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One of the lasting memories of last season’s 27-20 Patriots playoff victory over the Chiefs was how long it took the Chiefs to move down the field late in the fourth quarter with the game still in the balance.

It took the Chiefs, who got the ball down 14 points with over six minutes to play, more than five minutes to put the ball into the end zone as they huddled up and otherwise moved with limited urgency on offense. It’s nothing particularly new to longtime watchers of Andy Reid-coached teams as they’ve long had the reputation for sluggishness at such moments.

There’s a saying about old dogs and new tricks that comes to mind, but Reid says the Chiefs are working to be more capable in those situations this season.

“We could be better there,” Reid said, via ESPN.com. “Both sides of the ball, we could be better. It’s about our working on it and we’re doing that. We’ve got to capitalize on a few situations there. It’s a matter of just repping it, making sure I’m putting the guys in the right position. We’ve got to do that. We’ve got good players and we’ve got to make sure we’ve got an opportunity to make plays. It’s important that the young guys see enough of the different looks, knowing when we have to get out of bounds, knowing we can score. All of these types of things are involved here and this is a good time to do it, when you can slow it down and work on it.”

The Chiefs may not have beaten the Patriots with a more spirited drive in January, but they certainly would have given themselves a better chance at pulling off the upset and anything they can do to improve their chances of avoiding the same fate in the future is going to be time well spent.