Arrowhead Pride
Kansas City’s special teams coach is expecting a tough matchup against Denver this Sunday.
During Monday night’s 30-24 overtime win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Kansas City Chiefs tried “kicking to” the Buccaneers with the second-half kickoff — that is, having placekicker Harrison Butker deliberately drop the ball in the landing zone to force a return.
“The kick was perfect,” special teams coordinator Dave Toub told reporters on Thursday. “It was inside the 5-yard line. Butker can kick a touchback at will — so when he does put it in there, it’s on purpose. He put it inside the five directionally. We just didn’t make the play.”
That’s an understatement. Tampa Bay returner Bucky Irving returned the kick 46 yards to midfield — and on such a short field, the Buccaneers needed only six plays to take a 14-10 lead.
“We had missed tackles,” said Toub of the play. “We got held a little bit — but you can’t complain about that; it happens every kickoff. We thought we could maybe get him inside of [the] 25 — we wouldn’t have tried it if we didn’t think we could do it — [but he] got out on us. We have to be better.”
Toub said that on average, the league’s new kickoff rules provide no obvious advantage in forcing a return.
“The average [drive] starts right around the 29 or 30. So there’s no benefit either way; you’ve got to pick your spots.”
By this, Toub was saying that a team should only drop a kickoff in the landing zone if it believes it has found a weakness that can be exploited — like a coverage tendency or a returner who cannot field a ball cleanly.
“Obviously, we didn’t pick a good spot last week,” admitted Toub, “but you’ve got to pick your spots to kick it to them; I still think that’s holding true right now. It hasn’t really changed midway through the season; we see what we’re getting now. I mean, I don’t think there are going to be any surprises from this point on.”
That’s not to say the Chiefs won’t have surprises of their own. It’s still possible that safety Justin Reid could do some kickoffs.
“He practices every week — and he’s like, ‘This is the week.’ He wants to do it badly. So we’ll pick a spot. And when he does it, we’re going to spike it; we’re kicking it to them. He’s not going to kick a touchback when he’s in there, so you can expect that.”
And the special teams unit did have a bright spot in Monday’s game. During the first quarter, wide receiver Mecole Hardman notched a 30-yard punt return that gave the Chiefs the ball at their own 45-yard line. That led to a Kansas City field goal.
“We blocked it up pretty good,” recalled Toub. “We doubled-down the gunners. We had six guys in the box. We got a good punt. He set it up really well...
