Here’s the Chiefs coaches’ blunt assessment of playoff chase, KC’s remaining games
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Chiefs coaches cite missed plays, penalties and turnovers for playoff slide.
- Team lacks game-changing plays and has dropped four of last five matchups.
- Chiefs no longer control playoff fate with four games left, start vs Chargers.
It doesn’t get more explicit than how Chiefs special teams coordinator and assistant coach Dave Toub responded on Thursday.
Toub was asked a question about the difference between this year’s 6-7 Kansas City team and the one that stood 12-1 at this stage last season.
“Does that mean we’re (crappy)? Toub said. “You guys know I’m going to say what I think.”
Toub, like the other top assistant coaches working under KC head coach Andy Reid, thinks the Chiefs have put themselves in this unexpected position — likely missing the NFL playoffs, an unheard-of proposition here for the past decade — for several reasons.
“We’re not making as many plays as we did last year, at critical times, on special teams,” Toub said. “That’s kind of frustrating.”
Fellow Chiefs coordinators Matt Nagy (offense) and Steve Spagnuolo (defense) are similarly saving the sugar-coated interpretations for another time. The Chiefs entered this season with dynasty status, and major expectations, after playing in seven straight AFC Championship Games and five of the past six Super Bowls, winning three championships.
The Chiefs have dropped four of their last five games and are no longer in control of their chances of reaching the playoffs.
“I don’t think anybody thought we’d be sitting here in December with seven losses, but that’s reality,” Spagnuolo said. “Until someone says, ‘You’re all done playing,’ we’ll come in here and work every week.”
The Chiefs haven’t been eliminated from postseason contention, but each loss drives them further away. The New York Times playoff calculator puts their chances of making the NFL playoffs at 12% (though that percentage-chance would rise to 47% if the Chiefs win out, starting with Sunday’s noon home game against the Los Angeles Chargers).
“This is new territory for us,” Nagy said. “So how do we handle this new territory?”
The Chiefs haven’t been in this situation — under .500 this late in the season — since the 2012 team finished 2-14 and hired Reid as head coach the following year.
Another measure of the unusual nature of this season: This year’s team is the first under Reid to not have a winning streak of at least five games.
Reid and his assistant coaches offer different reasons for the predicament. Penalties have been killers in losses. So have turnovers — both those the Chiefs committed and the ones they didn’t get. There have been fewer game-changing plays, too, the type that seemed to define previous Patrick Mahomes-led teams.
Nagy had a difficult time forgetting about perhaps the biggest moment in KC’s latest loss, a 20-10 defeat against the Houston Texans: The Chiefs failed to convert on fourth-and-1 from their own 31-yard line in a tie game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
“You can’t sleep for two days,” Nagy said. “We’ve been successful this year on a lot of those (opportunities).”
Four games remain. After playing host to the Chargers, the Chiefs visit the Tennessee Titans, return home to face the AFC West-leading Denver Broncos on Christmas and then close out the season in Las Vegas against the Raiders.
“We’re guaranteed four more games,” Nagy said. “Let’s make sure we understand we all have a job to do ... to get better. We’ve been saying it, but it’s not getting done.
“You’ve got to trust each other, dig down a little bit. It’s not easy, but that’s the only choice we have.”