Andy Reid’s CONFIDENCE in Kahlil Benson Could BACKFIRE for Kansas City Chiefs

0:00This is the Lockdown Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. Patrick Holmes and the rest of this team is ready for the Broncos of Monday night. There's just a couple of glitches. From the land of the free and the home of the chiefs, this is the Lockdown Chiefs Podcast. You are Lockdown Chiefs. You're daily Kansas City Chiefs Podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day. Welcome in, Chiefs. Kingdom, thanks for joining us here on what is going to be a Friday show that is not our normal game preview. We'll have that for you on Sunday night. I get ready for Monday's action on Monday night football. I'm not Chris Clark. He's Chris Clark. From Casey Chiefs Corner, I'm Ryan Tracy from RGR football and NFL 33. We are your duo. Yeah, you know, hey, we are your duo for the last 10 years on this show,

1:00getting you ready for Kansas City Chiefs football. And we're going to do that again. We're going to go over what this looks like in terms of getting ready to be the last game of the first week. That's later in the show. Before that, Patrick Mahomes said he just wants to go out and play and be himself. What does that actually mean? And is it a good thing that's coming up a little bit later? And we're going to start at the top because Patrick Mahomes lineup is definitely not what everyone had hoped. We're brought to you by FAMDULE today. You get $350 in bonus bets guaranteed when you bet a $5 bet every day for seven days straight. Join all that action over at FAMDULE.com. I'll tell you more about them later. It is unfortunate that Josh Simmons was not able to practice today. I don't think that's necessarily a complete rule out, but it doesn't look good for him to play. Andy Reed seems very, very comfortable for starting Khalil Benson in his stead on the left hand side.

2:01Andy might be the only person comfortable with that in Kansas City. I don't know how are you feeling about it because I myself am a little concerned. I don't think he's the only one because I think Andy Hick probably is comfortable with it too, but that doesn't make me feel neat. It doesn't make me feel better about it. Yeah, I said this. I said this on the squad show. I said this on the crossover show. This isn't going to be a good scenario for Kansas City and they need to figure something else out. Not necessarily figure out a different player, but they need to have a specific gameplay and to make sure that they don't leave him on an island because it is not going to be pretty if they leave him on an island against the needle. You're absolutely right. Here's the kicker. Yeah, you can try to scheme out, give them some help, etc. Chipping, except everybody on this roster running back has never played in this offense before. So being able to actually hit the timing of the chips against the route combinations in real live speed is going to be a learning curve.

3:01Even for Shard Smith, it didn't do chipping last year. I might have sought to all season long. So the help factor that I would normally make me feel better about it is not going to be there. And this is why I also said I think on the squad show, maybe they go jumbo 20% of the snaps against the Broncos and they try running the ball. Or they do what they should have done last year at times and go 12 and 13 personnel a ton and just put a tie in that next to them. And in line tied in next to him every single snap. I don't care if you lose somebody out in the route. Just make it simpler for Benson. If you're going to ask him to be a holding up in past coverage because you're not putting him in a good situation right now. Period six snaps. Six snaps that left tackle and camp. Had him at right all about the last week and if Josh hadn't been out then he probably wouldn't have gotten any. So this is this is unfortunately a much bigger risk than the team and Andy Reed wants to let on.

4:09I thought he was pretty coy in his pressure today. If you guys haven't seen it, go check that out on jeeps.com etc. It just it felt like they're sticking to their guns even to know they they realize that it this is not the best scenario and quite frankly not the best decision to start in front of Patrick on Monday night football for week one. I don't know quite frankly though. I don't know that they have a better decision. You can you can talk about putting Jalen more out there. Is that really going to be a better decision long term? No. Is it going to be a better decision in this game? Possibly but still maybe not Jalen more didn't look great at left tackle either so. To me I think what you have to hope for if you're the chiefs is that you can get Jalen more to be serviceable and maybe average to above average at right tackle to where you can leave him on an island and you give. Binson help and that's the only way you can go about doing this and the other thing that you can do is run the ball run the ball run the ball and use the screen game use.

