Chiefs Vs. Bucs Preseason: Todd Haley's Key Points Of The Game

Kansas City Chiefs head coach Todd Haley talked on Monday about the 20-15 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

He went through a few key areas of the game and gave his thoughts on it. Here's a summary of what he had to say.

Every play counts

"I feel like our games are going to come down to one or two plays potentially deciding it so, for example, we’re fourth-and-goal from the two late in the game, a false start puts us into fourth-and-goal from the seven. That’s what I’m talking about."

Haley said he thinks most of the Chiefs games this year will come down to one or two-game changing players. Clearly against the Bucs he means Brandon Flowers' whiffing on the play that led to a long touchdown catch.

Must tackle

"We did a good job other than we missed the tackle that allowed the big gain. If we tackle, we did a good job I think, for the most part. Encouraging signs but it comes down to fundamentals and that’s what we’ve got to work on."

I think this is another reference to Flowers missing that play.

Random thought on tackling: It seems that teams rarely practice tackling in practice. It's a tough thing to do if you're trying to avoid injury but the Chiefs (and other teams) don't seem to work on tackling techniques a lot.

No turnovers

"Secondly, offensively, we cannot turn the football over. We’ve done that too much in two games for any of us and defensively we must tackle. That was the difference in the game when it was all is said and done."

Haley also said that turnovers will kill the Chiefs. In my mind, this is huge because the Chiefs offense or defense just isn't good enough right now to handle turnovers. The Chiefs are -6 on turnovers -- last in the NFL.

No minus plays

"We didn’t have a lot of minus plays in the game offensively. Really we had one penalty in the game, two that were declined but that’s a good sign in the second preseason game for our team."

This is another important note for the Chiefs because, like the turnovers, their offense and defense simply can't afford minus plays. They're not good enough yet.