Kansas City Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu entered the NFL’s concussion protocol after getting kneed in the head by a teammate on Sunday. He left the game after just seven plays.
On Monday, Head Coach Andy Reid confirmed Mathieu’s status during his media availability.
“He’s one of the guys that Rick (Burkholder) has seen this morning,” Reid said. “He’s still in the [concussion] protocol, he’s still going through it, but he does feel good. We’ll just see how that goes going forward.”
It was pretty blatant how bad the Chiefs defensive unit missed having Mathieu on the field. Kansas City gave up 422 all-purpose yards to the Buffalo Bills, which includes allowing quarterback Josh Allen to torch the secondary for 329 yards through the air and Bills WR Gabriel Davis to come away with over 200 receiving yards and four touchdowns.
After Kansas City’s dramatic 42-36 overtime victory over the Bills, defensive end Frank Clark voiced how valuable Mathieu’s presence and leadership are on and off the field.
“Anytime you lose a player of Tyrann’s caliber, your team is going to be affected,” said Clark during his postgame press conference. “He leads in so many different ways on and off the field, just through his presence alone. He doesn’t even have to say a word, his presence alone. You’ve seen at times during the game where we kind of struggle, whether it’s with pass-rushing getting the stops when we needed them, we also gave up a few passes in the back end,” he explained.
“Those are things that, when Tyrann is there, he’s able to help with the adjustments and help calm situations down and stuff like that, where, it may seem like things are getting overhyped or things like that. Anytime you lose a player like that, it’s going to affect you. We missed him out there. It feels great that we were able to get the job done without him. I’m sure he’s happy that next week he’s going to be able to come back and show off and do all the things that Tyrann does.”
Mathieu’s injury status will be followed all week long leading up to the AFC Championship game at GEHA field at Arrowhead Stadium, where Kansas City will host the Cincinnati Bengals at 2 p.m. CT on January 30.
