In his post-game comments after the Chiefs embarrassing 41-7 loss to the Buffalo Bills, Kansas City head coach Todd Haley made it clear that he was responsible for not having his team ready to play. He also took it upon himself to find a replacement for Eric Berry — something that didn’t happen during the game.
For those who missed it, Eric Berry went down early in the game with a leg injury of some kind and word should be coming later this week about the severity. Yet as Haley describes, injuries are a part of the NFL and teams must have the depth to cope with such a loss. And that’s something Haley says he didn’t do.
“Anytime you lose somebody who is a big part of your team and plays a lot of plays, that’s going to be something that affects you,” said Haley after the game. “But again, how much it affects you is up to us to have guys ready to fill in. I talk about it all the time. Injuries are a part of the game. If you lose somebody, you’ve got to have somebody ready step in and fill the void. In some cases, as history shows, those guys that step in that you’re thinking are a stop-gap to fill the void become better players. But today that didn’t occur.”
At this point, the Chiefs have a rather pedestrian secondary — at least at the safety position — without Berry. They failed to draft any help late in the 2011 NFL Draft and opted to sign a guy like Sabby Piscitelli. That’s the type of player who is going to be picked on all day by Matt Stafford next week unless the Chiefs can find an answer before the Lions game in week two. Of course the best case scenario is that Berry is fine and he comes back with no problem.