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December 18, 2024 10 mins
SportsRadio 810 in Kansas City's Todd Leabo joins The A-Team to preview Saturday's Texans-Chiefs game in KC. He talks about what the Chiefs impression is on this Texans team coming to Arrowhead. He also talks about Patrick Mahomes II's status for this game. Plus, how the Chiefs could approach the Texans in one part of Saturday's game. 
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Todd Lebo Sports Radio eight ten in Kansas City joins
us here and got a lot to get into for
two teams that like to potentially either lock down or
improve their seating. Not too much history with this era
of Houston Texans, plenty from the previous era. How do
you think the Chiefs view this Houston Texans team as

(00:20):
they head into town this weekend?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, I think certainly the coaching staff.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
We talked to Steve Spagnolo today, Chiefs defensive coordinator.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
He's got a lot of respect.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
He was mentioning that, you know, he hasn't coached against CJ.
Stroud yet, right because they haven't played, you know, obviously
last year with him, and he's really impressed by everything
you've seen. But you're right, it really is a different
kind of feel for the Houston Texans. I mean, there's
several Texans on the Chiefs now at this point, some
guys that they competed against before with Justin Reid and
DeAndre Hopkins and Charles at Minihew.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
These guys are Chiefs now. It's just kind of the
nature of the business.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
But I think there's certainly a healthy amount of respect,
and especially for the way the Texans had played more recently.
I know a lot of people were a little bit like,
maybe this is kind of sophomore slump, but it looks
like the Texans are coming around at the right time
right now.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yeah, kicker Justin Reid, former Houston Texan, that's right, right?
Is this a team where they will employ him on
kickoffs again? And maybe even in light of their continued
kicking issues with Butker and others mainly do the injury.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well, I asked Dave Tobe.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
They call him the special teams coordinator, right, he's specially
team's coach, assistant head coach.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
He's been here for a long time, so he's got
lots of titles. Today.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
If that was the plan, and he said, it's trending
towards likely Harrison kicking off this week, but probably will
split duties, I'll just give you a little hint. What
he said was, if they want to kick it deep
and like have no return, they'll probably use Butker. But
if they want to kick it into the zone, they
like Justin Reid doing that because that gives him an
extra tackler and he's pretty good at kicking it to.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
About the two or one.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
He doesn't have the leg that will generally in this
type of weather outdoors, who can get it through the
end zone. So if you see Justin Reid out there,
probably gonna re return. If you see Harrison Bucker, they're
hoping he kicks it through the end zone.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
It is remarkable, even though it's a very small part
of most people's NFL game conversations, but he's been asked
to kick off the last couple of weeks. They've only
had one touchback. That's obviously suggesting just what you said, Todd,
the idea of wanting the other team to return it
that you can keep them from getting to the thirty
yard line. It seems like something they would be willing
to do, and I wouldn't be so surprised that is

(02:25):
the attack they take against the Texans. Even though the
Texans were widely regarded as having one of the best
special teams units in the NFL, I don't know that
that necessarily applies to their likely kick returners, and this
week is probably Damian Pierce and Robert Woods, as it
has been for several weeks. I guess I could get
to the most important question, even though I feel like
it's no way you could have an answer. How about
Patrick Mahomes. He gonna give it a go on Saturday.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Well, I think Vegas thinks. So this line has been
running back and forth. Right, it open as the Chiefs
were a favorite. Then then it was the Texans were
gosh up to maybe two and a half points. And
that's back to the Chiefs being a fake. He has
been practicing. We don't get to watch practice. They allow
us to watch a little bit of stretching at the beginning.
Yesterday was a very short practice, what they call a
ten ten to ten.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
The chief's availability.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
I don't know how they work it down there in Houston,
but the chief's availability is you get to talk to
guys before practice, so just in time to not know
what happened to practice and if anyone got hurt.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
So tomorrow we will get to hear from Andy Reid
for the last time.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
And they normally call that a fast Friday, but this
will be a Thursday because the game's on Saturday, and
Andy's not very talkative on those days.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Sometimes he will tell you if someone's going to be
up or down. Sometimes he doesn't.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Sometimes he'll say, uh, you know, we got to just
see how you know, how he feels and all this stuff.
So I think it looks to me like Patrick Mahomes
wants to play in the game. He told us yesterday
that this injury did not feel as bad as the
one he suffered against the Jacksonville Jags in the playoffs
a couple of years ago, in which he came back
and played in the game and then played every snap

(03:55):
in the rest of the postseason when they won a
Super Bowl.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
But I don't know if it's a smartest thing to do.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
Is the Chiefs offensive line that you're probably gonna ask
about it is kind of a mess right now.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
The Texans get after the quarterback.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
But my thought is, if Patrick Mahomes wants to play
and is healthy enough to play, he's probably gonna play.
And so if you're asking me right now this instant,
I think he's gonna play.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Sounds like change that tomorrow we will see.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
And yes, that's luckily here it works the opposite way
it has for most of our coaches. But for both
years of Demiico, they speak after practice. I mean, if
you're speaking, why would you do that?

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, that's not the way we do it here.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
If you're speaking before practice, you're you're just telling us
without telling us, well, you're not gonna find anything out,
and so I appreciate that they don't do that here. So, yes,
the media got to catch up with h the coordinators today.
We'll get our last conversation with Demiko Ryans tomorrow. The
activity on the field suggests it's a very very healthy
Texans team and Joe Mixons likely to play. Curious about

(04:52):
Hollywood Brown, do you think this is the week he
will return?

