Andy Reid roundup: Patrick Mahomes, Orlando Brown Jr. and the attitude moving forward

In his Monday presser, Reid discussed Patrick Mahomes, Orlando Brown Jr. and how this team turns it around.

Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid met with the media over Zoom conference call Monday, less than 24 hours after the team’s 27-3 loss to the Tennesee Titans.

Listen to the full presser above or by clicking here (it’s also on Spotify).

In his opening statement, Reid highlighted penalties and turnovers as the problems that need to be addressed immediately. Reid said the Chiefs need to be better about taking care of the football while forcing some turnovers of their own.

Then the head coach took questions. Here are four takeaways:

Reid explained what quarterback Patrick Mahomes might have been talking about after the loss to Tennessee.

Mahomes once again noted that he was pressing, missed open receivers and might have scrambled too soon from clean pockets.

The Titans getting out to such an early lead in the game did not help some of those mistakes.

“[The Titans have] a good defensive front, and we put ourselves in a position where we had to throw the ball,” said Reid. “You do that against a good defensive front, there will be some pressure — you got to work through it, and then he’ll get out of the pocket and do what he does. I can only tell you that we all need to get better on this. It’s always good to get after the quarterback or get after a specific area. It’s not one thing right now. It’s a handful or two handfuls of things that we’ve got to get straight. And that’s coaching, and that’s playing.

“Without going into a whole lot of detail because we still got a lot of games here to play, the obvious, I think, is what you guys can see, and that’s got to be fixed. If it’s fixed, you’ll have a chance to win every football game. If it’s not fixed, then you’re going to struggle.”

Reid broke down why left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. struggled in the game.

The starting left tackle allowed five pressures, including three quarterback hits and 2.0 sacks in the loss.

“They had a good plan on us,” said Reid. “They pushed the pocket on the right side — on the quarterback’s throwing arm — and then they worked, at times, 10 to 11 yards around the corner, which, once you work the quarterback’s right arm, you can’t step up, so now he’s deep, and you work around the corner.

“That’s a couple that Orlando got beat on there, were deep and around the horn. So we got to go back and make sure we handle the on-side right, and then Orlando can do some things with his set to make it even better there.”

Understanding the rut they are in, Reid described the players’ attitude after the game.

When the Chiefs are on the road, they travel back to Kansas City immediately after the game. Reid painted the scene after the blowout in Tennessee.

“I thought one of the positives was on the plane — all the guys have these iPads now,” said Reid. “So on the plane, they all had the game on. They were all looking at the game in the back of the plane. It wasn’t the loud music or whatever you can perceive that goes on. This was focused on trying to get better and looking at it. Curious to see what went wrong. So I can handle that.

“That normally tells you you have a pretty strong locker room, and we need that right now. That’s what we need. We need strong coaches and coaching, and we need a good, solid, strong locker room. So I felt guys want to do the right thing. We just got to make sure that we’re putting them in a position to do it — and then when they’re out there, they execute it the right way and then make a play.”

Reid noted the team’s effort never waned despite the Chiefs being down by three or four scores for most of the game.

The film won’t lie — and upon re-watching, Reid saw his players continuing to battle through the end of the game.

“That was one thing I thought was good,” he said. “You see a lot of teams just tank in the second half. I didn’t see that. I saw guys busting their tails to get the job done. We were off. And you’re playing a good football team; you cannot be off. That’s the bottom line. We have to figure out a way to do that. That’s what we’ve done in the past. We’ve been able to do that, and so we’ve got to keep urgency up in practice and the right frame of mind when we’re playing the game to get that done. That, again, comes back to what you’ve got [in] coaches and what you’ve got in the locker room. But that urgency’s got to be there.”

Though it predates Mahomes, the Chiefs have been in a bad position under Andy Reid before. In 2015, Reid and Alex Smith’s Chiefs dug out a 1-5 hole to win 10 straight and entered the postseason 11-5.

Reid detailed how such a turnaround can happen when the team simply isn’t playing well.

“You got to stick together first, and then you got to practice the right way, and then you got to transfer that onto the playing field,” he said. “Coaches have to make sure that they keep trying to put their players in the best possible position that they can to make plays. There’s got to be a universal joint effort that takes place to do that. Unless you’re doing that and feeling that, then it doesn’t change around. That’s how that goes. So we’ve got to make sure we’re all pulling the same direction there and getting it done.”