Kansas City Chiefs head coach Todd Haley holds his players accountable for everything. It's been his calling card since the Chiefs hired him seven months ago.
Today, however, he took responsibility for the breakdown at the end of the first half.
With 14 seconds remaining in the first half, the Chiefs lined up with no timeouts. They were inside the 20 so field position wasn't an issue.
Matt Cassel took the snap and threw into the flat to Dantrell Savage, who failed to get out of bounds leaving the clock running and the Chiefs not enough time to spike the ball and stop the clock.
"These are plays that we use and practice all the time," Haley explained. "In my terminology, it’s an out of bounds or incomplete situation. If the ball is completed it must be out of bounds or if not, the ball has to be incomplete whether it’s intentionally dropped or not thrown.
"That’s stuff that can’t happen. I called the play, we got tackled in bounds, ultimately it’s my responsibility."
When asked whether he coached smart today, he said, ""How the half ended, I’d say no because I’m the leader of this football team and when you have the ball in an area where you can score points and you don’t get points it’s going to fall on me. So, I’d say no."
The Chiefs missed out on a field goal opportunity which was also the difference in the game.
Haley also addressed the Chiefs use of two timeouts in the first quarter. Apparently, there were some communication issues.
"Us not being a smart football team and we’ve got to be better because when you use timeouts early in a game like that it usually comes back to haunt you some way or another," Haley told reporters. "We can’t do it. To me, one of my top three things here is to have an intelligent team (it’s at the top of the list). That includes all of the coaches and players. We didn’t show that today."
And if that wasn't enough evidence that he doesn't make excuses, then there's this: "I’m not going to make excuses. We have methods to get plays called that we didn’t get done. We have all the technology in the world and we didn’t get it done."
Watch the Todd Haley press conference here.