Speaker 3 (04:58):
I think he probably will, going back to the special
teams stuff. So they activated Harrison Butker and then they
had to cut the kid, Matthew Wright, who had kicked
the game winner before.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
That's how the roster works in and out.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Well, So I don't know if you saw this and
didn't probably rate everywhere else, but Clyde Edwards Hilaire, who
was on the Chiefs roster, was erased. Former first round
draft picked to kid from LSU. He was released two
days ago. You know, he tweeted out thanks for everything,
Kansas City, and they have not made a corresponding move
on the roster. It's generally one in, one out, so
most people feel that that's going to be Hollywood getting

(05:33):
elevated tomorrow or maybe Saturday morning. I mean, there's times
that you have to do those things, but it could
it's probably tomorrow after. My guess is will be tomorrow
after we've already met with coach Reid, so we won't
be able to ask for about it.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
That's exactly how it's gonna work.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
But I think Hollywood will be activated, and I think
he's going to be active in this game. That is
my guess, just by taking the fact that Clyde was
released and no other move was made to put one
active until now, so nothing's happened yet, so I think
that will happen this week.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Well.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
As a matter of fact, Todd on Monday, we did
pay attention to at clydedro Underscore twenty two's comment about
leaving Kansas City because that was when we were unsure
of Joe Mixon's health status. He had just been hurt
in Sunday's game, even though he returned. The Texans are
what I would call rather thin at running back. They
would have likely needed to go to their own practice
squad to find a running back and elevate them for

(06:27):
the game. But don't need to look at Clyde. Don't
need to do that. It looks like Joe Mix and
Damien Paris and Daria and Goumbiwali will all be good
to go.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
For this game.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
There's talk here about the quarterback play of c. J.
Stroud this year compared to last year. Maybe it's a
bit of a downturn, and I think here we talk
about some of the reasons why if that same conversation
is being held in Kansas City about Patrick Mahomes, even
while his team is thirteen and one, is there a
downturn in the way he plays. The numbers certainly have

(06:54):
gone in that direction, but they're also winning. How's that
conversation being held this year about Mahomes.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Well, you know, I've said for like six years that
he doesn't fit into whatever your definitions are for quarterbacks
and stats. Right There's been a like they had a
game of this year against the Niners where his you know,
quarterback rating was atrocious, but he made like three absolute
winning plays that not every quarterback can make. So he's
he's kind of incalculable on what he can do. That

(07:24):
being said, he had some really bad interceptions this year, awful,
but he is on a streak right now. Not Thung interceptions,
so he's kind of cleaned that up. But their offensive
lines been an absolute disaster. You know.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
They they kind of got young and cheap. You have
to do that.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
And when you're paying Patrick Mahomes a lot of money're
paying Chris Jones a lot of money, You're paying Travis
Kelsey a lot of money. You've got a lot of
guys making money on this team. You have to get
cheap somewhere. So they had Donovan Smith, who was an
you know, old left tackle last year, and they said
goodbye to him. And they had two young, you know tackles,
Kingsley Suamanta a out a bigger money in Jania Morris
who played a little bit last year, who had played

(07:58):
at Tennessee in Oklahoma. And I thought they were good
with them. Well it turns out they weren't good with them.
They're just not good enough. So they went and got
DJ Humphries right, and DJ Humphries played for three quarters
of a game, then hurt hamstring because he's an old
guy who had an NCL or whatever last year ACL
and so he is not practiced yet. So then they're like, well,
let's just take Joe Tooney, who's a great guard and

(08:19):
put him over left tackle, and that's kind of how
it's gone.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
So the front in front of Patrick Mahomes has been
a little bit of a mess. And then you add
that Rashid Rice got hurt, Hollywood Brown got hurt.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
They had all these plans of doing all this, like
deep throws and everything, and then all of a sudden
everyone was hurt. DeAndre Hopkins wasn't a thought to be
on this team, you know, four months ago, so they've
had to scramble. So I think most people will give
a pass to Patrick on just how everything has kind
of happened. But his numbers aren't what you want. I mean,
if you're a fantasy football owner, you know, Patrick Mahomes
has not done you well.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
But if you're a Chiefs.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
Football fan, Patrick Mahomes has helped you get to thirteen
to one, and that's the part that matters to the organization,
not the fantasy numbers.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yep, the numbers don't necessarily match up with the win total.
I totally agree with about the statistic analysis of him.
But the first seven games this season, he threw an
interception or more in every game they went seven and zero.
The last seven games, he's only thrown an interception in
one of those games, the pair he had against Buffalo,
that's obviously their only loss.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
They've won every other loss. It's pretty remarkably off.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
He's a pretty incredible player because, like I said, he'll
just have this game. He's like, oh, this is just
like he was not good the other day against the Browns.
If you get six turnovers against the Cleveland Browns and
you only score twenty one points, that's kind of embarrassing, honestly, right,
and you didn't turn it over yourself. It's one thing

(09:36):
if you've got six turnovers, you turned over four times,
six to.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Zero on turnovers, and you only win twenty one to seven.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Because they just did not have what it took offensively
to get the job done. He completed less than fifty
percent of his passes. They sometimes forget you're supposed to
run the ball. Sometimes during the middle of a game,
they'll go like three possessions without running it.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
They should have just been his reigning. It was cold.
Just get out of Cleveland, you know what I mean.
Just run the ball and leave.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
But they can take you to try to throw it
at times. And they went for a fourth down and
they got their guy hurt. So I mean, I don't
think they've done a whole lot right this year if
you want a nitpick, except win games, and that's the
most important part.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Well, Todd, I appreciate your time, and we'll leave you
with the thought of something you just said.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
You had me at get out of Cleveland.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
I think that is a very smart thing to say
for just about anybody football teams.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Hey, otherwise, go to the Hall of Fame and that's it.
Go to the Hall of Fame and that's it. Nothing else.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Totally agree, absolutely great analysis of the Chiefs. Who appreciate
your time and look forward to the game this week
and enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
All right, you guys call me anytime.
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