News and Notes from St. Joe
Training Camp for the Kansas City Chiefs resumed this week in St. Joseph, Missouri. While it was a shorter Monday practice session, there were plenty of interesting things I noticed while in attendance. From the players on the field to chatter from fellow fans, here are the biggest takeaways.
The Defense
While it’s still early in camp, I found it somewhat alarming (It was actually relatively mild compared to some of the other viewpoints I heard) that the defense had trouble lining up against the scout offense. During a goal line defensive drill, Reggie Ragland seemed to be totally lost when it came to his assignments. Tyrann Mathieu was showing tremendous leadership in trying to get him into the right spots, but even then, there were struggles.
While I like Mathieu already commanding the troops, at some point they have to at least know the basics. It was a roller coaster of a day for Ragland. In the same drill, he got absolutely torched on his coverage, didn’t lineup correctly on multiple occasions and lost his man, but also had an interception on a very poorly thrown ball by third string quarterback Chase Litton. Hopefully, the assignments and lining up correctly get ironed out quickly. It doesn’t really help things when new defensive coordinator Steve Spagnolo’s comment on his current linebacker situation was: “They’re professionals”. Yikes, not exactly oozing confidence.
The secondary and linebacker had their issues, certainly. The one group that did look solid was the defensive line, and there was one man in particular who looked much improved. Tanoh Kpassagnon looked like an absolute physical freak on the field. He’s so much taller than pretty much everyone else at the facility, and has looked to put on muscle and become leaner. His pass rush moves are much improved from last season, and he seems to be fitting in very nicely to the new 4-3 scheme. Chris Jones was back in action, while he didn’t do a whole lot in terms of practice, he seemed to be in very high spirits. This is incredibly important, considering the story line for multiple teams around the NFL is star players holding out. It seems like a new contract is imminent, and that is fantastic news. The one thing that absolutely hated about the defense today, and I am praying that it was a mistake/experiment gone wrong, was having Kpassagnon in coverage for a play. PLEASE TELL ME IT WAS. Chiefs Kingdom has had way too much of that kind of thing with Bob Sutton and his management of Justin Houston.
The Offense
There seemed to be an emphasis on pre-snap motion and all the window dressing that has become synonymous with an Andy Reid offense. Everything looked really smooth, I didn’t see any false starts or anyone looking confused, which is quite impressive for this early in camp. The screen game was alive and well, easily more than half of the plays ran were of that variety and to Travis Kelce in particular. He had about six or seven straight reps of routes from the slot while his blocks were set up. While it’s not sexy, screens are vital to the success of the Chiefs offense this season to keep opponents off balance. Mecole Hardman continued his excellent camp, catching all but one of his targets and having fun dancing to the music that was playing before practice started. Patrick Mahomes wasn’t showing off the cannon in terms of distance today, but rather was incredibly precise with his decision making and accuracy in the short game.
Speaking of the short game, Carlos Hyde took the majority of reps today. With Damien Williams still out with an injury for the seventh straight practice (Andy Reid was audibly frustrated with that following Sunday’s practice, which is unusual for him to express himself that way) Hyde took the lead role with Darrel Williams and Darwin Thompson splitting up the rest of the reps. While Hyde’s bellcow days from San Francisco are behind him, he still looked athletic and able to make plays from the backfield. Especially in a backfield-by-committee system, his size and strength will be a valuable compliment to the speed and quickness from the other backs. One disappointment on the offensive side of the ball was Sammy Watkins. It really pains me to write critically of him, I loved him at Clemson and I think he’s incredibly talented, but he had a bad day. It seemed like he has completely out of it in every drill. Whenever he did run a route or catch a ball, he never finished by going into the endzone like everyone else. Speaking of running his routes, he seemed to be running with a purposeful (or maybe it’s just how he runs now, I’m not entirely certain, it seemed odd regardless) hitch in his step. I’m starting to worry that he’s become afraid of getting injured and being overly cautious instead of just playing.
From The Stands
Despite it being a Monday, the practice session was incredibly well attended. The bleacher seating was filled up even to the very far ends of the second field where there was almost no action going on. There will always be the typical autograph seekers, the season ticket holders in the VIP tents, and the St. Joseph local middle school/high school teams in attendance. So, I took a couple laps around to listen in to the reaction and conversations from multiple spots at the Missouri Western campus to see what people were talking about. I heard a multitude of opinions and expectations, from the wildly optimistic undefeated season takes, to the doomsday scenario of missing the playoffs. However, there was one topic of discussion that really caught my attention and seemed to be a trend no matter where I was.
Will Patrick Mahomes have a sophomore slump?
First of all, I don’t think he will. I just want to preface this whole topic with that. It should be common sense that 50 touchdowns and 5000 yards is an unrealistic expectation for every season. But for the love of God, I heard some absolutely stupid things from people. Somebody said that if Mahomes “ONLY throws 40ish touchdowns” he’d be disappointed and consider that a sophomore slump. That is absolutely asinine. I cannot express how silly that stance is. Do you know how many other quarterbacks threw 40 touchdowns last season? Exactly zero. Literally nobody. The fact that there is that kind of bar set as a DISAPPOINTMENT is crazy. Other people said 35-40 can be blamed on the Madden Curse. Only three quarterbacks threw for 35+ last year. Look, I get it, Mahomes did something that very few people have seen before. It was absolutely incredible and fun to watch. It was also not normal in any way. I really want him to prove the law of averages wrong and throw for 50/5000 every season, but it’s just not possible. I also understand that we don’t know what Patrick Mahomes’ floor is in statistical categories. If I had to put a number on an average season, I would say he has to get to at least 30 touchdowns. I would consider that to be decent, and the tiniest bit of a slump. Even then, you know who threw 29 touchdowns last year? Tom Brady. Let’s settle down, Chiefs Kingdom. Let’s all just enjoy the ride this year.
Thanks everyone for reading! As always, please hit me up on Twitter with your opinions! I’ll see you all soon.
Nick Rellihan (@Rellihan51)
