When you win a football game by a score of 41-14, several things were going right for you.
The Kansas City Chiefs dominated all three phases of the game on Monday night against the Patriots, and offensively that always means things were going well up front along the offensive line.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid spoke about his offensive line on Tuesday morning.
"I thought they played well," Reid said on a conference call. "Not that we don't have plenty of room to improve but I thought they came out and played good, tough, hard-nosed football. We have to keep working our fundamentals—we have to get better there and they will do that. That's the way they're wired."
One player Reid mentioned in particular was left tackle Eric Fisher, who has already gone up against some of the best pass rushers in the NFL through the first four weeks of the season.
Week 1, it was the Tennessee Titans' Jurrell Casey. Week 2, it was the Denver Broncos tandem of Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware. Last week, it was the Miami Dolphins' Cameron Wake and Monday night, Fisher was matched up with the Patriots' Chandler Jones.
Having been tested every week, Fisher has earned the praise of Reid, an offensive-line aficionado.
"He's just gotten better and better and better," Reid said of Fisher. "Every week, he just gets a little bit better. That's how I thought he played. He had an All-Pro player he was playing against and I thought he did a great job there."
Reid elaborated on Fisher's performance on Monday.
"He is athletic and he is big," Reid explained. "Chandler (Jones)—he's going to make his plays and he does it to the best of them. But, I'll tell you. I thought Eric (Fisher) did a heck of a job against him."
Things haven't always been smooth for Fisher, the team's No. 1 draft pick in 2013 out of Central Michigan; that's not a secret. But he's a young player coming off an injury-ridden rookie season and is back at his natural position of left tackle, which the coaching staff was obviously confident he could thrive in when they switched him over from the right side this offseason.
The constant theme for anyone who has been around Fisher is that he says just wants to get better every day and focus on what he can control, which sound like what they are: overused clichés.
But in this case they're actually manifesting themselves into truths when he steps between the white lines.
We're seeing a different player each and every week, an improved player. He's validating the coach's belief in him and the work they've all done in helping him contribute to this football team.
"We feel very good about him and how he handles things," Reid said. "He's a good football player and he's young. You get picked number one and it comes with a little scrutiny. You're going to have a few eyes on you, but he's done a nice job this year. "We like the progress he's making. Does he have room for improvement? Absolutely, we all do."