5:12Use every little trick you can to try to slow down the path rush and change the way the Broncos are going to be coming after my homes because they're going to throw everything at binson. Now the one thing I will say is technically speaking he seems to have issues. The brains seem to be there for the most part from what I've seen he seems to understand what he should be doing so that should help. Yeah. That's right. Going to be lost completely and not having the technical ability or the physical ability to do it. It's just that he may not have the technical the speed to do what he needs to do. Yeah, I agree with you. We're going to break down like what's the recipe to win one of the must habs that's coming up on the preview show that will go up the day before the ballgame. So don't miss that. I don't want to give it all away. But he's a heck of a run blocker too. And so I think it is a good combination that will preview later on on the preview show that you use him to run at Nick Bonito who I think is going to be in his face all day long because there's no reason not to be.

6:16Yeah. And if he was playing right tackle I would think that the Benito would switch sides. Yeah. Personally, I think that's what Denver would do like they would put Benito on him, especially with Cooper out of this game. So I think you're in a scenario where this is going to be one of those things where he's just going to have to do the best he can and can city hopefully is not going to get burnt by it. The first time a home is back there trying to do what you're saying in the net. We're talking about the next segment of being himself. That could be a severe problem. And this is one of those things that two plus two might end up at 14. That's how bad this could be if these problems stack on top of each other. We'll go over Patrick and what he's thinking here at the moment. Long story short, the fallback position should things go to absolute hell and a hand basket. I don't know that there is a fallback position. Other than you could bring in a Zuna you could run six offensive lineman. I think that's a good suggestion. I just don't think Andy will do that.

7:18But it makes things harder and it makes you more dependent on Pat. I personally hope that they have something in store for Denver that Denver hasn't seen in the preseason. I hope that they can do something they've been working on a practice that maybe they didn't even show a training camp. I hope they have something for Justin Fields in this offense. And yeah, I'm saying that for week one because truly I do think that you have the ability to have a second quarterback. Like Justin Fields who can do different things and give you success at times. It doesn't have to be a ton of plays. But a play here and there changes the look of the Denver defense and when what they're going to be coming out with the chiefs. I really agree and maybe they do have a package will we'll get to that in our preview show. But it all comes back to Pat and how he decides to play and it seems there's there's no governor on where he's at right now. And I think that's a mistake that's next.

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9:20Try it for free today at od.com slash locked on that's od. O.. Dot com slash locked on. Welcome to the most rewarding NFL season ever only on fan duel. How rewarding are we talking? It's more rewarding than touchdown as time has expiring. It's more rewarding than an 18 point comeback. And then maybe more rewarding than an all alignment catching a touchdown pass, but just don't ask the alignment. This season, Fandall is giving and making that excitement go beyond what it happens on the field with an all new Fandall rewards club featuring exclusive offers, surprises and more this season. When you want to get to that excitement go beyond what happens on the field and make that rewards club how you do it every week. Check the Fandall app to see what's waiting for you. You can pick anything that you're looking for, whether it's I just want to watch the games of the week. I want to only look at the Kansas City. Chafes, what is my home is going to do?

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11:22I am concerned that coupled with our first topic now with Patrick's attitude that it's just going to be business as usual and put himself in a lot more risky situations than he should. You know, I get where you're coming from and my caveat and what I will say to it is this, it's possible that he realizes that he has to play differently. But it's also possible that he realizes that if he comes out and says that, then, you know, the teams are going to expect him to play differently. So I kind of get it from the aspect of, I think he has to understand that he can't play his normal way. He's my big question when I was looking at this game, my big question isn't necessarily even the game. Assuming he gets out of this healthy and I hate saying it that way, but that's just what I have to say with based on the offensive line, the way that it's looking right now. I'm going to be curious what he's like on Tuesday and on Wednesday. What's his knee like? He hasn't had the type of workout that he's getting ready to have.

