Broncos
- The Broncos worked out five players on Tuesday including WR Kevin Austin, WR Jalen Camp, WR Thyrick Pitts, TE Noah Togiai, and TE Jake Tonges, via Aaron Wilson.
Chargers
Chargers RB Austin Ekeler was asked about what the team’s biggest issue was following their two-point loss to the Dolphins in Week 1.
“Inconsistency. It’s just straight-up inconsistency,” Ekeler replied, via NFL.com. “And it’s not just the players, like when you look at the NFL, a lot of the players, yes, there’s outliers, but a lot of the players are very similar in talent, there’s not a huge gap. You might have a few outliers, and if your team has a few of these decent outlier players, then you have a chance to win games. If you have no studs on your team, superstars that can hold the rope and make plays consistently, it’s going to be hard for you to win. And that’s what we have salary caps, and that’s why we pay these players, and you know, people have the contracts that they have. And for us, when we have our guys that are getting hurt that are being consistent for us, right, that plays a part into it. And we’ve had injuries over the past years, and you can’t blame everything on injuries. Our coaching hasn’t always been the best. Our play hasn’t always been the best. And when you have a combination of those, then guess what? You’re going to be inconsistent.”
“And so for us, we can’t limit the injuries. Those are things you’re going to have to deal with throughout the year. You hope that you’re not going to have a lot of them,” Ekeler continued. “But what we can control is our preparation. We have a new offensive coordinator, alright, let’s try the chemistry with Kellen. It wasn’t that Joe was a terrible offensive coordinator, right? We made the playoffs once and then barely missed it the year before. But it’s like, oh, let’s try just a new combination, to see if this type of style fits better. And so, a lot of times it’s timing, it’s the timing of the players that you have with the coaches that you have. And we’re trying a new atmosphere, and that’s why you see a lot of coaching changes year after year, every single year. And same thing with players. Let’s try and get a new chemistry that works. Look at Tom Brady and his reign, with him and Bill (Belichick). They had great timing, as far as great coaching and then great players at the same time. And so it comes down to the whole organization being at the same time bought in, consistent, and being able to elevate and stay at that standard and level for a while.”
Chiefs
Chiefs HC Andy Reid said they must use Week 1’s disappointing result against the Lions as fuel to improve.
“We’ve all got to do better, that’s the thing I took out of this,” Reid said, via ChiefsWire. “Whether it’s coaching, whether it’s playing, whether it’s the O-line, D-line. We can all take something out of this game and get better at it. We were right in the position to go win the game and normally we do that. We didn’t do that, but normally we take advantage of those situations and defense had a big play on the batted ball and then … we had a holding penalty, we had a drop there down the stretch that would have put us right in position to finish it off.”
Reid feels their receivers did well with their route-running and the issues they experienced are ultimately fixable.
“I think the route part was good,” Reid said. “There were a couple that we got to work on. You guys that asked me about the crossing route [that led to an incompletion], we kind of goofed that up, but we can fix that part… I’ve told you guys this before and I tell the team this all the time and I tell myself this all the time, there’s a small margin between winning and losing in this thing … when you put yourself through four quarters and a position to go get it then you take care of business and finish it.”
- The Athletic’s Nate Taylor says talks between the Chiefs and DT Chris Jones intensified on Sunday following the loss to the Lions on Thursday. A compromise deal was struck on Monday to give Jones a chance at $6.75 million in incentives while preserving his contract year status.
- Taylor says one of the Chiefs’ offers to Jones was a two-year, fully-guaranteed $54.5 million extension, which would have come out to $27.25 million a year, second-highest among all defensive tackles but short of Rams DT Aaron Donald‘s $31.6 million a year and Jones’ goal of $30 million a year.
- Jones obviously declined that offer. Taylor notes his team could come to the Chiefs and try to restart extension talks late in the season if Jones is playing well. Kansas City will have the right to tag Jones at a figure above $30 million a year in 2024.
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