KC Chiefs sound off on hit that knocked out WR JuJu Smith-Schuster

The Kansas City Chiefs had a lot to say about the hit that knocked WR JuJu Smith-Schuster out of the Week 10 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

With just over six minutes to go in the second quarter, Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes targeted Smith-Schuster on a routine third-down play. Smith-Schuster caught the ball and was just about to turn upfield only to be blindsided by Jaguars S Andre Cisco. The hit left Smith-Schuster concussed and out for the remainder of the game.

Officials initially threw a penalty flag on what appeared to be a clear hit to the head of a defenseless player. They ended up picking up the flag, with no penalty for a hit on a defenseless player called, leaving the Chiefs to punt the ball away.

“Well, as long as there is contact to the head, it doesn’t need to be in the game,” Chiefs HC Andy Reid said of the play. “It looked like there was contact to the head from where I was standing, but I’m not the one making that call.”

In the pool report after the game, referee Brad Rogers told ESPN’s Adam Teicher that officials determined the defender “braced for impact and hit shoulder into shoulder” and they didn’t feel it was a “use of helmet foul.” In the same breath, he confirmed that Smith-Schuster was considered to be in the defenseless posture. Basically, the contact from Cisco was not deemed to be “unnecessary.”

“They said that he hit with his shoulder,” Reid said. “That’s why they picked (the flag) up, but when you hit somebody in the head you’re hitting them in the head. They said it was shoulder-to-shoulder, is what they said. Obviously, he was in a pretty bad position there for hitting shoulder-to-shoulder.”

Smith-Schuster went into the fencing response, which fans will remember from the Tua Tagovailoa incident earlier this season, after suffering the blow. Reid said that he tried to reason with the officials after witnessing that.

“That’s not a good feeling, at all,” Reid said of watching Smith-Schuster in the fencing response. “That’s what I tried to explain to the officials there, guys don’t get hit in the shoulder and lay around like that right there. There is more to it. Some way the head was involved. That’s what the rule is put in for, (to protect players) against that type of thing.”

A few plays after the hit on Smith-Schuster, Cisco was involved in another collision with Chiefs WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling. He says that he was surprised there weren’t penalties called…