Kansas City Chiefs’ Cyrus Allen and Emmett Johnson are already saying the right things after facing first NFL adversity
Cyrus Allen and Emmett Johnson were some of the standouts of preseason Week 1 for the Kansas City Chiefs, but they’re not satisfied. They’re looking to grow and improve after facing their first bit of NFL adversity.
The Kansas City Chiefs lost 20-12 to the Los Angeles Rams in preseason Week 1. It wasn’t the result they wanted, but it provides a blueprint for the areas they need to improve.
A pair of Chiefs rookie skill players on the offensive side of the ball were among the team’s Week 1 standouts. Emmett Johnson had a dozen carries for nearly 60 yards and didn’t drop any of his three targets. Cyrus Allen had two receptions for 20 yards on five targets, including a third-down reception where he elevated to catch a high pass.
Despite those two rookies putting together impressive debuts at Arrowhead Stadium, they came out of the game entirely unsatisfied.
Emmett Johnson, Cyrus Allen know what went wrong in preseason Week 1 and what they need to do to fix it
In the locker room after the game, Emmett Johnson immediately thought about what he could learn from preseason Week 1. Why? Because he’s not a fan of losing football games.
“It was good,” Johnson said in the locker room. “A lot of learning lessons, a lot of things to learn from. But overall, just a good experience being out there with the teammates. But unfortunately, I wanted to get that win, so you know that’s the part I hate is losing.”
The Chiefs had a penalty problem in preseason Week 1, with 12 penalties resulting in 83 penalty yards. Compare that to the four penalties from the Rams, and it was a major difference in the game. Johnson already expects to hear about it from OC Eric Bieniemy in the meeting rooms.
“Yeah, I’m sure we’re gonna hear a lot about the penalties,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately, like I said, we can’t be having all those penalties. But we just got to learn from it and grow and get better because we had some possessions where we could went down there and scored, and we got held back from the penalties. So, not just them, but including me, I could be better as well.”
It’s not just finger-pointing from the rookie, who had his first NFL touchdown wiped away by a holding penalty. He knows that all 11 players on the field need to come together as a team to make sure successful plays happen.
As for Allen, he felt he only provided a glimpse of what he’s capable of.
“Just a tad bit,” Allen told reporters. “Just a tad bit.”
He knows that he’ll have more opportunities to do so. In the meantime, he’s already thinking about the lessons that he can take back to St. Joe in training camp. The team has four more practices, which amount to opportunities to improve ahead of preseason Week 2 vs. the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“It’s a team game, so we just got to eliminate like the pre-snap penalties and stuff like that,” Allen said. “So just trying to fix that and do what I need to do by just learning the playbook and everything I could do to help the team.”
