Andy Reid, the walking definition of insanity, explained why bleeding into the ether more than five minutes of clock at the end of the fourth quarter with his team down 14 on Saturday was… actually part of the plan:

A touchdown with 1:13 left in regulation cut the Patriots’ lead to 27-20, but it came after the Chiefs drove to the 1-yard line with 2:33 remaining. Kansas City had no problem winding the clock all the way to the two-minute warning after just one play and then huddling after a second down play, allowing the clock to tick off another 30 seconds. All the while, Reid had three timeouts at his disposal.

“We wanted to maintain our timeouts the best we could,” Reid said on Sunday, one day after the loss. “We didn’t want to give the ball back, at any point, to New England after we go ahead and score that next touchdown.”

After finally finding the end zone, the Chiefs attempted an onside kick that was recovered by the Patriots. If Kansas City managed to grab the onside kick, Reid says the team would’ve been in perfect position to tie the game as time expired in the half.

“We potentially would’ve had three timeouts and an opportunity to drive the field, which I thought was huge,” Reid said. “It put us in a perfect position to do that, we work, again on that every week. And so I thought that part was handled right.”

OH GOD I JUST HAD A FLASHBACK.

What a truly baffling response. We didn’t want New England to be able to orchestrate a game-winning drive, so we made it nearly impossible for us to tie the game, thus negating that conundrum.

The bigger issue than not using the timeouts (which, incredibly, he still had!) was the predictable lack of urgency and piss-poor, dink-n-dunk playcalling. It’s almost as if you could feel Bill Belichick thinking, “Go ahead, take all day if you need to. The first 10 yards are yours.” By using as much clock as he did, Reid had his timeouts, but not enough time. The Patriots recovered the onsides kick and were able to get the one first down they needed to ice the game. If there had been two more minutes on the clock, the Chiefs would’ve had some breathing room and a better chance at getting the ball back with a defensive stop.

Most concerning of all, of course, is that Reid has credited Doug Pederson with running his two-minute drill. This was a 5-minute and 11-second drill, inexplicably, so maybe it wasn’t Pederson’s to run. But either way, glad we’re getting Reid’s apprentice!