FIRST TAKE | Stephen A. calls out Chiefs’ Chris Jones for Effort on Trevor Lawrence TD During MNF

FIRST TAKE | Stephen A. calls out Chiefs’ Chris Jones for Effort on Trevor Lawrence TD During MNF

And and here’s the thing, he’s not even getting off the ball. But here’s I can’t even give him the benefit of the doubt on that play because I saw earlier in the second half him allow Trevor Lawrence to run into the end zone on another touchdown in the red zone. Those types of plays, that kind of effort from your best player and one of your team leaders is absolutely unacceptable. And so you have to wonder at what point does complacency set in with the Kansas City Chiefs. Remember in the Mahomes era, they’ve played two months more of football than anybody else during that span when you consider those deep playoff runs. Yeah. So, I mean that has to be weighed when it comes to what we can expect from Kansas City for the remainder of the regular season. Now, I will say this, okay, first of all, Xavier Worthy, I don’t know that he’s all the way 100% healthy. And you’re right, we haven’t seen them all play together. That wasn’t an excuse last week with the Baltimore Ravens with a swollen ankle. I mean, this seems like a newish kind of injury. Anyways, as we go back to the defensive side of the ball and Chris Jones not doing what he’s expect, we’re over here always criticizing if Patrick Mahomes throws a pick six. Travis Kelce, the offense, the defense. I’m sorry, Chris Jones did not look like himself yesterday in prime time on a Monday game against a very good Jaguars team. Like, he deserves a little bit of the smoke for sure. And listen, he a loaf is a loaf. And and the and the problem is that’s your captain. Like that that’s And I mean, how many Super Bowlers have he has he closed out? It’s a dude now. He’s not just good for the Chiefs, he’s one of the best in our business. And so when you see a guy in a moment like that stop, not drive, not go in football from pee-wee on, it’s on defense. Pursue, pursue, pursue through the echo of the whistle. Stop before you go on. Y we owe it to the audience to read the quote that Chris Jones gave after the game. Okay, we’ve got to finish that play. It was a fluke play for him to be able to break that many tackles. I put it on us as a defense. We’ve got to finish. We’ve got to bring him down right there. Yeah. To we not by him. Now you can continue. I just want to make sure that everybody know you watched the video and then you saw the quote cuz we want to contextualize things properly on the first and that’s fair. And and again, he’s he’s this is the best in our business. And when you see a guy do that in that moment, and that’s what I was talking about why it was more of an indictment to me on the chief is it’s this are the guys who leave. So, think about it. Think about the hierarchy of a locker room. When you walk in, when I first walked in the Napapolis Colts, I watched Marvin Harrison practice that I’m going to practice like that guy. He’s in the Hall of Fame for a reason. He took every day like it was a game day, right? He was like, “Look, we get paid to practice. we play the games for free type idea, right? It’s those guys. So on the team as as the attrition of football happens and 33% of your team changes over, you go look at those guys. People watching that that that ain’t how we lead. And the problem right now is too many of their best players in marquee moments are not showing up. And listen, I I I think they will make the playoffs. I think this is still a very good team. In fact, I think they’ll probably win their division, right? But but I’m not measuring the Chiefs on making the playoffs. When you have the when you got that guy at quarterback and you got Spags and that defense, I’m measuring them winning the Super Bowl. When I see the best players make the or have the problems, this isn’t some young rookie left tackle. This is the guys like they got to make plays. Respectfully, I think what you’re breaking down is not enough. I think you need to tell us what you really really saying, both of you. And what I mean by that is this. Is it a matter of them losing it or is it a matter of arrogance? Yo, we ain’t worried about nothing because we know the playoffs is a new season and when we get there, we know what we can do. We know what we’re going to do because we’ve been to five of the last super six Super Bowls. Is it about performance in terms of ability or is it arrogance usurping their ability and that’s why we’re talking about them the way? No. Yeah, I I don’t think it’s arrogance. I I No, I do not. Cuz here’s it’s never like you don’t the the the last play you could talk about the loaf you know whatever that may be that could be a different conversation but like Momes getting picked getting tricked uh the Kelsey you know hitting him in the thing like hitting him in the hands and then Philly picking it off it’s it’s the details