What Chiefs’ Chris Jones had to say about sideline tiff with his defensive line coach
Chris Jones had some unfortunate news to report Wednesday afternoon during his meeting with reporters.
He said the Microsoft Surface touchscreen device that defensive line coach Joe Cullen spiked during a heated exchange with Jones on Sunday did not make it through.
“I think the tablet lost its heartbeat,” Jones said Wednesday with a smile. “But thanks to Microsoft, we can get a couple more.”
In all seriousness ... Jones said fans shouldn’t make much of the publicized spat that he and Cullen got into on the sideline during KC’s home loss to Buffalo.
“Just two competitive spirits having a conversation,” Jones said.
The back-and-forth received attention this time because CBS showed a replay of it on the game broadcast. Jones yelled in Cullen’s direction; the Chiefs D-line coach responded by chucking his Microsoft Surface to the turf.
“It’s been that way plenty of times,” Jones said of him and Cullen challenging each other. “I just hate the camera caught it this time.”
Jones has frequently praised Cullen in the past, crediting the second-year Chiefs defensive line coach for bringing out the best in himself and his teammates, too.
Part of the recent frustrations on the team, Jones admitted, was that it was “in a tough situation right now.” KC has dropped two in a row and four of its last six.
“It’s hard to say, but I think these games are beneficial for us as a team, to go through this adversity early,” Jones said. “We’ve got a young group. We’ve got a lot of young guys, if they were on the team last year, they kind of didn’t have to go through this type of adversity that we’re going through now. I’ve always said, ‘Adversity builds character.’”
Jones also doesn’t see this Chiefs team as being far off from where it wants to be at season’s end.
“You look at the games we’ve played, we’ve been right there, mostly in every game,” Jones said. “So it’s just the little detail things that we can fix as individuals that can help us as a whole.”
