Andy Reid’s fury was for principle, process. But KC needs most to focus on own process
Adaptable and innovative as Chiefs coach Andy Reid is, he’s also as methodical, precise and process-driven as anyone you’ll ever meet. He’s meticulous with his words, practically goes into contortions to avoid letting anything come off as an excuse and typically so restrained it’s tough to elicit emotion or detail from him.
Seldom does he say anything approaching what could be construed as disrespectful — particularly when it comes to NFL game officials
All of that is what made so striking his postgame seething after the 20-17 loss to Buffalo on Sunday evening: At times with a quiver in his voice, his normally generic opening statement was punctuated by referring to the controversial late offside call as “a bit embarrassing” to the NFL.
That precipitated a 3-minute-plus session with what might be considered Bizarro Andy, the opposite or reverse of his usual demeanor. The man who normally figuratively, and at times even literally, waves off questions about such matters instead essentially brushed off anything but the topic, as The Star’s Jesse Newell pointed out.
This was what might be considered the wrath of a patient man, something we also saw on an entirely different — and unprecedented — scale out of Patrick Mahomes in the wake of the offside call that wiped out one of the most exhilarating plays you’ll ever see: the would-be go-ahead touchdown on Mahomes’ pass to Travis Kelce, lateraled rather incredibly across the field to Kadarius Toney.
For context, I’ve simply never seen Reid that way before — and I met him in 1989 when he was an assistant coach at Missouri, saw him at work at a few games involving his Eagles over the years and have covered his entire tenure with the Chiefs.
But divergent from Reid’s typical way as this was, he made some key clarifications and distinctions on Monday that make you realize how all these things actually mesh.
Reid wasn’t grandstanding or, at least not consciously, trying to use the pulpit to send some message to his players about standing up for them. He wanted it understood he had been making a point on principle and, what do you know, about process.
To Reid, the crux of it all was not whether Toney actually had been lined up offside, which Reid on Monday acknowledged was the case.
It was what he’d come to expect from officials in such situations over more than 30 years of coaching in the NFL, including 25 as a head coach in Philadelphia and here.
As reported by ESPN, the call was the first such one made against a Reid-coached team over the course of 25,172 offensive plays from scrimmage. And one of the reasons for that was what Reid described as a routine dialogue: to extend a warning, particularly in the late-game crucible.
When I asked him Monday about what was behind his unusual outburst, Reid said, “Listen, I was just speaking what I thought was the truth. And my intention was, I’ve been doing this a long time. I think I’ve got a good relationship with the officials, and I had no communication.
“That’s all. That’s really where I was coming from.”
Reid didn’t go as far as to walk back what he’d said on Sunday. But I suspect if he had it back he might have treated it differently in real time, and he suggested some regret when he said his point was “probably not very well” made after the game.
Certainly, he could have been more clear then about what he emphasized on Monday — about what he had “insinuated about the officials.”
“Listen, there are no excuses on this thing,” he said. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’ve always had a good working relationship with (officials), and that’s the important part. So they know when they tell me something with a guy, I’m going to go address the guy, like, right now. And make sure it gets changed. ….
“This isn’t an excuse or blame on the officials for blowing the game. That’s not what it is.”
As exasperating and even distracting as NFL officiating has become, particularly for its stupefying inconsistencies and peculiar oversights, it deserves criticism and, arguably, reform.
And it’s easy to track a cumulative effect on the Chiefs to at least the week before and the malpractice of Green Bay’s blatant pass interference that was preposterously ignored.
But the risk of focusing too much on that isn’t just the unbecoming protest, justifiable as it might seem in its full context, and letting that become a prevailing self-defeating emotion.
It’s the crux of the play itself, which in a sense is a representative microcosm of a season marked by the Chiefs being unable to stay out of their own way.
Whatever leeway or wiggle room officials should have given, it’s also true that the play would have stood if Toney had done all that he’s supposed to do.
What might be considered the Hippocratic Oath for receivers, the fundamental of first, do no harm, starts with checking with the official if you’re lined up properly.
Toney can be seen on video pointing to an official, but he immediately turns away without getting confirmation he’s aligned properly.
On that play, as Reid put it, “he just happened not to” follow through. Which is why the coaching point, as Reid put it, will be to “make sure you check with the guy on the side.”
It’s a lousy shame that a matter of inches sabotaged such a remarkable, and likely game-winning, play. Brutal, really.
But it’s also symptomatic of a team that’s 8-5 and has lost four of its last six largely because of bungled details and perhaps even diminished discipline.
With two more giveaways on Sunday, and only one takeaway, these Chiefs are at minus-7 for the season and tracking for the worst turnover ratio since Reid took over in 2013.
You know too well about the dropped passes and miscommunications in the passing game and all the untimely penalties. And the red-zone issues. And, suddenly, a tendency for a fine defense to allow the Chiefs to get down double-digits in the last three games.
Look, it’s problematic and disconcerting that officials didn’t do what Reid has come to expect over the decades. And while he didn’t say this, I will: His respect for the game, his place in the game, his history on the rules committee and his customary dignity with officials should afford him a certain currency.
Not preference, but at least to be able to count on the prevailing way of doing business for so long and some semblance of the officiating consistency we all crave.
All that said, it doesn’t change this.
Where this season goes from here is about the Chiefs controlling what they can control.
That’s something they are doing less and less instead of more and more and that, alas, cost them in neon lights on Sunday in a game that was lost by other issues along the way.
Lamentable as it was that the process he’s come to expect failed Reid on Sunday, the process the Chiefs need to fixate on is what it’s been for weeks but keeps seeming postponed.
“We’ve got to clean up some of these self-destructive things,” Reid said.
Once again, he was referring to penalties, drops and turnovers. Etc.
The stuff that’s really to blame for their predicament, no matter how unpalatable the ends of the last two games have been.
This story was originally published December 12, 2023 at 7:00 AM.