Chiefs’ Andy Reid isn’t ready to reveal plans for Week 18
The Kansas City Chiefs head into the season finale Week 18 matchup against the Denver Broncos with the first-round playoff bye locked into place.
It’s positioned the Chiefs to potentially rest their starters as a preventative measure ahead of the playoffs by garnering an additional week of recovery to push become the first team to win three straight Super Bowls.
Despite those obvious parameters, head coach Andy Reid voiced that he isn’t ready to reveal the team’s plans ahead of Sunday’s game.
“I know that you’ve got to keep yourself [relevant] with practices and make sure that you stay sharp, and you don’t want to get too far away from it in the playoffs because everything gets a little bit faster in the playoffs every level that you go up,” Reid said via ESPN.
Although there are benefits to resting players, it does feature a significant time gap until the Chiefs play in the division round on either Jan. 18 or 19. It would be more than three weeks of time for the players that don’t play in Week 18, which may lead to the rest vs. rust scenario being a realistic debate.
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The Chiefs are coming off a recent rough stretch of playing three games over an 11-day span, which the team fortunately avoided any significant injuries.
“I’m not recommending that you do that every year, but … I think we’ll be OK from it because of the rest that we gained here and that we also have the bye coming up where there’s a chance the guys get a day or two off,” Reid said.
Ultimately, the Chiefs will likely lean toward either limited playing time in Week 18 for key players or not playing them at all.
