KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Chiefs are set to embark on the longest road trip for a regular-season game in franchise history, traveling 4,725 miles to battle the Miami Dolphins on Sunday in Frankfurt, Germany.
“It’s a longer plane ride, so you’ve got to make sure that you handle that part right,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “It’s a different time zone by quite a few hours, so you’ve got to make sure that you handle that part and get some rest on the plane.”
The club leaves Thursday after practice for its transatlantic flight, which touches down in Deutschland Friday morning.
Kansas City’s opponent, the Miami Dolphins, departed Monday and will prepare in Germany for the 8:30 a.m. Central Standard Time kickoff Sunday at Deutsche Bank Park.
“Everybody kind of does it a little differently,” Reid said. “We did this a couple years ago when we went to London. I’ve done it before with other teams. It worked, so I’ve kind of stuck by it. We’ll see how it goes. I’m not sure there’s any right or wrong way. Teams have done it all different ways, but I’ve had success doing it this way.”
For all the headaches — the travel, the time change, adjusting practice schedules, packing equipment, packing to stay extra days, etc. — Reid hopes the players don’t lose sight of a couple things.
“There is some excitement to it too of going over there,” he said. “Then, you get to play a good football team too, which we enjoy doing.”
Reid and the Chiefs will have plenty of time to stew about their most recent game, a stunning 24-9 loss at Denver.
“You’ve got to learn from it, and there’s a couple ways you can go about it — you can hang your head or you can face the facts and try to get better,” Reid said. “We try to go about it that way and be a better team.”
With the NFL trade deadline looming Tuesday afternoon, Reid said he felt comfortable with the Chiefs’ collection of wide receivers, so don’t expect a major personnel move.
The plan instead is to prepare better and eliminate the turnovers, dropped passes, missed reads and incorrect routes that helped sink the Chiefs’ offense against the Broncos.
“It was one of everything,” Reid said. “So, when I mentioned last night about things I hadn’t seen from this group who I have a lot of trust in, I saw things I hadn't seen before. Somewhere, I didn’t get my point across to my guys and my coaches, so we’ve got to make sure we do a better job there.”
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