There was no Travis Kelce. There was no Chris Jones.
There were no excuses from Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid following his team’s 21-20 loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday night — the franchise’s first season-opening defeat since 2014.
“No excuses, at all,” Reid told reporters after the game of the impact of Kelce’s absence. “We’ve got guys that can play that are right there to take care of business, and [the Lions] got us on special teams to continue the drive, they got us on the tipped ball. Listen, it’s unusual for the guys that dropped the ball to drop the ball, that’s not what I’ve seen from them, and I wouldn’t expect them to do that. So, you do that, you take care of business there, and we’ll be alright.”
Reid referenced two of the biggest plays of the night for the Lions: converting a fake punt from their 17-yard line to continue what would be the game’s first scoring drive and rookie Brian Branch’s 50-yard interception return for a touchdown in the third quarter.
However, it was largely the Chiefs’ uncharacteristic struggles on offense that plagued the team. Kansas City was shut out of the end zone in the second half and held to 316 yards of offense in the game.
“There were some good things on offense, we’ve just got to be more consistent,” Reid said. “I’ll take that, I’ll take the offensive part of this, we did have some good plays in there, but disappointing loss, good football team that we lost to. We’ve got to play better, we’ve got to coach better, so that’s what we’ll do.”