This weekend in NFL stupid is back for a third season, and this year we’re focusing on one extremely stupid winner with an honorable mention or two on a weekly basis. To close out Week 2 of the 2015 regular season, we look back on the team that blew the first game of the weekend.
The winner: Chiefs head coach Andy Reid and running back Jamaal Charles
This is primarily about one play which cost the Chiefs the game Thursday night against the Denver Broncos. With 36 seconds remaining in a tie game, Kansas City has just one timeout and is stuck on its own 20-yard line. Obvious time to take a knee and regroup for overtime, right?
No, Reid instead gives the ball to Charles in hopes that the Pro Bowl back will break off a big run to give them a chance for a last-second, game-winning field goal. On the surface, handing off here isn’t crazy. It’s often a fairly safe play and it’s easy to criticize the call in hindsight. But how does Reid not consider the fact Charles had fumbled earlier in the game? Or the fact that Charles had fumbled a league-high* 15 times since 2012.
Sure enough, Charles fumbles, it’s scooped up by Denver’s Bradley Roby and returned for a touchdown.
But this is also on Charles — an eight-year veteran — for failing to be aware of the fact the only thing he had to really do on that play was make sure there wasn’t a fumble. And yet he exposed himself and the ball to this…
* Among non-quarterbacks
Runner-up: Miami Dolphins defensive end Olivier Vernon
The Dolphins still had a chance to stop the Jacksonville Jaguars as the Jags moved down the field on what wound up being the game-winning drive. Jacksonville was only on the cusp of field-goal range and facing a 3rd-and-5 with one minute left. And then Vernon did this…
Personal foul. Fresh set of downs. A few plays later, Jacksonville would kick an easy game-winning field goal from 28 yards. Vernon’s penalty cost his team a chance to make a stop, it cost them three timeouts, 25 seconds and a chance to force Jacksonville to kick a much longer field goal.
Stupid.
