Chiefs not worried about Jaguars’ intel from former players ahead of season opener
The Chiefs are familiar with a couple of faces on the Jaguars’ offense.
Coach Andy Reid helped resurrect quarterback Nick Foles’ career three years ago in Kansas City, and Jacksonville wide receiver Chris Conley spent the first four years of his NFL career with Reid.
And just a couple days ago, the Jaguars added one more guy who knows a little something about Reid’s offense: Chase Litton.
The Jaguars signed the former Chiefs practice squad quarterback days after Kyle Shurmur won the job in KC and Litton was subsequently waived by the Chiefs.
“I’m super happy for Chase,” Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said Wednesday. “He’s someone that worked super hard while he was here. He got to go down there and try out and he made the team. I know he’s going to keep doing whatever he can to make his name in this league. I’m excited for him.”
The move is similar to one also made by Jacksonville six years ago, when the Jags claimed quarterback Ricky Stanzi off waivers two days after the 2011 late-round draft pick was released by the Chiefs. The two teams were scheduled to play in the season opener the next week. That time around, the Chiefs beat the Jaguars 28-2 in Alex Smith’s first game as the Chiefs’ starting quarterback.
But even adding Litton and his year of experience in Reid’s quarterback room may not be enough to help the Jaguars prepare for the offensive onslaught that’s headed their way.
“(Litton) is a smart guy,” Reid said. “So I’m sure they’ve quizzed him on (the playbook).
“You’ve got 300 plays to choose from. If they can predict those, they’re really good.”
Like most offenses during the preseason, Reid chose to keep his scheme pretty vanilla in the limited time the Chiefs’ starters saw the field. Now, though, everything is fair game — including plays from the stack Reid developed in the offseason specifically for Mahomes.
“I’m definitely excited to be able to kind of show all these plays that we’ve been working on all throughout training camp and watch how they’re going to work during the game,” Mahomes said. “It’s stuff that we’ve worked on all offseason, of how we think we can exploit defenses and how we think we can go out there and have success based off stuff we did last year.”
The Chiefs’ starting offense played together on just five drives over three preseason games. The short outings often frustrated the starters, but they were also OK with reserving most of their new tricks for upcoming opponents.
Now, though, the games count. The playing time will increase and the playbook restrictions will come off.
“That’s what makes the preseason difficult because you’re like, ‘I hope Coach Reid doesn’t dial my play up there — we’re going to use it during the season,’” Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce said. “But you have fun. Every single week, this offensive staff and this coaching staff is going to put together a game plan to get you excited and going to give you an opportunity to go out there and showcase your ability.”
A year ago, the Chiefs’ offense helped Kansas City beat Jacksonville and its then-vaunted defense 30-14. Cornerback Jalen Ramsey was primarily responsible for covering wide receiver Tyreek Hill, a role he’s already promised to reprise this year. In last year’s meeting, Ramsey held Hill to four catches for 61 yards. The Chiefs also didn’t record a passing touchdown, the only regular-season game in which Mahomes didn’t throw a touchdown pass.
Jacksonville has a slightly different defensive identity going into this season with the addition of standout rookie pass rusher Josh Allen.
But no matter how Litton or Conley helps the Jaguars with Chiefs, their old team will be prepared.
“That goes on all around the league,” Mahomes said. “You’ve got a lot of guys — they have Chris Conley there — that know some of the stuff we do.
“But the biggest thing with Coach Reid is you can never get a handle on it because he’s going to keep adding and keep innovating every single week.”