For Mitchell Schwartz, preparation for Thursday night’s AFC West showdown began immediately after the Chiefs held off Baltimore in overtime Sunday afternoon.
After the brief team meeting in the locker room, Schwartz and the other Chiefs linemen took a dip in the cold tub to start the recovery process, something they wouldn’t do in a normal week.
But this isn’t a normal week.
This is a crash course in recovery and game preparation, and it’s all leading up to a crucial tilt with the Los Angeles Chargers that with a win would give the Chiefs a home field advantage in the playoffs. Though it’s a tight turnaround, the Chiefs have a distinct advantage in hosting the game — home teams are 10-2 on Thursday Night Football this season.
“You kind of get that extra day to prepare instead of traveling,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes said of the Thursday night home field advantage. “But at the same time, you’ve still got to go out there and win the game. It helps to be in Arrowhead for sure, just the advantage that we get here, it’s pretty tremendous every single week. I’m glad that we get to play that Thursday night game here.”
Since 2006, the Chiefs are 5-4 in Thursday night games and 3-1 in those games at Arrowhead. The lone loss came against the Broncos in September 2015 when Denver left Kansas City with a 31-24 victory.
Though most road teams have been on the losing end of these games this year, the Chargers found a way to beat the odds last year. During coach Anthony Lynn’s first season, L.A. beat the Cowboys 28-6 in Dallas on Thanksgiving, four days after drubbing Buffalo 54-24.
“Our primary focus has been recovery and just mental practice,” Lynn said. “Just mental concentration. We have to be mature enough to be a little bit more business-like this week because we don’t have as much time. The classroom is going to be important this week and what we do on the field. The work that we do on the field is going to be extremely important, but the main thing is getting these guys bodies right and helping them recover from last Sunday night. That’s a big emphasis for us.”
Like the Chargers, the Chiefs are focused on getting their bodies ready for Thursday.
That’s why Schwartz first stretched and used the foam roller before getting into the cold tub Sunday night. Later, at home, he sat down in front of the television and strapped on NormaTec boots. The device, which looks like a pair of moon boots, helps circulate the blood in the legs to help with faster recovery.
“It kind of helps flush the legs,” Schwartz said. “It’s got different air chambers and it fills up and it’s kind of nice. You’re going to be sitting on the couch anyway watching TV so you might as well throw them on for an hour, get your legs elevated, get the blood flow out.”
Schwartz used the boots Sunday night and every couple of hours on Monday, and said he planned on using them again Tuesday night. Though he would use the boots in a normal week, too, Schwartz said he uses them even more in a short week like this.
“It’s the type of thing, you ask, do they help?” Schwartz said. “And you can’t say definitively if they do. The science on it says it does, so you just trust that it does, but you can’t really test if you do or if you don’t. So you just trust the data and figure it can’t hurt.”
Recovery is just one thing that’s accelerated on a week like this. Although the team doesn’t practice on Monday, the day is jammed full of extra film study.
“Today, you’re here from about 9 to 9, just trying to make sure you get two days worth of film and game planning in,” Mahomes said Monday. “It’s kind of the same thing tomorrow. You want to make sure you’re just as prepared as you would be on a Sunday game.”
True to form, rookie running back Darrel Williams tweeted that he was finally going home just before 9 p.m. Monday night.
“Long day today,” he wrote. “I’m just leaving the facility.”
It benefits both teams that they’ve already played each other this season, even if it was more than three months ago. The Chiefs won that Week 1 matchup 38-28.
“Thursday night games are always tough to prepare for,” Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy said. “The beauty of it is that you have some familiarity. We know these guys just like they know us. It’s not going to be a whole lot of trick ‘em going on. These guys are going to do what they do. At the end of the day, it’s going to come down to execution and who wants it more.”