Chiefs’ Andy Reid roundup: the left-handed throw, the fourth down play, and Bob Sutton

Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid spoke on Tuesday following his team’s 27-23 victory over the Denver Broncos on Monday night.

Let’s round up some key takeaways:

Reid said that he was proud of the way his team performed against the Broncos.

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And naturally, there was a food reference.

“Everybody has a little piece of the pie here,” Reid said. “It was a team effort, and a good character check. I thought the guys reached down and did a good job of pulling the game out on both sides of the ball — and special teams.

“They made big plays when needed — particularly at the end of the first half and the end of the game. I’m proud of the guys for how they handled themselves.”

Reid had no further information on injuries suffered by Sammy Watkins and Dee Ford during Monday’s game, but did provide some insight into Patrick Mahomes’ spectacular left-handed throw under pressure.

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Reid said that because of the way the Broncos blitzed Mahomes, he had more opportunities to improvise.

“There were more opportunities [to make plays outside of the pocket] — more than he’s had up to this point. There will be games like that, where they’re doing a lot of things. They had a couple of nice little blitzes for us early — fire zone things and blitzes — where he had to move. The one he threw left-handed was one of those.”

Reid said that Tyreek Hill was actually the primary receiver on the play, and Mahomes was just doing the best he could to get it into Hill’s hands.

“There are certain plays where you just have to be able to do that,” Reid said.

While Reid acknowledged that it was good to see his quarterback bring his team back for a victory, it wasn’t entirely unexpected.

“You saw it in college, and you’re hoping you see a little bit of it here,” he said. “We saw a little bit of it against Denver last year when we put him back in.

“Listen... it’s a Monday night game. It’s the only show going. To be able to perform like that when it’s needed is a good thing. He has a ton of things he’s got to clean up. He’s got a lot of room here to improve, but his improv is 10 of 10.”

Reid also talked about his decision to go for it on fourth down in the first quarter, when the Chiefs were trailing by just three points.

Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

“These games are always knock-down drag-outs,” he explained. “That’s how I feel going into them. It’s doesn’t matter how the teams are playing at the time. This one happened to be early, and both teams were playing good football. I just felt like we needed to do that — to stay aggressive.”

And Reid spoke in glowing terms of his defensive coordinator Bob Sutton.

“Bob’s a brilliant guy,” he said. “The players know that. They know that he’s going to try to put them in the best possible position that he can. The thing he does is that he deciphers things, and has a good feel. Nobody watches more tape than he does, or studies more.

“I thought he did a great job of that in the fourth quarter, just kind of analyzing what’s going on, what’s coming forward here, and keeping his guys going. And he stayed aggressive. That sack — that was huge there at the end. On that last drive, time was everything, and that put them into a long field. It’s that kind of thinking that makes him special.”

Reid said that in his view, many of the defensive problems are due to the limited time the defensive unit has had to play together.

“I think it’s just a matter of playing more together,” he explained. “I’ve mentioned this. Because of the way things worked out in the preseason; there just wasn’t a lot of continuity there because of injuries.

“I think it’s just a matter of guys continuing to play — to communicate. Communicating helps you. Playing in a system helps you. But doing it in a live situation, you’re not going to get that in practice right now. You’ve got to kind of catch up there. The group plays well together, and they want to continue to get better.”