You wouldn’t know it by how they played on Sunday, but the Kansas City Chiefs had quite the anxious experience on their trip to take on the Patriots.
Upon getting set up at Gillette Stadium on Sunday, the Chiefs equipment staff noticed that the equipment for about 35 players never made it to the stadium. In fact, that equipment never made it off the plane and ended up in Newark, New Jersey.
That logistics mishap gave the Chiefs just a few hours to recover the equipment — including helmets — from New Jersey and get it to New England in time for kickoff. Had the Chiefs failed to do so, they theoretically would have been forced to forfeit the game.
But it turned out that the Chiefs had a backup plan in place for the worst-case scenario of the helmets not arriving to Foxborough in time. It involved wearing high school football helmets.
No, really.
According to The MetroWest Daily News, the Chiefs had Riddell representatives place a call to officials at Masconomet Regional High School (Mass.) and inform them that the Chiefs needed their football team’s helmets for the day.
Masconomet’s team is Chieftains, and the helmets are nearly identical to the Chiefs’ helmets — Masconomet has an “M” inside the arrowhead instead of a “KC.” Both teams have white facemasks.
The Chiefs were seriously ready to have a bunch of high school helmets transported to Gillette Stadium with a police escort. Via The MetroWest Daily News:
“He told me, ’I really don’t have too much time to talk,” Daileanes said. ”‘But a bunch of the Kansas City Chiefs helmets and shoulder pads and other equipment are in Newark, New Jersey right now. There’s a big snafu. I need to get down to Masco, and if it’s possible could we use your helmets for the game?’”
The Riddell rep got a state police escort to Masconomet Regional High School. Daileanes notified a custodian who had been there working on Sunday morning, and that staff member led the Riddell rep to the Masconomet helmets.
And off to Foxborough they went.
“I just said it’s OK for him to get as many helmets as he needed,” Daileanes said. “They were trying to do the best they could to match it up to the Chiefs helmets.”
Honestly, that would have been amazing — assuming they were able to match up the helmet sizes properly.
It ultimately didn’t come to that as the Chiefs’ helmets made it to the stadium in time from Newark, but you have to give the team credit for the quick thinking.
