It’s a short week, but Kansas City Chiefs played long game in preparing for LA Chargers
The two plus weeks between the Kansas City Chiefs’ final preseason game and the regular-season opener gave coach Andy Reid and his staff plenty of time to prepare for the Arizona Cardinals — and the Los Angeles Chargers.
When NFL schedules were released in April, and the second game, the home opener against the Chargers, was set for Thursday Night Football, the Chiefs knew prep time would be reduced and they doubled up on their game planning.
“You do the dance where you’re trying to prepare for two teams,” Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo said Monday.
The calendar allowed this. The Chiefs played third final preseason game on Aug. 25 against the Green Bay Packers. The Chargers wrapped up their preseason schedule the next night.
For the Chiefs, that left 16 dates before the regular-season opener at Arizona and enough time to study two teams.
“Coach Reid great job with us, coming off the Green Bay game, where we had a week in there, a chunk of time we could focus on something else, not just Arizona,” Spagnuolo said. “Then we’d get back in the Arizona swing the next week.”
The AFC West teams got the job done in openers, with the Chiefs handling the Cardinals 44-21 behind Patrick Mahomes’ five touchdown passes, and the Chargers defeating the Las Vegas Raiders 24-19. Justin Herbert threw three touchdown passes.
Extra attention on the Chargers seems like a good idea for the Chiefs. This is the only opponent to defeat the Chiefs in each of the previous two seasons, with both losses coming at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
The preparation may have started even earlier, said offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy. Or at least the Chiefs have been thinking about the Chargers, considered a top challenger to supplant the Chiefs atop the AFC West, a division Kansas City has won for six straight seasons.
“We’ve been preparing for this game for a long time,” Bieniemy said. “We had the entire offseason to think about it, we had all of training camp, then we had those additional practices between training camp and leading up to the first game. We’ve been watching them, preparing for them.”
Call it the ultimate sign of respect for an opponent that outscored the Chiefs 16-7 in the fourth quarter last season in Kansas City to win 30-24. That day, the Chiefs committed three of their four turnovers on the first three possessions.
Perhaps the extra time will fix that problem.
This story was originally published September 12, 2022 at 2:22 PM.