“We wanted to get a play off right there”.
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With three minutes left, Alex Smith completed a 19-yard pass to Albert Wilson to put the ball on the Patriots’ one-yard line, but the Chiefs ran just one more play before the two-minute warning. Between Manning and Brady and Palmer, the average age is 37.7; every one of them heads into next weekend with the recognition that time may not afford them many more chances. So when Charles went down with a season ending injury in Week 5 against the Bears, it seemed like the offense was in deep trouble. According to the drive finder at Pro Football Reference, there have been 2,111 drives in NFL games since 1998 in which the team with the ball trailed by 9-17 points (in other words, they needed to score a couple of times but weren’t totally out of it) with less than seven minutes left.
“You have anywhere from a minute on, after an onside kick, you have time to tie the game”. But you want to give it your best shot, [use] your best plays down in there.
It was a frustrating result for Chiefs fans, and it’s understandably easy to point fingers at Reid and criticize, especially when clock management has always been an issue for him.
“I could tell the Philly media was up in the booth”, Reid said with a smile.
The stadium erupted in cheers of “Brady!” – just as it had four months ago when the four-time Super Bowl champion returned from his looming “Deflategate” suspension to play in the season opener.
Remember that whole “time management” problem? “We’ll be a better team for it next year”.
With Reid calling the plays, he didn’t rush getting them to quarterback Alex Smith, who incredibly at times relayed them to the offense in a huddle. “It was a little different in my situation coming here, because we were all released”.
Eagles fans warned Chiefs fans about this when Andy Reid was hired.
“You can’t take it for granted because everybody knows how hard it is to get there”, said Edelman, who was sidelined with a broken foot when the Patriots lost four of their last six regular-season games. I feel when this playoff game is done the team from MO with a lot of MO mentum will be the talk of the league after another playoff victory on the road.
“My hat’s off to the Patriots – what a great job they have done this year”, Reid said after New England’s 27-20 victory.
“We potentially would’ve had three timeouts and an opportunity to drive the field, which I thought was huge”, Reid said. “When it was all said and done, we probably got just what we thought we’d get out of him”.
The game was relatively close until the third quarter, when RB Knile Davis of the Chiefs fumbled after catching a pass deep in Patriots territory.
Reid stressed the importance of securing the homefield to his players on the flight home from New England.
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But as with any coach, you have to take the good with the bad, and it’s smart to step back and take a look at the big picture.
