FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — After a brief detour and delay, all of the equipment belonging to the Kansas City Chiefs arrived at Gillette Stadium for the team's showdown with the New England Patriots.
Head coach Andy Reid says never worried the equipment wouldn't show up for the game.
"I think everybody did a good job getting it back here," Reid said. "We had plenty of time, and we rolled."
A container of the team's equipment was not unloaded by the airline upon the team's arrival at the airport Saturday afternoon, a source tells Chiefs Digest. These mishaps happen on a regular basis, but are usually discovered during setup Saturday night.
Unfortunately the Chiefs equipment managers couldn't setup Saturday due to state high school championship games held at Gillette Stadium. The crew arrived early Sunday morning and immediately discovered the missing gear of helmets, shoulder pads and other equipment.
Once the container was tracked down, the club arranged transportation for the trip to the stadium. The club initially expected the equipment to arrive between 3 to 3:30 p.m. ET for the scheduled 4:25 kickoff. The escort provided by the Massachusetts State Police certainly helped.
If the equipment didn't arrive, the Chiefs likely would have faced a forfeit.
"We might have had to share helmets if it didn’t get here," quarterback Patrick Mahomes said.
But the equipment arrived at the stadium ahead of schedule and unloading began at 2:49 p.m. ET. Equipment managers grabbed any team employee in the area to grab bags and carry them to the locker room.
It did not appear that all of the team's players took part in early pregame warmup, but the a club employee did not expect any issues for full team pregame warmups that place before kickoff. Spotted among the bags brought into the stadium was the equipment belonging to Mahomes.
"I had to warm up in some different stuff than I played in," Mahomes said. "But it was here in time for me to be able to go out to the real warm-ups. So just going out there – I mean, they always keep extra stuff around so they took care of us and found a way to make it work and we just kept rolling."
Reid said everyone stayed calm including players and coaches as well as the team's equipment managers.
"It happens," Reid said. "It wasn't a big deal. I've been doing it for a lot of years and one out of how many years I've been doing it, it keeps things exciting."
