The Kansas City Chiefs might get some much-needed reinforcements this week with Tyreek Hill eyeing a return from injury.
He’s been working to get back on the football field after being sidelined by a sternoclavicular dislocation in Week 1 against the Jaguars. It’s a peculiar injury because, for the most part, Hill feels fine and capable. But the doctors and training staff get to decide when he’s ready to take the final step and take part in full-contact practices.
Andy Reid said on Monday that the team will know more about Hill’s status as the week progresses.
“I’ll know more as we get through this week,” Reid said. “He practiced a little bit last week and moved around pretty good. Again, they have to make sure everything is stable and he wasn’t being hit last week, so we have to make sure everything is stable in there. They will work on that this week and see where we are at.”
Reid isn’t kidding himself, though. He knows that the Chiefs’ problems extend beyond Hill’s absence. From penalties to protection issues, the Chiefs have a lot of things to work through on the offensive side of the ball.
“It’s not that you don’t want Tyreek to play, that can be taken a couple different ways, but when you drive right down the field and then have penalty, penalty and pressure, those aren’t things that are Tyreek Hill-related,” Reid said of the Chiefs’ offensive struggles. “He’s not causing penalties on the sideline there. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot. Like I told the guys, you figure it out and how we get this thing straightened out in the powerful, explosive offense whoever is in there. You can’t go backward. You can’t have the turnover. You can’t have the penalties like we’re having. It’s ridiculous, we’re way better than that, and we have to take care of it and fix that.”
Hill would be a major boost to the offense, but as a whole, the team needs to become more disciplined. The loss to the Colts in Week 5 was a wakeup call. How the team responds and practices this week ahead of a tough matchup with the Texans will tell us a lot.
