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<\/p>\nOn Friday, the Kansas City Chiefs will open their 2025 regular season in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil against the Los Angeles Chargers. Meeting with reporters before starting the week\u2019s practices on Sunday, head coach Andy Reid, quarterback Patrick Mahomes and cornerback Trent McDuffie shared their thoughts on the looming division opponent.<\/p>\n
Mahomes moved on to preparing for the Chargers immediately after Kansas City\u2019s final preseason game against the Chicago Bears \u2014 but after looking at the Week 1 game plan, the quarterback believes the coaching staff got there first.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think it\u2019s a good game plan,\u201d remarked the league\u2019s biggest star.\u00a0\u201cI think coaches have kind of been on it even before we finished that last preseason game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mahomes has a good feel for what Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter \u2014 whose unit allowed a league-low 301 points in 2024 \u2014 might bring, because Los Angeles could have been Kansas City\u2019s divisional round opponent last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I have a good feel for stuff they did last year,\u201d Mahomes noted.\u00a0\u201cYou play them twice, and then we had that [postseason] bye week. So, I was watching Chargers film with the possibility of playing them in the playoffs last year.\u00a0They\u2019re a good defense; they\u2019re a really good defense on every single level.\u00a0They have great players.\u00a0They\u2019re coached really well by Coach Minter, and they\u2019re going to come in with the right mentality.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s about us accepting the challenge, and I feel like we have a good game plan in so far.\u00a0We\u2019ll keep adding to that throughout the week, but you\u2019ve got to be able to execute on a play-by-play basis in order to move the football, because they will capitalize on all miscues and take advantage of their opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The biggest offseason question surrounding the Chiefs has been the team\u2019s young offensive line. A deep Chargers front seven led by veteran pass rusher Khalil Mack will be a good test.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think every step of the way so far,\u201d remarked Mahomes of his blockers, \u201cthey\u2019ve done a great job of getting better and better and kind of checking those boxes, and so this will be a great test for them.\u00a0This is a prolific D-line with Khalil Mack \u2014 and really all [the others].\u00a0They have depth at edge and at D-tackle \u2014 and they were one of the best defenses in the league this last year.\u00a0So, it\u2019ll be another test for [our] guys \u2014 and I\u2019m excited for them to go out there, accept the challenge and showcase who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reid identified Mack \u2014 along with safety Derwin James \u2014 as difficult players to plan for.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a zone team,\u201d observed the coach, \u201cbut the zones are tight, and they have a bunch of different combinations.\u00a0Plus, they can play man \u2014 and they do that well \u2014 but the way their zones are, they do a heck of a job with that. You can see why they were ranked so high.\u00a0They\u2019re trying not to give up the big play, obviously, but at the same time, [making offenses] be unable to attack underneath.\u00a0They\u2019ve got good speed on the defense, and those front guys \u2014 52 [Mack] is heck of a player and that number 3 [James] is not bad, either.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Chiefs will be playing without wideout Rashee Rice, who will be starting a six-game suspension. Mahomes knows losing Rice\u2019s talents is a blow, but he trusts that general manager Brett Veach has built a receiver room that can overcome the third-year pro\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n
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\u201cObviously,\u201d said Mahomes, \u201closing a receiver of that magnitude \u2014 [who is] that good \u2014 it takes away from the offense in a sense. At the same time, Veach and [his staff] have brought in a lot of receiver depth so that guys can step up and take over that role in different spots.\u00a0It won\u2019t be just one guy. It\u2019ll be multiple guys that will do some of the stuff that Rashee has done. Then, other guys will step up at other spots and make plays as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
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On the other side of the ball, McDuffie noted the Chargers\u2019 strong running attack. In the passing game, there is no doubt they are built around second-year receiver Ladd McConkey, who remains less familiar to Kansas City than we might expect.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, we only played him once,\u201d McDuffie reminded his listeners.\u00a0\u201cHe was hurt that second time we played them, so we really don\u2019t have [a lot of] film on him\u2026 The things that I\u2019ve seen, I really like how he plays: his space [and his] separation out of the breaks. [He runs] really good routes \u2014 and you can just tell his timing with Justin Herbert over the course of the year really got better and better.\u00a0So he\u2019s a really good receiver \u2014 and I think it\u2019s going to be a really good challenge for us on the back end to go out there and see what we\u2019re about.\u201d<\/p>\n
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However the Chargers attack the Chiefs, McDuffie knows he and his teammates will have their hands full.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they do really good at just running their offense,\u201d he noted, \u201cand not caring what the defense throws at them.\u00a0They\u2019re really well-coached. I think they\u2019re going to be a really good challenge for us \u2014 to go out there Week 1, be able to stop the run and make plays on the back end.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday, the Kansas City Chiefs will open their 2025 regular season in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil against the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064],"tags":[501,241,391,4919,7,10097,1159,118,110,3278,470,1014,262,2444,2443,6,499,4000,4223],"class_list":{"0":"post-332568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-chargers","8":"tag-andy-reid","9":"tag-chargers","10":"tag-chicago-bears","11":"tag-derwin-james","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-jesse-minter","14":"tag-justin-herbert","15":"tag-kansas-city","16":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs","17":"tag-khalil-mack","18":"tag-ladd-mcconkey","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-losangeleschargers","23":"tag-nfl","24":"tag-patrick-mahomes","25":"tag-rashee-rice","26":"tag-trent-mcduffie"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115127554398077204","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}