Kansas City Chiefs head coach Todd Haley had his weekly Tuesday meeting with the media (which was streamed live on KCChiefs.com). As much as he tries to look forward, he occasionally gets caught looking backwards and that was the case today when he addressed the reasons behind Jamaal Charles being deactivated in favor of Dantrell Savage.
Before answering the question on Charles, he gave the standard line: "I’ve made it pretty clear, we’re going to continue to do everything we can to figure out who the guys are that give us the best chance to win."
Gotta give him one thing in these press conferences - he's consistent.
As Josh Looney says, the Charles decision ultimately came down to a numbers game.
"We have some limitations offensively number-wise as we go into each game," he said. "There is some juggling that has to go on and I think that we had a guy in Savage that sat the first week that we wanted to see."
As he usually is, he was vague on reasons why Charles, specifically, was deactivated and not another player.
"There is going to be somebody left out every week," Haley continued. "That’s all part of the process and it’s happening at other positions also, and it’s going to continue to happen until we feel like we’re going in the direction we want to go."
I understand what Haley's trying to do - there are only 45 on the 53 man roster that are available on game days. Some positions are tighter than others.
Here's the way I look at it: The Raiders had one of the worst run defenses last year so the Chiefs obviously had a plan to get the running backs early and often. With that in mind, why not pack an extra man in that position group? Maybe that thought is too simple in the grand scheme of things but it's something that crossed my mind on Sunday.