for us, in particular last year,” Veach said. “We have a special thing brewing here and I think everyone wants to keep this thing rolling.”The Chiefs also have a decision to make with fellow outside linebacker Justin Hous

It’s our Monday column Dustin Colquitt Jersey , The Re-Up. In this column, I’ll write about some deeper thought I had about the last game and finish with some fun stuff to ponder at the article’s end. Check out last week’s column here.David Butler II-USA TODAY SportsThe Kansas City Chiefs were down four safeties, two outside linebackers, a right guard, a center and a kick returner. Two of those missing players—safety Eric Berry and linebacker Justin Houston—are among the team’s best over the past decade or so.The game was played in Foxborough, Massachusetts—the unfriendly confines of Gillette Stadium, to be exact—and the Chiefs were up against the greatest head coach-quarterback tandem of all-time in Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.In addition to all that, the Patriots weren’t called for one single penalty the entire evening.“They only lost by three, we should be happy!” one of your friends or family members likely said to you, a diehard Chiefs supporter, over the past 20 or so hours.But should you be all that happy? Come with me to hypothetical la-la land, and let’s throw out the score in the fourth quarter of Sunday night’s game for a second. If I told you, based upon what you knew prior to Sunday night, that Patrick Mahomes was to get the ball with a little more than three minutes remaining down seven points against the Patriots, what would be your thought? It would probably be to tie the damn game no matter what, but while doing so, leave as little time as possible on the clock for Brady to beat you.The Chiefs got it half-right, and Brady knew it immediately.Rather than working in anything methodical, the Chiefs offense performed as we’ve become accustomed to seeing it perform since the beginning of this season.It went into overdrive, and a 12-second, 75-yard touchdown play tied the game at 40. The only problem was that there were still three minutes and three seconds left on the clock.“I’m glad when he was running – Tyreek was running to score – I said, ‘Good, score quick.’” Brady said after the game Rashad Fenton Kansas City Chiefs Jerseys , “because then we had enough time. They had one timeout left, and it gave us a little time to go down and kick the field goal.”And of course it did—we had only watched the end of that movie for two decades.But since I know I’m being nit-picky here and asking the Chiefs to have considered, in a way, taking their foot off the gas, let’s bring the score back into the mix.Mahomes and the Chiefs scored 40 points on the night. FORTY.Loss.To the Chiefs’ defensive locker room we go...“(Next time) we’ll definitely have [Justin Houston] back and that will be a turning factor that they will have to worry about,” rookie linebacker Breeland Speaks said following what was his first career start. “I feel like we’ll be ready for them. They had 10 days to prepare—when it’s an even field I feel like we’re going to get the job done.”Those words are laced with all kinds of uncertainty. For all the struggles that we have seen in the Chiefs defense this year—they now have a stranglehold on No. 32 in the league by allowing 468.2 yards per game and 500 Sunday night—one thing defensive coordinator Bob Sutton has said that has consistently stuck with me is the concept of the “team being the team.”The idea is that yes, starting safeties Ron Parker and Jordan Lucas was 100 percent never the plan, but s-it happens in the NFL, and sometimes you have to start the backups. When they are on the field, they are the team.Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY SportsThere are no guarantees that Houston comes back fully healthy this year, just like there are no guarantees Dee Ford stays healthy. How about this?—maybe Houston comes back fine, but someone else goes down with an injury. Maybe Daniel Sorensen has a setback. Maybe a right guard who you thought you’d see back in a few weeks won’t be back this season at all.What I’m saying here is that all you have is the moment in front of you. The Chiefs may never get another crack at Brady ever again—and I’m not saying that will necessarily be because the Chiefs fall off. Maybe the Patriots do. Maybe Brady calls it a career after the season.Maybe Brady-Mahomes is a one-time deal. You just never know in the NFL.Coming close in Foxborough was fun and fantastic—but at the end of the day, it was just a glorified loss. Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, a staunch advocate of what’s real, does not believe in the term.“I’m not a big ‘moral victory’ guy, as much as I am a, ‘Learn from what you’ve got to better yourself’ guy,” Reid said Monday. “We [need to] just stay on that, and get better the next week. I don’t care who’s in there — I really don’t care. Get your stuff together and let’s go play, and get ourselves better. You come in here and look at the tape, you bear down on it, and be as honest as you can be. I say this to the coaches — and myself — too. Be as honest as you can be on it — and learn from it — and then let’s get better. Let’s do that collectively.”Reid has been in this game long enough to have 20 seasons of moral victories. You know what matters to him? The victories.STAT OF THE GAMEGIF OF THE GAMETWEET(s) OF THE GAMEFIVE QUOTES1. Patrick Mahomes on whether the go-ahead touchdown was to Tyreek Hill or Kareem Hunt: “A magician never reveals his tricks. So I’ll just leave it at that.”2. Bill Belichick on time management, ball control