The Kansas City Chiefs special teams didn’t have a good year. Like the team’s other two units, the special teams play was often disjointed and out of synch, unlike past year when the Chiefs’ special teams were a major strength.
That doesn’t sit will with long-time special teams coach Dave Toub, who sounds a lot like his boss, head coach Andy Reid, when he discusses the unit’s failures.
“We’re not making as many plays as we did last year at critical times on special teams” Toube said in a piece written by Jesse Newell of The Athletic. That’s frustrating.”
Overall, the Chiefs ranked 20th in the league when it comes to expected points added from their special teams, according to Newell. That doesn’t tell the whole story, either, given that the Chiefs were ranked 26th overall through the first 15 weeks when they were still in playoff contention.
The problems can be broken into two major area—penalties and miscues, and a surprising level of inaccuracy from kicker Harrison Butker.
“Just didn’t make plays, it seemed like,” Toub said. “We just couldn’t get a game where we made plays to win the game. In the past, we’ve done that a lot of times.”
There was some good news, however. In a year where kickoff coverage was something of a mystery going in, the Chiefs finished strong, ranking sixth in EPA. Toub cited the performances of the team’s younger players as the reason for this, and he’s happy with that aspect of how things went down this season.
But special teams fixes aren’t always straightforward for coaches like Toub. It’s easy to replace a kicker or a punter, but often there are subtleties involved that must be carefully evaluated. One such issue that surfaced for Toub his year was having to opt for return man Nikko Remigio, who was reliable when it came to ball security, but Remigio wasn’t as explosive as the Chiefs other return options.
The player who was supposed to do this was running back Brashard Smith, who was drafted out of SMU with his return capabilities in mind, but Smith also dislocated a finger in training camp, which meant that Toub had to go with the safer option because of Brashard’s limited practice time as a returner.
As for Butker, he represents a different problem. According to Newll, a recent extension makes him basically uncuttable, so the Chiefs will likely just hope for him to have a bounce-back season in 2026.