Kansas City Chiefs HC Andy Reid reacts in a surprising way after predictable offensive play goes sideways in Week 9 vs. Jets
Kansas City Chiefs HC Andy Reid’s postgame comments on Justin Fields’ failed QB sneak aren’t sitting well with many people.
The Kansas City Chiefs have been hesitant to run the quarterback sneak ever since QB Patrick Mahomes was injured on that play in 2019.
They’ve run iterations of the play in the past, with players like TEs Blake Bell and Noah Gray taking the snap. They hadn’t run the play with a quarterback taking the snap since 2019, at least until Sunday’s game against the Jets.
On a third-and-1 during the first quarter, the Chiefs brought in backup QB Justin Fields. At that moment, everyone knew exactly what was coming. The announcers, the media, the opponents, and the fans in the stands all knew it would be a QB sneak. Realistically, the play should’ve succeeded. Fields has a history of success on the QB sneak. Truth be told, Kansas City was seconds from disaster.
The center-quarterback exchange wasn’t clean. Fields didn’t secure the football. On replay review, the play wasn’t just short; Fields fumbled the ball and turned it over to New York. The Jets got into field goal range and went up 6-0.
Chiefs HC Andy Reid’s postgame response about the Justin Fields QB sneak and what to make of it
Speaking to reporters after the game, Reid’s comments were a bit striking. They can come off a few different ways. Some see them as flippant or petty. Others may call it trolling. My read on it is that he was genuinely poking fun at the whole situation. He probably felt that he had the leeway to do that after a 35-12 victory.
“Yeah, I mean, you guys asked for it, so we gave it to you,” Reid said, with a smirk. “And you know, it didn’t work. How’d you feel?”
Reid had been pestered about the short-yardage and the lack of QB sneaks in weeks prior. Fans have been calling for some iteration of the Philadelphia Eagles’ tush push for years now. He insisted that the Chiefs had versions of the QB sneak in the playbook. Patrick Mahomes even said it had been called in prior games, but he’d checked out of it before.
The team finally used it, with a predictable version of the play, and it didn’t work. It wasn’t the answer everyone expected or hoped for. What Reid said next matters most.
“Yeah, so listen, we’ve got to make sure— those are hard to practice live,” Reid said. “Quarterbacks, I think, it’s hard to practice unless you do it in a game. And so we just got to get those two on the same page on it, and make sure we get the ball up first and in the quarterback’s hands, and we can roll from there.”
This isn’t the end of the QB sneak for Kansas City. They might even go back to that same version at some point. Execution doomed the play from the start, and as we’d later find out, they haven’t practiced it much.
What Chiefs backup QB Justin Fields had to say about the play after the game
In the locker room after the game, Chiefs backup QB Justin Fields took full responsibility for the failed play. He didn’t point fingers. To him, it was a simple lack of execution.
“Yeah, I mean, I just fumbled,” Fields said, via Chiefs Digest’s Matt Derrick. “We didn’t execute the play.”
How prepared was Fields to run this particular play? He told reporters it wasn’t emphasized during the practice week, but he knew it was a possibility the team could run.
“I knew it was a possibility, but it’s just a normal play in the game plan,” Fields said. “It wasn’t necessarily emphasized, but I knew it was a possibility that we’d run it.”
How often had they been practicing this version of the play? According to Fields, they had only just installed it.
“We first put it in last week,” Fields said.
That speaks volumes about the lack of success. It was a relatively new play, with little emphasis on it during practice. That’s a recipe for disaster, which is exactly what the Chiefs got. The pushback is that other teams have mastered this play, and K.C. is still trying to make it work. What’s clear is that Reid is feeling the heat with the constant lack of success when his team needs a yard.
Short-yardage remains a struggle for Kansas City, though they did find success in the red zone on a fourth-and-1 play on Sunday. Travis Kelce scored a touchdown on a push-pass play that was ruled a one-yard carry. After Week 9, it’s clear they need to continue searching for success in short-yardage situations. It’s one of the few real gripes from a three-score win against a now 2-7 Jets team.