12:25No matter how much he's been going after your things, getting ready and rehabbing for this season. He's going to be running more regardless of whether or not he scrambles than he ever has over the past six months. This is going to be more activity. What's his knee look like when it comes down to it on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week? Yeah, that is an absolutely fair point. And you can't get that any other way than playing ball games. And as much as everybody wanted to play in the preseason, I don't even think that would have prepared him because it's still a step up. It's still not the same thing as this defense. Yeah, it's still not the same thing. You're not going to have the going for four quarters and running for five miles that he usually runs on a given day and an NFL football game. Like he's and I hope he doesn't do that this year. Like I especially early on in the season, like I expect it as the season goes on, things will kind of get more back to normal.

13:25But the chief's offense and the chief's coordinator and Andy Reed have to protect him from himself to an extent. And they can do that with play calling. And that's one of the bigger things that they that we really need that they really need to focus on is put him in the play calls where he's doing things that require him to either one get the ball out quick. Or not even put himself in harm's way because he's hanging the ball off. And that's actually the focus and I did hear something positive along those lines. Well, being himself, quote unquote means pushing the envelope and taking what's there and relying on himself when he has to. But he was also very cognizant today. Excuse me, I have got allergies and they're killing me today. He was very cognizant and I heard him say, I have to be able to get the ball out. And we've been talking about that ever since this injury, but that's really the key thing is it's not necessarily the excess and knows it's understanding that this snap is happening. You have X number of time. Maybe it's a little bit less. Maybe it's a little bit more depending on the play design.

14:26But the balls got to come out in order to move the offense effectively. But a to just move on if it doesn't work. I think there's going to be more throwaways this season. And I perfectly comfortable that in fact, I think it's the best thing for him. No, I think you're probably right. It probably is the best thing for him. I think that when you're looking at this, he needs to throw the ball away. I just don't know if he's going to be willing to. That's going to be the big question. But I go back to what I said just a second ago, they need to run the ball more. They need to be under center and going with more under center runs to Walker and to Johnson. They need to be putting Khalil Benson in the best possible situation they can by running the ball. Run the ball of Benito. Run it at him multiple times early on in the game. You'll slow him down because the other thing that nobody's taking into consideration for this is. It's the same thing for the Broncos. The Broncos aren't going to be as in shape as they will be in a month or two when they played a couple of games. They're going to be in a situation where this is the first time that they're playing 60 70 snaps in a game.

15:30And I know Benito won't play that many, but the point is is like. As a past pressure, you're not, you're used to playing, you know, what 30 40 50 snaps. This is going to be a different situation and he hasn't done that yet this year. So his stamina won't be there. But. Use that to your advantage. Absolutely try to pound the rock at him. And you know, I said this on the swatch of the other night. I wouldn't care if they went in. I know Benito have defeated one, but I hope that all friends watching the, they have been able to get in. They're not perché they might think they've been in for some time, what are they? Or business classes or what, what street're they doing, and what's their grind they're doing here and events like that? I won't be comfortable leaning to it. I know that. We're not on that before � U trath. Is that a guy playing a solo back let's say you're your real fan, I don't know if you know this is a headstock or no ov seen? use the extra offensive lineman, like you mentioned, do they go 13 more? Is it a more of a, quite frankly, a play action, dink and dunk kind of thing, run those screens. Although

16:31screens open up, you know, some interior offensive lineman are leaving their gaps, not exposism as well. So some of that could be dangerous. But I think the key is both of them, Andy Reed and Patrick Holmes, recognizing that the game plan has to protect him as well, not just how he executes the place, but how they design the offense to run for the whole game. Well, you know, who else needs to realize that this is a huge game, every single person on the offense, not named Patrick Holmes. Yeah. That offensive line running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, every single person on this team that is not named Patrick Holmes on the offense needs to step up a couple of steps for this game. Patrick Holmes has done everything he can to be ready and available. And if you find a way to beat the Broncos on Monday night football, you were in a great position for the next three weeks to not kick back and relax, but at least take a step back a little bit and get your feet wet, trying to figure out how you want to run the offense and how your defense is going