Bucker kicking the ball out of bounds when you got the lead like those are mistakes you can’t make when you are that team they’re too good to make those mistakes those are the ones that I I I don’t like seeing Yeah I don’t like seeing him either. And that’s why I lean toward complacency. Although, I will say there does feel to be a touch of organizational arrogance because of how special Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes are that they haven’t done enough around both of them to take full advantage of what they’re bringing to the table while you got them together in their prime. That’s separate in in a part. But when it comes to the performance on the field, when you have your leaders playing below the standard that you established over the last decade, that is a problem, Stephen A. And you have to ask the question why. And the only thing that I can lean on is the fact that they’ve been able to pull out of these no dives. They’ve seen seasons where they’ve started out three and four and found a way to win their division, found a way to get to the conference championship game, leaning on past experience and that proof of concept that they can do it. And the problem with that in the NFL is that every season is brand new. Yeah. And there is no guarantee that when you dig this early regular season hole, you’re going to be able to climb back up. Just I I I don’t I I I’m in no position to disagree with you. I just know that in all my years of covering sports, I’ve run across on many many occasions you going up against competition. Competition that you’ve owned and you make a lot of assumptions about what they’re going to do or what they’re not going to be able to do and that might compromise the level of urgency that you need to have. I’ve seen it. I’ve heard folks speak on it. I’ve heard I can’t even tell you how many times you you go into a locker room after a game, you talk to players before game. Yeah, we going to bust. You live in North Police. They ain’t ready. The brothers they ain’t got it. They ain’t, you know, and literally you have no concern and then all of a sudden they shock the world. I’ve seen that happen to teams that have been champions before. That’s all I’m saying. Yeah. I just would hope that the Kansas City Chiefs don’t have that mentality considering how it went down in the Super Bowl. But hey, I don’t know. Okay, so that’s the Chief side of it. Let’s go back to the Jags side of it because they did get a win last night and again they seem like they’re coming. They’ve established a run game. Their quarterback looks, I’ll call it better. Uh I already know Chris Kanty doesn’t trust Trevor Lawrence. I ain’t going to hit. I’ve heard him rant and rant about Daw. And so I’ll go to you Jeff Saturday. Do you trust Trevor Lawrence now after seeing the way he performed last year? I do. I And and listen, I trust him. Let me say it in the right way. I trust he with the relationship with Liam Cohen. I I think I think he and Cohen together will he will get Trevor Lawrence to the to the type of player that we expected when he was drafted. I don’t think this is immediate. I don’t think it’s fast. I think it’s a process. If you talk to, you know, Liam Cohen before the season, it was our defense is going to have to hold serve, keep us in games because our offense is brand new and we are, you know, we’re gonna have to learn this thing on the fly. Trevor Lawrence. How many coaches and offensive coordinators has this dude had in his years in the league? It is insane. And I understand there are excuses and there are reasons in life, right? And people can say, “Oh, you’re giving probably I am giving him a little bit of excuse, but because there’s good reason.” It is really difficult to run new offenses in the league week in and week out. And so he finally has stability. He has a coach who’s going to challenge him, call him into greatness, force him to do things now, like there are some errors he’s making. I don’t like that the the delay of games right now, but he’s also showing you that throw on the right side. He’s also showing the ability to pull the ball down, which, you know, Cohen wants him to do more because we see how it opens up the rest of the offense. He’ll he’ll figure this thing out. It does take time. his receivers will get on the same page with him. But I do trust Trevor Lawrence and I do I think this Jags team is going to be for real. Hey, their defense is for real. They can run the ball which takes pressure off. I like I like Lawrence going underneath. Turn this back to the defense some. I like what Cohen has going. I don’t I’m not going to use the word trust. I think it’s too strong and I don’t think he’s earned it. Oh, scared. You’re scared. Scared money don’t make money. Well, I’m not I’m not betting money. Okay. And that’s what you need.

FIRST TAKE | Stephen A. calls out Chiefs’ Chris Jones for Effort on Trevor Lawrence TD During MNF