Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid met with reporters via Zoom after the team’s training session on Sunday morning.
As part of Phase Two and the NFL’s startup period unique to this entire season, Chiefs players wore helmets and refurbished shirts, but have yet to participate in offensive-on-defense drills. That will come later this week.
At that point, Reid will begin to get his team in game form.
“We’ll bring them in pads first,” Reid explained. “There’s also a refurbishment part of it, where we’ll keep them short in pads, and then we’ll build there until our normal two-and-a-half hours on the field, which’s in CBA rules And then we’ll touch every situation we can think of – I’m sure there’s going to be something you don ‘t think about, but for the most part we’ll have taken care of everything situational, and we I’ll “We do some other drills that work on your team type; we normally do that too.”
In a normal year – without a COVID-19 pandemic – the Chiefs would give themselves up for their first precision game. The Chiefs were originally scheduled to host the Cincinnati Bengals this Saturday before the NFL and NFLPA agreed to nix the press season.
They will not have that game – or a practice match for that matter. But Reid notes that there are some positives to the slower transition.
“You can learn,” Reid said. ‘You can walk through it. Well, we can carry it through, and then we’ll finally get into pads. And there’s no fun in the action – there has not been that month where boys have put it aside and then they come back and they are equal in the mix, so I see that , for now, as a positive thing. Everyone would love the offseason, but that’s not what it’s. The positive is that we get all that work inside. The boys were so receptive.
‘You can tell they’ve paid attention to the Zoom, which can be tricky when you’re home, and some of these guys have kids, so you’ve run the little ones and that’s juggling you. But their retention has been great and they have worked, so we appreciate that. “
Match schedule (more here)
• July 31 – August 8: Acclimation period. 60 minutes in the weight room and 60 minutes of conditioning on the field are allowed. Teams may also advance in the first four days by 60 minutes and 75 minutes in the last four days. August 5 will be a mandated day.
• August 9 – August 13: Slowly rising period. Practices begin with a 90-minute session on August 9, and can increase by 15 minutes per day to a maximum of 120 minutes. The rest of the team’s allowed time of 3.5 hours can be used for walking tours. Helmets will be allowed – and shells can be worn early August 11th – but no live contact will be allowed. August 12 will be a mandated day.
• August 14 – September 3: Padded practices. A total of 14 padded practices will be allowed during this 21-day period.
• August 16: Deadline for cutting the roster to 80. Despite the number of players in that position then, the Chiefs will only have 80 in supply at a time.
• Saturday, September 5: Final cut. All teams must get their rosters to 53 players. As usual, Top 51 rules will no longer apply; the salaries of all players on the roster will count against the salary cap. 16 players will be allowed on team teams, named after the cut. Four players in each practice team can be protected from stumbling from week to week.
The Chiefs are currently monitoring everything they have done through virtual meetings.
“We have four practices here without pads and we should be OK,” Reid assured. ‘We should be able to cover all the situations we normally cover, which is important in this day and age of football – situational football, because margin between win and loss is very important, so we concentrate on it and make sure we get that took care of that, but at the same time we got the boys in football band, where they can maintain four quarters.
“You’re probably behind by reps you had in the offseason, but otherwise we could catch up on some of that.”
For Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the hardest part is not knowing what comes next.
“I think it’s just the uncertainty – the uncertainty of every day, coming in and not knowing exactly the routine you were always used to,” Mahomes explained. “I find it a good challenge to have – deal with adversity early in the season, early even in the off-season, try to accept that and try to come out better on the other side.
“I think it’s going to be challenging for everyone in this league, but I’m excited about the challenge of trying to go out and show the world that we can do it the right way if we do it the safe way. . ”
While the Chiefs missed offseason reps without organized team activities (OTAs), that gave Mahomes time for more film review – something Reid said he took full advantage of.
‘This has been a big offseason for that, where we could go team by team and look at the different ways they try to work against you, picking things out from the year before when you had the chance to play and see those teams with different looks give you, ”said Reid. ‘I thought that assessment process, where you could do nothing else, we could do that kind of thing – which was beneficial to him.
‘You know how wired he is. He focuses on things and you give him a task, he digs in and works through it. I think that helped him. Again, we have big defensive thoughts in this league, so these guys put together these unique looks for him, and he’s able to see through that, because it’s a bit slow here with the offseason and the power through it. At the same time, he knows he will get some more new looks. But that’s kind of how you build your quarterback resume as you go. It takes a couple of three to four years to get everything down, and then you roll. ‘
The challenges of 2020 are abundant, but the Chiefs are taking them in stride.
