Frustration boils over in Brazil for several Kansas City Chiefs players as margins for error get even thinner in the AFC West

The pressure got to a few Kansas City Chiefs players in Week 1 against the Los Angeles Chargers.

Charles Goldman — NFL Managing Editor
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Chiefs DT Chris Jones and LB Drue Tranquill in the fourth quarter vs. the Chargers YouTube

The Kansas City Chiefs are typically known for being calm and cool under pressure, but that wasn’t the case for several players during the Week 1 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.

The margins for error have always been thin in the AFC West. Still, execution is more pivotal than ever before when the coaches in the division have more combined wins than all but three NFL franchises. At two key junctures in the game on Friday, things escalated for the Chiefs, and it was all captured on YouTube’s cameras on the world stage. This team has high expectations for itself and even more from the outside. They constantly find themselves in the spotlight, facing pressure.

Well, sometimes pressure makes diamonds, and other times it makes rubble. In the case of the Week 1 loss to the Chargers, it felt like the latter.

Chiefs TE Travis Kelce gets after RT Jawaan Taylor after his third penalty of the game

Jawaan Taylor is one of the most penalized players in the league since joining the Chiefs in 2023, with 36 penalties across the past two seasons. After his second penalty of the team’s first offensive drive in the second half, Travis Kelce tried to give his teammate a wake-up call by getting in his face.

Taylor would finish the game responsible for four of the team’s 10 penalties, with two false starts and two holds, totaling 30 yards. This spat will likely be brushed under the rug, as another incident occurred after a much more prominent moment during the game.

Chiefs’ Drue Tranquill and Chris Jones get heated following game-defining play

The Chiefs had a chance to get the ball back to Patrick Mahomes, forcing the Chargers into a third-and-14 situation after a Drue Tranquill sack of Justin Herbert in the final minutes of the fourth quarter. When the ball was snapped on third down, Chris Jones took an inside route to the quarterback, breaking contain and leaving a wide-open rushing lane for Herbert to ice the game with a 19-yard scramble.

Asked about this play, Chiefs HC Andy Reid gave an answer that felt pointed toward both Taylor and Jones.

“Listen, I always expect more from the bigs on both sides of the ball,” Reid said. “So we can do better in those two areas, for sure. I mean, that’s where it all starts, right? So, we can do a better job. We will do a better job.”

When Chris Jones was asked about the play, he took full responsibility, stating that he had taken an inside move to the quarterback and that he probably could’ve contained the play better had he not.

“Well, the tackle jumped me,” Jones said. “I just should have stayed outside. I blame me. Could have pass-rushed better. I could have had a better pass rush. I could have contained better. Yeah, I blame myself.”

However, when Jones was asked about the dust-up with Tranquill, he let the crickets chirp.

“No comment,” he said.

Tranquill was much more open about it with reporters following the game, explaining that things can get heated at times, but it’s all love at the end of the day.

“Emotions are just high,” Tranquill said, via The Athletic’s Jesse Newell. “We’re all competitive. We all want to win. And so we were just discussing what happened on the play, and emotions were just high.”

“Chris is a great player,” Tranquill added, via Newell. “I’m not sure what happened. I haven’t seen the tape over there. But we’re teammates, man. We’re brothers. It’s just an emotional moment. We’ve had it before in the past. That’s my guy. We’ll be all right. We’ll get better from it.”

How they respond to the performance in the loss to the Chargers will be key. Because if cooler heads and better execution don’t prevail against the Philadelphia Eagles next week, they could be staring an 0-2 start to the season right in the face.

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