The Kansas City Chiefs aren’t facing the same old Houston Texans team that forfeited a 24-point lead in the playoffs.
One of the biggest changes the Texans made this offseason was the decision to have defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel take a step back. They promoted defensive line coach Anthony Weaver to defensive coordinator. Weaver had served as the defensive line coach in Houston since 2016 and he’ll still maintain that position along with calling the plays on the defensive side of the ball.
Chiefs HC Andy Reid spoke on the challenge of facing the new defensive coordinator without any preseason tape on his playcalling.
“Yeah, so Anthony Weaver is a heck of a football coach, was a heck of a player, and now he’s having a chance to coordinate,” Reid told reporters. “So, as there is with every first game, there’s some unknown. I think they’d probably tell you the same thing. But you go in and you’ve got to stay true to what you do and be able to execute—both sides of the ball and special teams—knowing that there could be a wrinkle here or there.”
Reid won’t be able to go back to much of the Texans’ defensive tape from last season and rely on it as gospel. He’ll have to expect the unexpected from Weaver. At the same time, Weaver seems to anticipate the same type of strategy from the Chiefs. He’s been looking back at the past two tapes and beyond to better discern offensive tendencies in Kansas City.
“You have to, you have to,” Weaver said of looking back at last season’s tape. “They’re obviously an opponent that we’re really familiar with. They’re going to look at those two games as well and it’s always a chess match. You want to show him looks that you showed in that last game and maybe do something different. You want to use some of the things that you did that worked. You’re absolutely studying that and most coaches, I think, you’re going back even further than that. This is a team we’ve played —you know you watch the two Patrick Mahomes games — they played them with Alex Smith. I believe they played in 2015 before I got here. So you want to see schematically some of the things that Coach Reid and their staff have done.”
Unfortunately for Weaver, Reid and Mahomes have a way of being tendency breakers. It’ll pose a challenge for Weaver in his first start as a defensive coordinator, just as the mystery of a new coach in charge will pose a challenge for the Chiefs as they continue to prepare for Week 1.
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