17:33to handle things over the next, you know, over the next 17 games. Yeah. You're absolutely right. It's it's get over this hurdle, get through that and then be able to adjust, and not only on what you want to do, but what you see on film and what you can establish at this level, beating a regular season level of competition, what you're able to do against one of the better defenses in this league. I don't know if they're going to end up being the best. They did lose some past rush with Cooper, but I do think they're going to end up being very good. I think they're going to lose. I think they lost up to John Flaik and Myers too. He was a very good interior defensive tackle and I understand he's not more past rush, but when you talk about stop in the run, which is something that the Denver Broncos team has to be ready for because I just can't see the chiefs going into this game and not running the ball 40% of the time. If they do, that's on Andy Reed and obviously, you know, game plan or not game plans, but obviously game, you know, situations change what you plan on doing. So we'll see if that happens, but you're going to get a pretty

18:35good idea of what the chief offense wants to do in the first 15. Yeah, we really should see it start to get off really first couple of plays. I think you got to shake some of the jitters out, especially for one left tackle, but you really got to hit that ground running in that 15. And that's going to be against a Denver Broncos team that has a lot of seasoning. They have some young guys, but not a ton of them. So what does it have to be a Monday night football? That's next. Matt Dairy here from the Lockdown Lions podcast, you know, life insurance is one of those things you don't really think about until you have a reason to for me, really hit home when my father passed away over 20 years ago, you start thinking less about yourself and more about the people who depend on you, making sure they're taking care of no matter what. That's why I like ethos. They make getting life insurance simple. It's 100% online, no doctor visits, no needles, none of that. You can get a quote in seconds, applying just a few minutes and even get same day coverage. And honestly, that's huge because life gets

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20:41a rivalry game like the Broncos versus the chiefs in Arrowhead with everything on the line a pack stadium that atmosphere those are the games worth finding a way to be there for game time makes it easy to find those tickets get your friends together get your tickets and tell them it's game time download the game time app creating account and use code locked on for $20 off your first purchase terms apply again created account and use code locked on for $20 off. There are a number of things that need to happen and we're going to break down the X's and those the must have is et cetera and give you our predictions on the preview show coming up later as we get close within 24 hours of that contest on Monday night football. But there's a couple of things that are there a pertinent here that we do need to talk about one is all this offensive talk certainly strikes home and you just don't want to put yourself in any way shape or form the situation the Seattle sea hawks find themselves in coming off the super old and the quarterbacks already out. Sam don't got

21:43a little bit of good news but he's going to miss at least a week if not more and the chiefs cannot afford that given their roster and their schedule a special the AFC West this year. So you got to have everything else humming as well and unfortunately as of today, tomorrow Connor was not practicing either that is a negative especially given that he took pretty much every rep and training camp at that strong safety spot they need him for continuity. I don't feel like they're going to have him now they will have asked in July. So he practiced in full today should be ready to go how do you feel about that trade off I actually thought you might not play so is this a wash at this point? I'm not going to call it a wash. The bigger problem you have is you're quite literally starting basically an entirely new secondary against the Denver Broncos on week one because tomorrow Connor was essentially a starter at times last year but he wasn't you know you're

22:43looking at a situation where he's not going to be out there so who's it going to be at strong safety? Is it going to be Jaden Hicks or the going to give Hicks a chance? That's who you think is going to be the next man up but I don't know that that ends up being the case or is it going to be Chris Roll and Wallace which completely changes what you could do with the nickel position? I really don't know what they're going to do and that's going to be something that's going to be intriguing and then you look at the rest of it and you've got two brand new corners you got the Jerry's need who's coming back who looks like he's going to be your nickel corner. He's going to be obviously the veteran in the room fine. A lowe Gilman wasn't in this defense last year. You're starting an entirely new secondary from last year. You don't have a choice and continuity is one thing but going up against the Denver Broncos in a game that the Broncos I guarantee you have had circled for as long as it's been on the schedule because they want to come out and they want to show

23:44that they are the ones that own the division. Again this is a huge game for Kansas City and to me it's a question of I like the fact that July is going to play I don't know that he's going to give you a ton of pass rush coming back from the injury that quickly but he should be able to give you somebody that can set the edge on again in the running game and that could be huge. You want to talk about somebody that is going to be huge in this game it's going to be Kieres Tonga. The chiefs absolutely have to make this a one dimensional Broncos offense and I know that sounds kind of funny if I'm saying that they need to shut down the run but they need to shut down the run because if you can shut down the running game and you can force a mix to have to throw it makes it a lot easier to defend. It's certainly that. Regardless of whether or not you think you can or regardless of whether or not you feel great about the matchups you still are in a better situation if you make them own dimensional. I agree and now if you can take away the run that's great. They loaded up though. JK Dobbins obviously be noise and injury. Second year player RJ Harvey who had some

