The Kansas City Chiefs are set to make their sixth Super Bowl appearance against the San Francisco 49ers on February 11th; though in hindsight the team’s fourth Super Bowl appearance in the past five years seemed like a sure thing, head coach Andy Reid reveals that there was one particular matchup during the regular season that served as a definitive “wake-up call.”
“They came out with great emotion,” Reid told ProFootballTalk of the the Chiefs’ 20-14 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders on Christmas Day. “Antonio had them ready to go. But that emotion was the thing that jumped out at you, that they played with. I think it gave our guys a nice little — for [lack of] a better term — a wake-up call, that we need to step things up here, that things aren’t just going to fall in our lap.”
Following their surprise loss to the Raiders in Week 16, the Chiefs would go on to defeat the Bengals in Week 17 as well as the Los Angeles Chargers in the season’s final game. They then turned it up to knock the Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens from contention on their way to Super Bowl LVIII.
“We’re taking everybody’s best shot,” Reid continued, “and here’s a team that went through some adversity and they stepped up and were able to present themselves like they did. We were able to learn from it and move on. I felt all along, though, we had the ability to do that. We just, like I said, we needed a little kick in the tail there.”
Coach Reid, Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and the rest of the Chiefs squad will take on head coach Kyle Shanahan, Brock Purdy, Christian McCaffrey and the San Francisco 49ers on February 11th at Super Bowl LVIII at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.
What do you think of the fact that Andy Reid says Chiefs loss to Raiders in Week 16 was a wake-up call which helped them get to the Super Bowl? Do you think that loss was a wake-up call which helped the Chiefs turn up the rest of the season? Let us know in the comments.
