The Kansas City Chiefs completed quite the comeback against the Houston Texans in the AFC Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs. To no surprise, head coach Bill O'Brien is taking plenty of flak for his team's collapse in the 51-31 loss.
Among the notable decisions he made was to call a fake punt that fell short of the first down and allowed the Chiefs' offense to run up the score once again. Head coach Andy Reid feels it was actually a good decision for the Texans' leader on the sidelines to make at that point in the game, via Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk:
“I thought Bill did a nice job with that. That was an opportune time to call that. People are going to be upset, but form a coaching standpoint, it was an inch away,” Reid said. “That wasn’t a bad call at all there.”
There is certainly plenty of truth to Reid's comments. The Texans head coach would have been credited with a good play call if Houston secures a first down. Unfortunately, they fell just inches shy this time around and it came back to haunt them.
Regardless, it is difficult to envision a situation where that would have helped swing the momentum of the game back in their favor. That all disappeared as soon as the Chiefs scored 28 unanswered points in a matter mere minutes during the second quarter.
Although Reid may be defending O'Brien's play-calling, it will be difficult for him to match all the criticisms he will face this offseason for Houston's shortcomings in the 2019 NFL season.
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