The Kansas City Chiefs’ loss to the Tennessee Titans continued the team’s tumble down the standings, and the fall has been both sudden and precipitous.
The Chiefs have gone from Super Bowl contenders to also-rans in a matter of weeks, and yesterday’s loss guaranteed Kansas City’s first losing season under Andy Reid, and the first for the franchise since 2012.
That was just one of several takeaways from Sam Jane and Jesse Newell of The Athletic, and some of the others were more revealing. Start with special teams, which have been a debacle this year, and that continued in yesterday’s game.
The first occurred when safety Mike Edwards was called for a block-in-the-back penalty on a punt return, which resulted in teammate Nikko Remigio getting drilled by a ricocheted defender, according to Jane and Newell, as he attempted a fair catch.
A far more serious problem is the deterioration of kicker Harrison Butker. He missed a 51-yard field goal yesterday, which made him the league leader in misses with nine. Butker’s failures haven’t been as glaring as some of the other big mistakes that have cost the Chiefs games, but one of the fastest ways to lose games in the NFL right now is to have an unreliable kicker.
The special-teams sequence that occurred after Butker’s miss was even worse. The Titans were ready to settle for a 51-yard field goal on a fourth-and-1 situation in the fourth quarter, but Chiefs cornerback Kevin Knowles jumped offside to give Tennessee a first down. Titans running back Tyjae Spears scored on a 4-yard TD run four plays later, so that simple mistake cost the Chiefs four points.
These are the kinds of mistakes that Reid has been talking about cleaning up for weeks, but they keep happening. It will be interesting to see how far the Chiefs’ overhaul goes during the offseason, and some of the changes could be surprising.
The one piece of good news from yesterday’s game, sort of, is that third-string quarterback Chris Oladokun did a nice job of filling in given the circumstances. His numbers weren’t gaudy, but Oladokun hit 10 of his first 14 passes, and he got the Chiefs into field goal position on four straight drives.
That kind of performance could make Kansas City a threat on Christmas night against the Denver Broncos, especially given the issues the Denver defense had yesterday against the Jacksonville Jaguars.