Andy Reid roundup: 4 takeaways from the Chiefs’ head coach

Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid met with the media via Zoom on Monday, less than 24 hours after the team’s 17-9 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Listen to the full presser above or by clicking here.

Reid started by saying it was good to get the win, noting the strong defensive effort and admitting that the offense shot itself in the foot numerous times due to penalties and turnovers. The head coach had no injury updates — which is a good sign for the status of tight end Travis Kelce and wide receiver Kadarius Toney coming out of the game.

Then Reid took questions, which we have rounded up in four takeaways:

Behind the scenes, Reid sees positives in the offense.

Early in the game, the Chiefs had back-to-back drives that ended in a turnover, hindering their ability to score points early. As a team, they took 12 penalties for 94 yards during the game.

“I think us not making the mistakes on our side,” said Reid when asked about the problem. “You had 12 penalties, you had [two] turnovers — You can’t do that, and normally come out with a win. You figure that out and we straighten it out, we should be OK. I think as you look it, the players look at it — and I listened to them talk, things are there. You look at it on tape, things are there.

“But we’re going backward instead of forward, and if you look at percentages, even with a 5-yard penalty, percentages with scoring on a drive with a penalty is slim to none. We’ve been able to do that probably better than anyone in the league, but you’re getting these multiples put together here, and that’s too much.”

Reid does not seem overly concerned with Jawaan Taylor’s performance.

It has been a tumultuous two weeks for the Chiefs’ starting right tackle, who was under a microscope of sorts during the national broadcast of the team’s opening-night game against the Detroit Lions.

Taylor was responsible for five penalties against the Jaguars.

“You’re going to have a lot of eyes on you when you come here, first of all,” said Reid of Taylor. “And the week before, on the Thursday game, it was publicized and scrutinized. Now, all of a sudden, you put the officials on red alert. And rightly so. It wasn’t like they were off on the calls that they had on him this week. And it was the same crew that worked training camp. They could see it there and they saw it firsthand here. They were going to call it. Jawaan was aware of that. He knows, and he tried to tame it down a little bit, but as the game went on, it got him there.”

Reid briefly benched Taylor midway through the third quarter to allow him to reset. It sounds as though that will be his focus as he gets back to work with offensive line coach Andy Heck this week.

“He’s a good football player,” said Reid. “He’s naturally quick without having to cheat on that thing or get caught on it. And he’s strong, so he doesn’t need to do that. He’s a smart kid. We could fix it. He’s been doing this for a number of years, and he works extremely hard at it, but once you’ve had three of them in a row or so and they don’t get called and you have a new crew coming in, they are going to have an eye on you.

“So, you’ve got to back up. He’s got to back up and start over on this and just slow it down. He’s plenty quick to take care of that.”

“Travis was fighting Travis”

Those were Reid’s words when it came to the tight end’s unsportsmanlike conduct and necessary roughness penalties in his return.

Of course, Kelce also had a touchdown in the game.

“Travis was fighting Travis,” noted Reid. “It was hot. He was getting ‘butched’ we call it, where they try to bang you up there one way or another. He’s trying to get back in the flow, and so, he is a perfectionist, this guy. If he feels he’s off a tick, then he’s going to try to battle through, get himself in the right mindset to keep fighting through it. And he did. You got to give him credit.

“He battled through the thing — made some big catches for us. And he made it through the game after missing the first one. I’m sure his leg probably didn’t feel 100% — but he’s not going to let you know that. He’s going to work through it — and that’s what he did.”

Reid was asked about the early success of the defense.

Kansas City’s fans have almost grown accustomed to the slow starts out of defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s unit, and as the offense figures things out, the early success from the defense has been a pleasant surprise.

“I think Spags and the coaches — Joe [Cullen], David [Merrit], [Ken Flajole], Brendan [Daly] — they have all done just a heck of a job there,” said Reid, going through the list. “Donald [D’Alesio]. Spags has set up and put the guys in great position. Then the guy have an energy and a confidence that wasn’t there with all the young guys last year. We didn’t really know what the secondary was going to be, and the guys have — they’re figuring it out. They figured it out at training camp, and they’ve figured it out here in these two games, with good communication in that. I like the physical part of it.”

Having an All-Pro back in the lineup helps, too.

“It was also good to get Chris [Jones] back in there,” added Reid. “He’s a disruptive guy, man. And he came in with a good attitude. He got himself 34 plays, about half the game. And so it was good to have him back in there going.”

Asked about other contributors, Reid wanted to highlight a defensive player under his own volition.

“The one that kind of gets washed out on this is [Derrick] Nnadi,” said Reid of the 27-year-old who had three tackles in the game. “I thought Nnadi played a pretty good football game this past week, and he’s a stout guy in there. I think that would probably be the primary thing for the run, and then the scheme and who you’re going against. You have all those different matchups. But I thought our guys played well inside.”