Arrowhead Pride
Welcome back to the Arrowhead Pride Mailbag! Each week, watch for your opportunity to submit your Kansas City Chiefs questions in The Feed, which is found on AP’s home page.
Now 0-2 for the first time in the Patrick Mahomes era, let’s see what is on readers’ minds.
Has Reid reached a limit to what he knows what to do on play calling, or has the game evolved past his coaching ability?
Why do people so easily lose faith in the team after a close regular season loss against a good team, without our best weapons?
We’re going to look at both extremes of the panic spectrum.
On one side, there’s the hot take that the game has evolved beyond Andy Reid’s coaching ability. That doesn’t hold up. The Chiefs are just a season removed from going 15-2 and making a Super Bowl appearance. This year, they’ve opened against two playoff teams from last season and still had chances in the fourth quarter of both games to tie or take the lead.
On the other side, blindly assuming everything will be fine is also a hot take. These first two games don’t resemble the standard Kansas City has set over the last seven seasons, when the worst-case outcome was losing the AFC Championship in overtime. Even with improvement, this season may not last as long as past ones. Many of the issues we’re seeing now were present last year, even in several uncomfortable wins.
I won’t entertain the “Andy is washed” narrative, but I do wonder: after coaching nearly a full calendar year with at least one starting wide receiver unavailable every week, has Reid maxed out what he can do with the current offensive status quo? I don’t think he’s going anywhere, nor should he. But it’s fair to say the Chiefs have missed the natural rotation of coaching staff turnover. Deep playoff runs have pushed them beyond the hiring cycle, leaving assistants without chances to explore other opportunities—and leaving the team without new voices cycling in.
The absence of Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy is glaring, but there have been plenty of times this offense has looked like it was more than one — or even two — players away. A lot of the hope for this season rests on Worthy and Rice creating better separation upon their return than their backups have managed, which would help open up the offense.
Obviously, a convincing win on Sunday against the Giants would quiet some anxious fans. But if the Chiefs drop a third straight to open the season, it will start to feel like this year is getting really late, really early.
Harrison *Butker has missed kicks in both games this season. His cap hit is $5.2 million, increasing to $7.3 million. At what point is the juice no longer worth the squeeze if the threat of a long-range,...