24:49success last year. Now they're bringing Jonah Coleman who is very nimble for a guy of his size and got it done at Washington when they want to run plus you have to our body just kind of sitting around waiting. So they have a stacked RB room as well and I think they're going to use them all in waves. I think not only does Kieres have to play tough so is the rest of the front and they have to go back to that old school mentality that Gunther used to talk about where you have to take away the run first in this ballgame I believe. And then you can worry about the past because if not I think they have enough juice and we'll nail down the X's and O's in the preview show. I just feel overall they have enough juice at the running game to hurt you if you don't take it seriously. Oh you absolutely have to take it seriously and I guarantee you right they do have enough juice to be able to hurt you if you do not mind your assignments and you know be where you're supposed to be they need to continually be putting Denver in third and long or third and

25:53medium situations. If you can do that you can win but you have to be able to put them in in regularly in third and four plus third and seven plus would be even better. If you can do that on a regular basis and you don't have to be getting tackles for losses in the run shops just keep them to one or two yard game. If you can do that several times you're going to slow down how much do they feel like they can run and then they're going to try to come out and pass and yeah it's a little bit of a different defense you're in a different situation because you have an all new secondary back there but they're going to be tested you know they're going to test man's or lane that is one thing that I guarantee you they're going to do in this game. I hope you make some pay. I don't think they're going to test them long but I think he will. I think he will get a couple of looks early and then I think they're going to have to go away from them because that's how I feel he's going to play but the bottom line is cheap and great last year too so I mean you're not going to be in a much better position in that regard. Well I think they

26:53feel that they have an advantage over an all because of his size with Sutton. I don't think Patrick's a factor and I don't think Wattles a factor there but if they get to the point where they feel desperate I think that's the match up they're going to go to and normally I would say the chiefs have an advantage because of the climate but being an opening week night game I think that takes some of that away and I don't know that it's going to be you know drastically cooler we'll see what the forecast is when it comes to you know the pregame but I hope that would rely on it a little bit more at this point I don't think so and so it is I think back to that front 15 for the offense and the first three drives for the defense that are critical to set the tone early so that as the night cools off they don't get a second surge you know what I mean. Well and I will say this I also think that Denver has a little bit of advantage they're training in the in the altitude in altitude so they're going to have a little bit of advantage in that regard but you're right I mean if it was a day game it probably would it favor Kansas City a

27:53little bit more but it's not going to be it's going to be a night one and we'll see what the temperature comes out for Monday night but right now there are so many things that are not working in Kansas City's favor for this game the one thing that I will say that I have said since this game was locked in is is the starting game for the season for the chiefs is the one reason I like playing the different Broncos the first game in the season is because Denver has no idea what this chiefs offense is going to look like and that is your chance to really show something different on offense and to just completely take the just completely surprise the league I mean sure you ran your normal vanilla plays in the preseason they've got something in store for Denver I don't know what it is but I guarantee you read and be in the me have something in store for Denver. New fangled that's what I'm hoping for we're going to break it all down for you on our previous show coming up in a couple of days as we get ready for that enjoy your your first Sunday here on

28:56if you're watching Rams and Niners enjoy that as well we'll be back to preview that game give you our predictions the things to watch and what this offense and defense should look like so don't miss that as well and then we're off into a normal Monday night week which is a little bit different than the normal week but we are right into the flow of the season here as we get off on a kick just like the Kansas City Chiefs so make sure you're subscribed make sure you're with us enjoy your weekend and get ready with our preview show we will talk to you then thanks for listening we'll catch you next time. Back up takes daily on the playoffs pushed in the 2025 season or if your teams in draft mode yeah we'll hit that too. All right here every day on the Lockdown podcast network the NFL six pack subscribe on YouTube

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