Kadarius Toney’s offside gaffe has dominated the NFL conversation over the course of the week for good reason.
But while the Chiefs are moving on and putting their focus toward beating the Patriots on Sunday afternoon, the club hasn’t just dismissed the penalty that wiped off a critical Kansas City touchdown late in the loss to Buffalo.
“I think it’s a good teaching moment for all of us — for me as a coordinator, for all of us as coaches, for KT,” offensive coordinator Matt Nagy said in his Thursday press conference. “Obviously, none of it was intentional. I think that’s the frustrating part for all of us, is in a moment like that, you know KT didn’t do that maliciously or intentionally. It’s a big moment in the game, but it is what it is, and we’ve got to learn from that.”
Nagy said the Chiefs have to understand what went wrong and use that to their benefit, while also knowing “this isn’t about one person winning and losing a game.”
Instead, Nagy continued, Kansas City has to get back to finishing things off when there’s an opportunity to do so.
“Whether it’s the four-minute or the two-minute, behind or winning — we need to do that, we need to finish it,” Nagy said. “We can get caught up in being offsides and the play that was taken back, but let’s not get caught up on second-and-15, third-and-15, and fourth-and-15. We have a chance with a 1:12, with two timeouts down three, we’re going to at worst tie the game we need to go down and win the game. We didn’t do that, that’s the thing we have to take from this.
“If we want to be a championship, Super Bowl-level team, there’s got to be a mindset of finishing. It’s not a criticism, it’s just where we’re at.”
Nagy pointed out that the Chiefs have built leads against teams like the Jets and Dolphins but then haven’t been able to continue scoring, in large part because of penalties and turnovers. Those are the things that must change for Kansas City in the season’s remaining weeks.
“Let’s put it all together these next four games starting with New England and let’s get a win, everything else will take care of itself,” Nagy said. “We need to be hard on ourselves as coaches, players need to do it, this is where I think real leaders step up. This is where it’s about us, it’s not about anyone else. If you can’t be a professional about this as a coach or as a player you shouldn’t be in this profession.”
