Andy Reid Explains Chiefs' Self-Scouting, Areas for Improvement After Bye Week

Andy Reid dove into how the Chiefs used their bye week and which aspects of the game need to improve in the second part of the season.

Sep 29, 2024; Inglewood, California, USA; Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid on the sidelines in the second half against the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

The Kansas City Chiefs are back to work following their bye week and despite being 5-0 on the year, Andy Reid's team has plenty to iron out down the stretch of the season.

A handful of weeks into the year, the reigning Super Bowl champs have flirted with having a top-10 offense but continue to sit just outside that mark. Similar to the 2023-24 campaign, the Reid and Matt Nagy-led unit is closer to average than elite. The days of the high-flying, league-leading Kansas City attack have yet to return, but a combination of chain-moving drives on offense and clutch stops on defense has them undefeated anyway.

What did the Chiefs focus on during the bye? Reid explained the self-scouting process he and his staff constantly partake in, with the week off giving everyone more time to analyze what they need to do better moving forward.

“We actually have a continual self-scout that we do throughout there and then look at it and we’ve got areas to improve," Reid said. "I’m not necessarily going to go through those areas but there are things that we can definitely improve on, both sides of the ball, special teams. We were able to go back and look at some of that to be able to, offensively, to keep our drives going and things that can help us [and] sustain things that might have hurt those drives. Then, the obvious red zone questions, we kind of worked through that [to] make sure we’re a little bit more sound there. Defensively, we’re doing a pretty good job in most of the situational things. We’d had that first drive thing going we did a little better on, so we’re doing a pretty good job there. There are some things that Spags (Steve Spagnuolo) has got to work on with the guys. That’s kind of, in a nutshell, that was it.”

According to SumerSports, the Chiefs have the No. 13 offense in the NFL by EPA/play standards. They have the fourth-highest success rate, however, which is a testament to Reid's ability to scheme up a unit that can routinely churn out first downs. Even with an anemic passing offense held back by wide receiver injuries, inconsistent quarterback play and one of the lowest average depth of target marks in the sport, Kansas City runs the fifth-most plays per drive on average.

The red zone, as Reid mentioned, is what's killing them. On 18 trips there through five games, Kansas City has just seven touchdowns. That conversion rate ranks 29th in all of football entering Week 7's play. The culprit has varied in each situation, whether it be play-calling, quarterback execution, receiver mishaps or turnovers. Reid believes he can do better by putting his players in prime spots to succeed.

“Well, listen, we can do a better job of not stopping ourselves with things," Reid said. "Whether it’s penalties or dropped balls, we’ve had a couple of those. Schematically, we go back and we hammer through that. We can help out the guys in some of the areas, too, just putting them in a little bit better position. The things that are hurting us right now, which are obvious, but the penalty situation’s hurting us and we’ve got to take care of that. That’s something we can control, focus in on [and] do a better job with.”

The Chiefs' start can be viewed in a couple of different lights. On one hand, they've managed to overcome a bevy of injuries to win several close games already. On the other, they've brought most of their regular-season outings down to one score, the offense has some work to and this year's defense is a good, but maybe not great group. If Kansas City entered the postseason today, there could be a bit of cause for concern.

Luckily for Reid and company, they have nearly three months before the real season starts. There's tons of time to get as healthy as possible and fine-tune both sides of the ball. If there was ever an example of a team figuring it out late, it's the Chiefs of just last year.

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