Kansas City Chiefs

Andy Reid might be biggest thing holding back the Chiefs

Published Sep. 22, 2015 2:37 p.m. ET

foxsports

By Matt Belman

While Andy Reid has earned and maintained respect for years throughout NFL circles for his drafting, scouting and coaching ability, his play calling has always been something critics have pointed at as the reason he never won a Super Bowl as the head honcho of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Now in a new environment with all the control he could ever want, Reid’s play calling has never come under more scrutiny than during last Thursday’s epic home collapse against the Denver Broncos. After going up two touchdowns with just over two minutes left in the first half, Kansas City gave up a touchdown and with Denver having no timeouts, instead of running the ball and sending his squad into halftime with a touchdown lead, Reid decided to get cute and throw on Kansas City’s next two plays. Aqib Talib was having none of this and picked off Alex Smith’s second attempt, setting up Denver to tie the game before half.

In a game filled with personal foul penalties and stupid mistakes, Reid still had his Chiefs in a position to win the game with just under two minutes left. Leave it to big Andy, however, to some how screw things up. After Knile Davis scored the go ahead touchdown, Kansas City changed their defensive scheme and let Denver drive down to score the game tying touchdown with close to 30 seconds left. In what was probably the worst call of the year, with 7 seconds left, instead of just taking a knee and sending the game to overtime, Reid got cute, again, and gave the ball on a draw to Jamaal Charles who promptly fumbled the rock right into a defender’s arms and watched him walk into the end zone to seal the game for Denver in what was an epic collapse for Kansas City.

While no one is questioning Reid’s abilities, his play calling must be heavily scrutinized as he essentially gave away a division home game against the Chiefs biggest rival. While I believe this loss can be a blessing in disguise for the up and coming Chiefs, it is on Reid to get control of the play calling duties and put his team in the best position to win games. Kansas City can go into Green Bay next Monday night and beat the Packers based on their talent. They cannot, however, overcome horrible play calling and expect to beat the best teams in the NFL. It won’t happen and Reid is living in a shell if he thinks it will. Week 3 at Green Bay will tell us a lot about who the Chiefs really are in this crazy NFL landscape and it is up to their head man, Andy Reid, to put his team in a position to steal a game from a team that has not lost at home in over 10 games.

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