KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Who will start for the Kansas City Chiefs at left tackle next Sunday night in Atlanta?
“We’ll see how it goes,” coach Andy Reid said. “I’m going to go back and look at the tape. I’ll talk to [offensive line] coach [Andy] Heck and we’ll go from there.”
Kingsley Suamataia was anointed the starter early in training camp, but that didn’t last two full games before he was pulled on the Chiefs’ final drive.
“Sometimes, you’ve got to take a step back to take a step forward,” Reid said.
Kansas City trailed 25-23 late in the fourth quarter and Suamataia had already allowed two Trey Hendrickson sacks, so Reid turned to second-year tackle Wanya Morris with the game on the line.
“Sometimes, if you get beat a couple different times and you’re a young guy, you haven’t quite figured out the answers to the test there on how to fix it,” Reid said.
Morris, who scored a tackle-eligible touchdown earlier in the game, was flagged for illegal use of hands to the face, which negated a fourth-and-6 conversion, but the Chiefs converted anyway after replaying the down thanks to a defensive penalty and went on the win on a 51-yard Harrison Butker field goal as time expired.
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“He did a nice job jumping in there with the exception of the penalty,” Reid said of Morris stepping in late.
Suamataia reacted to the benching after the game.
“Just keep my head up,” Suamataia said. “I know I'm the future of this program, and I'm going to be here for the next 10-plus years.”
That’s in line with the advice Patrick Mahomes gave him.
“Just keep playing,” Mahomes said. “You’re not always going to have a perfect day. I mean, I didn’t have a perfect day today. But just like any other great player, you have to trust in your abilities, you have to learn from it, you have to have that mentality to come and get better next week.”
The battle for the starting left-tackle spot was expected to be one of the major storylines at Chiefs training camp.
But it never really was after Suamataia quickly ascended to the first team as soon as the pads came on and locked the job down through the rest of the preseason.
Suamataia’s debut against Baltimore was OK. He blocked well in the run game but committed a holding penalty and allowed a sack in pass protection, though Kansas City didn’t give him a lot of help.
That trend, leaving Suamataia on an island, continued against Cincinnati — and seemed to work fine until late in the first half, when Hendrickson beat him around the edge and sacked Mahomes as a promising drive fizzled.
“Kingsley, he’s going against arguably one of the best defensive ends in the league,” Reid said. “It’ll be a great experience that he can put away and learn from.”
Veteran left guard Joe Thuney, who lines up next to Suamataia (and Morris), echoed the encouragement the rookie received in the locker room.
“He's a great player,” Thuney said. “It's a really hard league. Obviously, as a rookie, you have ups and downs. Everyone has ups and downs, but especially first year in the league. He works really hard and he's a great player, an even better guy. It’s just one of those things, going up against a really good guy (Hendrickson). But the whole team supports him. Nothing but good things to say about him.”
Suamataia blamed mental errors for the mistakes in pass protection and said he needs to trust his technique more.
“I messed up those two times — and that's two times it could have been a big play or something,” Suamataia said. “You never know, so it's not really giving myself grace.”
Fortunately, his teammates are.
“You just remind him that everybody has tough days,” Thuney said. “He holds himself to a high standard and wants to be the best he can be. It's great playing next to him.”
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KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
