Andy Reid Roundup: Recounting what happened Sunday night, plus more on the facemask penalty

Reid held his usual Zoom call on Monday.

Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid met with the media via Zoom on Monday, less than 16 hours after the team’s 23-20 win over the New York Jets on “Sunday Night Football.”

Listen to the full presser above or by clicking here.

Reid began by saying the team has plenty to correct after the close victory. He also complimented the defense for “buckling up” midway though the game, eventually allowing the offense to milk the last seven minutes from the clock.

Then Reid took questions, which we have rounded up in four takeaways:

Recounting the game, Reid pointed to the turnovers as to why it became such a contest.

The Chiefs had a 17-0 lead on Sunday night, but everything changed when right tackle Jawaan Taylor was called for a facemask penalty in the end zone.

“We jumped out and we were moving and then we get backed up there, and that’s where the problem started. Then field position kind of changed, the interceptions — the two — the turnovers took place, and we gave them an opportunity and that’s what they needed. I mean, we let that old saying [happen]: ‘You let them up when they’re down.’”

In what has become rare for the reigning MVP, Mahomes threw two bad interceptions to Jets’ defenders.

“We knew going in that you couldn’t turn the ball over,” continued Reid. “We knew that, and then that happened and then we had to kind of regain ourselves and that’s a hard thing to do in the National Football League — [to] regain it from that position. When you’re up, down, now you gotta get back up again in the second half. They came out, they scored with the first possession.”

Somehow, the Chiefs stayed in the game, battling back to reverse all the momentum on the road.

“I thought our defense put the hammer down there and, even with a couple of times, not great field position. That kind of recharged everything, and then [Isiah] Pacheco and some of his runs and then Pat had a couple of nice throws in there and the O-line got rolling and it got out of the little funk that we had going — and so it finished up good.

“Hard place to play and a hard way to win a game. But you’ve gotta be able to do that and we were, we were able to able to do it. We just need to get rid of the other stuff in between and we’ll be better off.”

Reid commended Patrick Mahomes for keeping his head in the game despite the bad decisions.

On occasion, Mahomes will have a game in which he makes a couple bad plays, and Sunday night was one of them. That never stopped him from trying to make plays.

Mahomes noted he was trying to be too greedy with the football on the picks on Sunday night.

“He knows better than anybody when that happens, and he came up afterward and just said, ‘Hey, listen, I gotta check it down there or run it’ — and so he did that. He did that a little bit more of the second half,” said Reid.

In those tough moments, the head coach continuously tells Mahomes to “keep firing.”

“If they’re competitive, they feel more than more than anybody,” said Reid of Mahomes. “My point is, ‘You do what got you there and that’s attacking — and if you need to check it down as part of the attack, check it down.’”

Reid wanted Mahomes to adjust to the Jets’ defensive looks.

“They’re settling deep, just check it down and keep firing, keep going,” he said. “We got a lot of game left to play. He’s positive that way, He knows all of that. And he’ll normally say something to me before I say something to him. I think you’ve got to keep firing.”

Reid was asked about the safety that turned the game’s tide.

It sounds like the referees initially provided Reid with mixed information.

“So originally, I got facemask but holding,” he recalled. “He was holding in the end zone it looked like. It looked like he had his face mask partially in there too, but that’s where that’s what happened. They review all, they review all that stuff too.”

After a review, the officials let the call on the field stand, awarding the Jets two points and the ball. Everybody knows what happened next.

Reid has liked the results of the four-minute offense.

The Chiefs have been able to ice two games this year: Week 2 away against the Jacksonville Jaguars and now Week 4 away against the New York Jets.

“We do work on it quite a bit,” said Reid of that situation, “at training camp and then we work on it every week, on Friday — and we’ve done that in the past too, so that’s not something that’s new. But I think the guys up front are blocking nice. Coach [Andy] Heck’s got some good runs there that he’s put together — and then Pacheco and really all three of them — Pacheco, [Clyde Edwards-Helaire], [Jerick McKinnon], they’re all running hard and good.

“They’re seeing things, so it’s been a positive thing — that combination. And you could probably include the tight ends because they’re in on a lot of those.”

The experience will be key as the Chiefs begin their division schedule and play better teams in the conference down the stretch.