Kansas City Chiefs Had A Backup Plan To Avoid Forfeiting Sunday’s Game After Their Helmets Were Sent To New Jersey

Kansas City Chiefs were in danger of not having helmets for their Sunday game against the New England Patriots after they were sent to New Jersey, KC had a plan.

Getty Image / Maddie Meyer / Staff


The Kansas City Chiefs squeaked past the New England Patriots on Sunday (with the help of the referees). However, the Chiefs nearly had to forfeit the game because they didn’t have helmets.

A container full of shoulder pads, helmets, and footballs for at least 35 Chiefs players never made it to Gillette Stadium on Sunday because they forgot to unload the equipment from the plane. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the equipment container stayed on the airplane and landed 225 miles away at Newark Airport in New Jersey. The Chiefs’ spokesman said the major faux pas was an “honest mistake.”

If the Chiefs didn’t have their equipment before the game, they would have to forfeit. The team wasn’t positive that the equipment would be rerouted back to Foxborough, Massachusetts, in time for Sunday’s game against the Patriots. So Kansas City devised a backup plan in case the equipment was delayed.

The Chiefs contacted Riddell, the company that supplies helmets to the NFL, and while they couldn’t send 35 helmets in time for the game, they devised another brilliant idea. Riddell called up Masconomet Regional High School Athletic Director John Daileanes and asked for a favor.

“He told me, ‘I really don’t have too much time to talk,” Daileanes told the Metro West Daily News. “‘But a bunch of the Kansas City Chiefs helmets and shoulder pads and other equipment are in Newark, New Jersey right now. There’s a big snafu. I need to get down to Masco, and if it’s possible could we use your helmets for the game?'”

They selected Masconomet not only because they are relatively close, a little over an hour away from Gillette Stadium, but also because their logo is relatively similar to the Chiefs’ helmets. They both have red helmets with a white arrowhead, but Masco has a letter “M,” and Kansas City has a “KC.” Still, very similar and would pass for people watching at home.

The proximity was great, the similar helmets were fantastic, just one more hurdle — would high school football helmets fit NFL behemoths?

“They had a contingency plan in place to use our helmets. Who knows whether or not these helmets would even fit properly,” Daileanes explained. “There’s a way to kind of make them fit. But I don’t know. It would have been great. I just wanted to see one random Masco helmet. I thought that would have been pretty classic, but it never came to fruition.”

Thankfully for the Chiefs, they never had to wear helmets made for teenagers because their arrived at the stadium in the nick of time. The helmets were given a special police escort from the airport. The equipment was delivered to the Chiefs at around 2:30 p.m., which was ahead of the 4:35 p.m. kickoff.

Had the game started at the usual 1:00 p.m. time slot, the Chiefs would have been squishing their heads into high school football helmets.

[CBSSports]