Chiefs' Richie James explains why he made odd decision vs. Bengals
Win or not, the Kansas City Chiefs still have quite a few things they have to fix, as they beat the Cincinnati Bengals 25-17 on Sunday in Week 17. With that win, they have clinched the playoffs and won the AFC West for the eighth time in a row. That's a pretty dominant stretch, to […]
Win or not, the Kansas City Chiefs still have quite a few things they have to fix, as they beat the Cincinnati Bengals 25-17 on Sunday in Week 17. With that win, they have clinched the playoffs and won the AFC West for the eighth time in a row. That's a pretty dominant stretch, to say the least.
But this year has been much different than the other seven. If any of the other three teams in the AFC West were remotely good, we could be talking about the Chiefs as a wildcard team right now. Luckily, the rest of the division is bad, once again, but better than they have been in recent years, as both the Las Vegas Raiders and Denver Broncos were vying for a playoff spot just a few weeks ago.
As for the Chiefs, this is the first time in a long time they were playing for their guaranteed spot in the playoffs, and that's because the season hasn't gone quite how anyone planned. The offense has stunk; special teams haven't been great at times, and the only thing we can really rely on to be good with those teams is the defense. We haven't been able to say that about an Andy Reid – Patrick Mahomes Chiefs' team, maybe ever.
The offensive issues may never get fixed this year if they haven't already. But, the special teams things we are seeing are easily fixable and coachable. One of those issues is the return teams putting the offense in bad field positions. A great example of that was Richie James on the punt return against the Bengals on Sunday, as he caught a punt in the end zone and ran it out to put the Chiefs around the 10-yard line.
While, no, that wasn't the best decision at that time, James described why he made that decision.
I told myself if we called that return, I was going to field it regardless. He didn't give me the kick I wanted, and I was still trying to be aggressive. At the end of it, you make a decision and live with it.
At least James is owning his decision. I will say that James has been a spark at times in the return game and even had a pretty crucial catch during the game. So, I trust that he will make the right decisions. However, the one he made on Sunday in the situation I'm referring to cannot happen again.
Andy Reid made sure Chiefs didn’t make same mistake in Super Bowl that a Bengals player made last year
Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid made sure that his players didn't make the same mistake in Super Bowl LVII that a Cincinnati Bengals player made in Super Bowl LVI last year. When the Bengals played the Los Angeles Rams last year, Cincinnati kicker Evan McPherson created some controversy by staying on the sidelines […]
