Chiefs linebacker Josh Mauga did not practice due to a thigh strain he suffered against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday.
Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid
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Head coach Andy Reid thought that quarterback Alex Smith played a strong game against the Bengals.
"He did a nice job on Sunday," he said. "I thought he played well. Are there a few place you'd like to have back? Absolutely. I think he would agree with you—we need to get the ball in the end zone when we get on the plus-side of the 50. We've all got a piece of that that we could do better at. But to answer your original question, I think he did some real nice things."
Despite being 1-3, Reid doesn't feel a "sense of urgency" because he feels that should be there every week in the National Football League.
"There's a sense of urgency every weekend. That's the way it needs to be," he said. "Whether it was the first week or this week, there's no time to stall if that's even in your vocabulary. We've got to take care of our business and get better on the things we can control – that's coaching better, making sure our fundamentals are better and we're playing with a lot of energy."
Reid reaffirmed his belief in what the team is capable of doing this season.
"I believe in this football team," he said. "I would tell you we've played good teams – that allows our young guys to get better. I feel that the season is not a four-game season, that's not what it is. But at the same time, you have massive urgency every play to be better and we have to do that. Whether it's coaching, whether it's playing, we have to do a better job."
Quarterback Alex Smith
Quarterback Alex Smith evaluated how he felt he played against the Cincinnati Bengals.
"I think looking back, there were – like in a lot of games – there were probably a handful of plays that you wish you had had back or maybe made a different decision, or saw something that you missed," he said. "For the most part, I felt like it was a lot of good stuff, though. Offensively we had a lot of production, yards-wise – obviously you don't get any points for that. We were moving it, got into some good rhythms, had a lot of good stuff out there. I think, collectively, we all looked at every time we got into the red zone and what happened. Every single drive there was a negative play, there was a penalty, there was something that put us back behind the chains and couldn't convert."
Despite being sacked quite a bit this season through four games, Smith reported that his body feels good.
"I feel good, I do, to be honest," he said. "I feel really good. I know it's a number and guys are looking at the total, but they're all different. I think there's a lot of weeks where maybe you're sack total is not as high, but you're taking a lot of hits or you're running the football more and you're more sore. I thought guys have done a really good job battling in there. Like I said, when you have that kind of production, the offensive line, it starts with those guys. They played really, really well this last week, I thought."
Smith explained what he believes thought went wrong in the red zone against the Bengals.
"I think every single time – it seemed like every drive you could point to a negative play that we had when we got in the red zone," he said. "The negative run early, a penalty, something that put us behind the chains and you're going against a good defense – once they got you in that situation, they were going to make you throw it underneath, they were going to come up and tackle we had to take the field goal. It was the kind of style of play, I felt like a lot of it was self-inflicted. We put ourselves in bad situations and weren't able to overcome it."