and the Patriots having the game’s final chance at the win: “We talk about it every week. Again Kansas City Chiefs Jerseys 2019 , each situation is a little bit different based on time, timeouts and score and so forth. But this one ended up playing out good for us. We had the final possession. We had the final opportunity and we made it. Josh [McDaniels] called a great game. We had great execution on that drive by a lot of different people. But we work on that stuff every week. Both ways – if they had had it, if we had it, need a touchdown, need a field goal, so forth. We try to be prepared for that.”3. Chiefs TE Travis Kelce on whether the Chiefs scored too quickly: “Not at all, we have full trust in our defense. It is just hats off to the other team for making plays.”4. Chiefs LB Breeland Speaks on what he thought of the Patriots offense: “Gadgety, exactly what we expected. We knew they were going to attack our weak points, they got a little on us on the run. But we feel like we will be back for them. We got to stop what they were killing us on and that’s the run.”5. Patriots CB Jason McCourty on Patrick Mahomes: “He is going to be special. We are looking at a rookie quarterback who goes out in the first half of the game throws two picks, and did not blink at all. He came out and played his game and was able to get on the edge a few times, make big plays and we knew as a defense if we could limit those big plays, that would give us the best chance of not letting the ball go over our head. He was everything we saw in film.” THE BIG THOUGHTPhoto by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty ImagesCall me crazy, but I liked that Patriots fans are so angry with Tyreek Hill that they opted to douse him with beer. Now before you jump down my throat, hear me out. The Hill moment reminded me so much of when Raiders fans did the same exact thing to Chiefs legend Jamaal Charles back in 2013, when the Chiefs won 56-31 in Oakland. I don’t like the action, at all—no one deserves to get beer poured on them, but the feeling that no matter where they go, the Chiefs are now the villains—that’s what I like. A quarterback of Patrick Mahomes’ caliber and the offense that came with him have created a target. Fan bases of the old guard—such as the New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers and Denver Broncos—will not take kindly to the passing of the torch. We have now already seen that in both New England and Denver this season.POLL OF THE WEEK The Kansas City Chiefs are placing the franchise tag on outside linebacker Dee Ford after the best season of his career, though that could be just the first step in their dealings with him.The decision was made on Saturday, a person familiar with it told The Associated Press, three days before the league’s deadline for franchising players. But the Chiefs have discussed signing Ford to a long-term deal, and they are open to trade possibilities as they switch their base defenses.The person spoke to The AP on condition of anonymity because the move was not finalized as the paperwork awaited filing. ESPN.com was first to report the Chiefs had made the decision.The franchise tag for an outside linebacker next season is just over $15.4 million Infant Rashad Fenton Jersey , a number the Chiefs could easily fit under the salary cap. But general manager Brett Veach has made it clear since taking over last year that he is open to making any moves that help the overall club.That could mean a long-term contract — the deadline for doing that with a franchise player is July 15 — or trading away one of the league’s top pass rushers.“He had an outstanding season. He was at the top of his game,” Veach said during his year-end discussion with reporters. “When we drafted Dee a few years ago, all those things that we envisioned for him, he kind of showed that he was that player.”But that also came in former defensive coordinator Bob Sutton’s scheme, which is built around a 3-4 base. The Chiefs fired Sutton after an AFC West-winning season culminated in an overtime loss to the Patriots, and hired Steve Spagnuolo to implement a 4-3 scheme.“The one thing he can do, and we all know this, he is an explosive football player that makes a lot of plays,” Spagnuolo said recently. “He’s had some production and if he is here with us, I’ll be excited to have him and be excited to work with him.”Ford was the Chiefs’ first-round pick in 2014 out of Auburn, but he struggled with injuries and the adjustment to the NFL his first couple seasons. He only played in six games with two sacks in 2017, but had a career-best 13 sacks and forced seven fumbles this past season.That performance made the franchise tag a palatable option.“Obviously, Dee is a player that has done so much for us, in particular last year,” Veach said. “We have a special thing brewing here and I think everyone wants to keep this thing rolling.”The Chiefs also have a decision to make with fellow outside linebacker Justin Houston, who had nine sacks in 12 games last season. He carries a salary cap hit of $21.1 million, a number the Chiefs would like to drive down either by restructuring his deal or potentially releasing him.“I would say that he’s under contract for this year and next year,” Veach said at the NFL’s scouting combine this week. “Again, our plan is to play with him and we look forward to having him on our roster. There’s a lot of dialogue and I think everything is fluid for the next few weeks until we get into the start of the league year. We’ll kind of handle that — the information we get, what’s real, what’s not real — and it’s a good problem to have because he’s a great player.”