The Kansas City Chiefs suffered a heartbreaking 31-28 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Monday night. Despite the Chiefs' offense and defense playing well for most of the night, both units suffered key mistakes at important moments. However, the unit that struggled the most was the Chiefs' special teams.
Kansas City's special teams unit was flagged three times in the fourth quarter. They got called twice for holding on kick returns. But their most critical mistake was Harrison Butker kicking the ball out of bounds to start the Jaguars' final drive.
That penalty gave Jacksonville the ball on their 40-yard line, which would turn into the game-winning touchdown. Following the game, not only was Butker getting heat on social media for the bad kickoff, but Chiefs Kingdom is also directing hate at special teams coordinator Dave Toub.
Do the Chiefs Have a Dave Toub Problem?
Toub is regarded as one of the best special teams coordinators around the NFL. Needless to say, after some of the struggles the Chiefs' special teams have had to begin the year, fans are getting frustrated. For starters, Butker had missed either an extra point or a field goal in every game Kansas City had played heading into this one.
Although he made every kick this week, he committed the one crucial mistake. Though Butker's missed field goals can't all be blamed on Toub, he did take responsibility for his part in them heading into their Week 4 game. Toub said, “We kick a lot of long kicks in practice. To be more specific with it, we're going to kick more shorter kicks and fewer longer kicks.”
Last week, he added, "We're going to keep working... obviously, we don't like misses. We're going to keep working to see if we can get more consistency. In a little bit of a struggle right now, everybody can see it, but we're going to keep working.” Fortunately, Bukter did clean up his missed kicks against the Jaguars.
Even so, special teams penalties were killer. Heading into this week, Kansas City had only been penalized twice on special teams, so having three called on the unit in one quarter is a huge issue. On X, one Chiefs fan pointed out that the unit has been nothing but a penalty factory for years. They show up in the playoffs, but they’re absolutely terrible during the season.
While this may be a bit harsh, the way Kansas City's special teams unit played Monday night is completely unacceptable. Toub and the rest of the coaching staff need to iron out these issues before facing the Detroit Lions on Sunday night if they want to get this season back on track.