Yeesh.

Not a great 24 hours for Kevin Kietzman of Sports Radio 810 in Kansas City, who drew a parallel between Tyreek Hill’s ongoing legal issues and Andy Reid’s personal family problems. Hill is currently suspended from Chiefs team activities while a child abuse investigation takes place. Andy’s son Garrett died in 2012 of a heroin overdose and Britt served prison time on drug and gun charges

Kietzman seemed to lump those scenarios together as he delivered this on the radio, explaining that Andy Reid “is not good at fixing people” –

Transcribed:

“Andy Reid does not have a great record of fixing players. He doesn’t. Discipline is not his thing. It did not work out particularly well in his family life, and that needs to be added to this, as we’re talking about the Chiefs. He wasn’t real great at that either. He’s had a lot of things go bad on him, family and players. He is not good at fixing people, he is not good at discipline. That is not his strength. His strength is designing football plays.”

Alright, listen, I don’t think this was delivered in a horribly offensive way; I think it was rather straightforward with an appropriately serious tone. But I think we can all agree that it’s probably best to not reference the struggles that somebody has had in their immediate family, yes? Especially when that includes the death of a child, yes? Probably good to not go down that road at all.


Here’s what Kietzman said late last night, in response to the backlash, after the jump:

Kietzman elaborated on those tweets in an email to Awful Announcing, which reads, in part:

I was commenting the Chiefs, as they always do, seem to think they can fix players. The owner was criticized, management criticized and Andy Reid was criticized. They asked our city to trust them with these players after we have already witnessed abuse cases and a murder/suicide in the parking lot of the practice facility. Many national outlets have chronicled the Chiefs embarrassing record with players committing crimes against others.

I never once mentioned anything about Andy Reid’s son’s death and never once had it on my mind. A caller called in later and said something about the death and I quickly corrected him and pointed out that I was referencing two sons that were convicted drug dealers and drug addicts that he chose to try to fix by hiring them to work for his football teams.

When Reid decided to hire his sons to try to help them, it ceased being a personal, private matter in my opinion. When a tax payer supported football team hires convicted felons, it is absolutely worthy of scrutiny. Andy Reid has hired several convicted criminals in his career and asked fans to trust him. Some have worked out, many have not. He’s also taken chances on players that somehow drop in the draft because other teams are scared to draft them and he’s going to work it all out

I understand what Kietzman is saying, though he could have helped himself on the radio if he specifically mentioned that he wasn’t talking about Garrett Reid’s death, but about Britt and Spencer working for Andy instead. He didn’t do that, and just said “It did not work out particularly well in his family life,” which would leave the door open for people to think that included the heroin overdose back in 2012.

Anyway, the response in Philadelphia was exactly what you thought it would be:

I’m sure we’ll get more on this story later in the week. Stand by!