Why Chiefs coaches Andy Reid, Eric Bieniemy didn’t go home after KC’s win vs. Raiders

As the Arrowhead Stadium stands emptied Sunday afternoon and eventually Chiefs players also headed home, coach Andy Reid and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy traveled all of a half a mile across the parking lot.

They weren’t driving home. Not yet.

They left behind the scene of a 48-9 demolishing of the Raiders. And after that half-mile trek, they entered a practice facility to march ahead to a game that could determine the AFC West’s 2021 champion.

The Chiefs travel to Los Angeles to face the Chargers on Thursday Night Football this week with a one-game lead in the division standings. That offered Reid and Bieniemy little time to enjoy the outcome of one game before moving on to the next.

“We watched a few things just to make sure we can figure out who the Chargers are and erase what we just did yesterday with the Raiders,” Bieniemy said, adding of the quick turnaround: “Is it tough? Yeah, it’s tough on everyone. But it makes it better when you’re playing against an AFC West opponent because you have some familiarity.”

To brace for the short week, Bieniemy tasked some of the offensive assistant coaches with starting to form a game plan for the Chargers as early as Friday afternoon. Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo did the same.

In the past, Spagnuolo wanted to get the head start himself with short weeks on the horizon, so he’d dig into the following opponent before Sunday arrived. But as the defensive play-caller, that process added confusion as much as it aided a game plan. “I’d get jersey numbers mixed up,” he said.

So this time, he too passed those tasks on to his positional coaches, such as Brendan Daly (defensive line), Matt House (linebackers) and Dave Merritt (defensive backs). By the time Spagnuolo arrived Monday morning, he was greeted with a stack of notes.

“They had it on my desk this morning when I came in here real early,” Spagnuolo said. “I started reviewing it then. We haven’t done much with yesterday’s game for obvious reasons — this (next one) comes really quick.”

The Chiefs (and Chargers, for that matter) have something working on their side. They’ve already played this season. They know each other. Not all the Thursday Night Football matchups offer teams the luxury of familiarity.

The Chargers beat the Chiefs 30-24 in Week 3 in Kansas City. A second victory would square their records, but give the Chargers the tiebreaker edge in the standings with a season sweep.

The teams have changed personnel since — the Chiefs played that game without Melvin Ingram, Charvarius Ward and Willie Gay, for example — and they’ve of course made adjustments as the season progresses. But the basic principles of teams remain largely the same.

They aren’t starting the homework from scratch, in other words, even if they have less time to complete it.

“You have guys working ahead, and then we got a good jump on them last night,” Bieniemy said. “Then you utilize all the things and tools that you know from the previous time that we played them — understanding the type of system and defensive scheme that the coach runs. And then you put the plays together and you go from there.”