Chiefs’ coach Andy Reid is defogging, but pandemic football means more oddities ahead
During a rainy practice at some point before the Chiefs opened the NFL season against Houston last week at Arrowhead Stadium, Patrick Mahomes was struck by how fogged-over Andy Reid’s face shield was.
Maybe, he suggested, Reid could use a windshield wiper on it.
“He laughed about it,” Mahomes said with a smile on Wednesday. “But it actually could have come into play the other day.”
So much so that the enshrouded Reid was one of the prevailing images of the 34-20 victory.
After the game, Reid called it “brutal” and a “bit of a mess.” A few days later, a New Hampshire company shipped him some facemasks with an anti-fogging element. Then Ingrid Harbaugh, the wife of Reid’s former assistant and Ravens coach John Harbaugh, figured that “there are going to be a lot of Halloween outfits with face shields and mustaches and foggy face shields” in the Kansas City area.
Even Wednesday, receiver Sammy Watkins laughed over how “smoked up” it was. Then he referred to a video clip he saw and wondered, “How (was) he even seeing anything? Why (didn’t) we have anybody wipe it off for him?”
Between whatever wardrobe adjustment Reid has made after that fiasco and the fact that the Chiefs will be playing in a controlled climate against the Chargers on Sunday in Los Angeles, Reid with both amusement and vagueness now says “I think I’ve got it under control.”
Good thing, particularly in a week when the NFL reiterated its message about coaches wearing face coverings on the sideline and Reid seemed to suggest he may switch to wearing a mask.
“Sometimes it’s hard to hear in the microphone,” he said. “So you’ve just got to work through that, in particular when you’re talking to players in the headset.”
Now, this is a mighty trivial issue in the grand scheme of the ongoing pandemic. But purely in the context of the NFL playing on, it speaks to a broader aspect of it that will be unfolding in various ways all season.
Much of what coaches are used to controlling or taking for granted suddenly is beyond their sphere of influence.
With more unknowns than ever, adaptability will be crucial — something that seems to play into the hands of the nimble-minded and resolute coach of the defending Super Bowl champions who has built a career on adjustments.
These oddities of circumstance figure to hold especially true early in this first NFL season ever played without preseason tuneups and as league attendance policies vary radically.
Which brings us to this week’s most evident X-factor:
Consider the stark difference in atmosphere from last week at Arrowhead, where the 16,000 fans allowed in made themselves heard in several ways, to the kind of hush looming at cavernous SoFi Stadium.
No fans will be in the stands in the new $5 billion, 3.1 million square foot stadium featuring a dual-sided videoboard running 120 yards over the field weighing in at 2.2 million pounds.
For a sense of what the experience will be like, let’s bring in some images provided by estimable sports columnist Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times after the Rams beat the Cowboys 20-17 in the inaugural game there on Sunday.
“Eerie is a great way to describe it,” Rams coach Sean McVay said.
Said the Rams’ Aaron Donald: “It just felt more like a Little League game when I was 6, 7 years old playing. The only thing I didn’t see was my mom and dad screaming, ‘Aaaaaron! Aaaaron!’ ”
The Oculus video board was “amazing,” Plaschke wrote, “but hanging above a vast nothingness, it looked like a blaring big-screen TV in an abandoned living room.”
But maybe nothing described what’s ahead this week better than a quote from Rams quarterback Jared Goff: “It was very galvanizing, to be only out there by yourselves, knowing that we’re at home but at the same time it’s us and them. There’s no one else in the building. It’s really mano-a-mano.”
So this presents a few fresh challenges and potential complications for the Chiefs against the Chargers, who also will be making their debut there.
For one thing, there is the obvious matter of creating their own energy, something Mahomes and Watkins assured will be no problem for a team that relishes its fans but knows how to feed off each other.
For another, it’s about how to communicate when all indications are that voices will carry across the chasm even amid some piped-in noise.
That certainly was one of Reid’s takeaways from watching the Cowboys play the Rams.
“You listen, and you can hear people talking …,” Reid said. “It’s important that you control your (volume) that you’re sending in the huddle in particular, both huddles, but at the same time make sure you’re communicating with the players.”
While Reid is confident that their terminology isn’t susceptible to easy translation, it’s still imperative not to let it be heard, either.
Though it helps that Mahomes and Reid seem to be able to read each other’s minds, this time Mahomes may want to keep his gravelly voice down with offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy if it comes to wondering, say, “Do we have time to run Wasp?”
The new communication considerations will be a point of emphasis this week, from minding their indoor voices to, Mahomes noted, varying snap counts and audible signals and otherwise seeking to “really go into the details.”
Starting with making it easier for Reid to see what’s happening.