrett has put up tremendous numbers in the past, it’s not as if he came out looking significantly motivated to back up his words. Barrett finished with four total tackles and nothing more, while the Chiefs imposed their will on offense to the tune of 189 rushing yards and 41 total points.

Barrett is a good player who undoubtedly has meaningful memories of a dominant game over the Chiefs on the biggest stage. No one can take that away from him. But what should be taken away is the microphone because the Chiefs made him look very foolish for taking K.C. so lightly in the first place.