The Kansas City Chiefs are riding an 11-game winning streak when they come to Foxborough, Massachusetts, for Saturday’s divisional-round game and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady says the Chiefs “force you into a lot of bad football.”
Brady noticed the Chiefs making five turnovers while watching Kansas City roll to a 30-0 win over the Houston Texans in Saturday’s AFC wild-card game.
“I think you can learn a lot from it, even though it was 30-0,” Brady said Monday on the “Dennis & Callahan Show” on WEEI radio in Boston. “Obviously Houston didn’t play very well, but Kansas City forced them into a lot of bad football. But that’s what I think Kansas City has done a great job of all year. They’ve forced teams, whoever they’ve played down the stretch — they’ve won 11 straight — all of them into making a lot of bad plays.
“If you watch that game a couple days ago, that’s really how they’ve won most of their games. They look all very similar. A lot of offensive mistakes. I think Kansas City does a great job of protecting the ball and taking advantage of opportunities. They’ve got a good rush, they’ve got a good front, and they just force the offense into making a lot of mistakes, and that’s kind of the mark of a good team. That’s why they’re at this point.”
The Chiefs beat the Patriots 41-14 in a similar fashion in Week 4 of the 2014 season in a Monday night game. Brady compared that blowout loss to Saturday’s win by the Chiefs.
“I think, exactly what I just described is how we played them last year,” Brady said Monday. “Exactly how they won against Houston is exactly how they beat us. They force you into a lot of bad football and they’ve got guys offensively that can control the clock, they run the ball a lot. They have a very good quarterback that plays very efficiently. That’s what they did to us.
“It’s kind of a winning formula for them. That’s been a winning formula for a long time. They play very good defense, they rush the quarterback, they get ahead, they play on their terms, they do a lot of things defensively and schematic-wise that present problems for the offense. And if you get a little hesitant back there as a quarterback, they force you into mistakes.”
Brady said he is hopeful that wide receiver Julian Edelman will be back for Saturday’s game at Gillette Stadium. Edelman has not played since breaking a bone in his left foot on Nov. 15.
“I hope so. He’s been working pretty hard at it,” Brady said. “We’ll see as the week goes. No one knows at this point. We’re still plenty of days away. No one’s worked harder than [Edelman]. If he is, that would be huge. If he’s not, then we’ve got to continue to find ways to win anyway.”
Reid ready for Belichick
Saturday’s meeting between the Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots will not be the first time Andy Reid has gone head-to-head, or coach-to-coach, against Bill Belichick in the NFL postseason.
Reid’s Eagles played Belichick’s Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX, with New England beating Philadelphia 24-21 in Jacksonville on February 6, 2005. It was the third of the four championships won by the Patriots under Belichick. It was Reid’s only trip to the title game as a head coach.
“They are doing a phenomenal job,” Reid said of Belichick and the Patriots. “Bill is a friend and he’s a heckuva football coach. Tom Brady is unbelievable. Both of them are future Hall of Famers. They’ve made history.”
The Chiefs and Patriots played each other last season, with Reid’s team grabbing a convincing 41-14 victory on Monday night. Belichick yanked Brady early in the fourth quarter when safety Husain Abdullah grabbed an interception and returned it 39 yards for a touchdown. That gave the Chiefs a 34-point lead with 10 minutes, 34 seconds to play. There is not much for the Chiefs to carry forward from that performance, especially given that this Saturday’s game will be played in Foxborough, not Kansas City.
“That was then and this is now,” said Reid. “We’ve got guys playing now that were watching that on TV. You just prepare for the team you’ll face in 2016.”