Don’t recognize these Chiefs? Time to meet the new guys as season opens
Jordan Lucas was getting ready for Beyonce and Jay Z’s On The Run II concert with his fiancee last Friday when he got a call from Miami general manager Chris Grier.
The safety was being traded to Kansas City, and he had to be on a flight out of Florida the next morning.
But even a big life change on the horizon couldn’t change his plans that night, and he continued on to the concert.
“It was a turn-up session,” he said, laughing. “It was great, though. I had a lot of fun.
“We did leave a little early just so I could get home and pack because I had to be up at 4:45 a.m. to make my flight. But you know, it was great news. I was very excited. My fiancee was very excited. Everybody was excited for me that found out. I couldn’t be more thankful.”
Lucas, a New York native who spent two seasons with the Dolphins, brings the kind of versatility the Chiefs like in their new players. Not only will he be a factor on special teams, but he also has the flexibility to play all over the field in the secondary.
“He came as a corner out of Penn State,” defensive coordinator Bob Sutton said. “He’s played about every position. I think at Penn State he played nickel, he played dime. I think he played dime at Miami some too. So he’s played all three positions, which in today’s football is really crucial because there’s so many things that are happening from matchup standpoints that you need guys like that. (Daniel) Sorensen has kind of been that guy for us, so it’s good to get another guy like that for us.”
Lucas wasn’t the only player to become a Chief last week.
In all, the Chiefs added five new players in the final days of the preseason and roster cut weekend. Three — Lucas, Charvarius Ward and Ron Parker — were added to the secondary, while two — Ike Boettger and Alex Reiter — joined the offensive line. With his extensive history with the Chiefs, Parker figures to be the only new guy who will see significant action against the Chargers.
Ward, an undrafted rookie, was the first to join the team in the days leading up to the roster cut weekend. The former Dallas Cowboy was tugging on his pads in Houston’s visitors locker when defensive backs coach Kris Richard summoned him to coach Jason Garrett’s makeshift office.
“I was surprised,” Ward said. “I was shocked. I thought I was going to make the team down there.”
From an undrafted rookie to a member of the 53-man roster, Ward’s NFL journey is even more improbable given that he played just a year of high school football. With just one season of tape, he wasn’t exactly a hot commodity on the recruiting trail, so he went to Hinds Community College in Raymond, Mississippi. Though he qualified academically after one year, he stayed for an additional season to attract more scholarship offers.
He finally landed with Middle Tennessee State, where he had a team-high 14 pass breakups in 2017.
“Junior college was a real struggle as far as eating, having money,” Ward said. “Junior college, it helped me become more of a man off the field. At MTSU, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about football. Got a lot of football sense. Just got a whole lot better at MTSU.
“I gained 20-25 pounds when I was at Middle Tennessee. It helped me, it helped my body grow once I got to MTSU. College helped me become a man and a better athlete too.”
To Chiefs general manager Brett Veach, Ward, named the most underrated cornerback in the 2018 draft by USA Today’s Draft Wire, was a Tremon Smith-like player. Taken in the sixth round of this year’s draft, Smith’s emergence as a returner and a corner was one of the preseason’s pleasant surprises. Down in Dallas, Ward was attracting similiar attention.
“He’s typically like the corners that we like, those long, athletic press corners,” Veach said. “He was a guy we liked, we were not able to get him in the free agency period and kind of monitored him. He was a junior college transfer too, so he wasn’t one of these guys that played four or five years in a big school and had all the grooming and the prep. We still feel like there’s a lot of upside with him.”
On the other side of the ball, the two offensive linemen came at the expense of some veteran safety nets. Quarterback Matt McGloin was cut on Sunday to make room for Boettger off waivers, and Bryan Witzmann, who started 13 games last season, was cut Monday to give a spot to Reiter.
While undrafted rookie Boettger, an Iowa product who played with fellow Chief Ben Neimann, came from the Bills, Reiter landed with the Chiefs after a two-season stint with the Browns. Reiter, who appeared in 16 games in 2017, was around all preseason while the “Hard Knocks” cameras filmed his position coach Bob Wylie.
“You could see there were about four or five camera crews around, so you knew who they wanted to follow and put on TV,” Reiter said. “But yeah, I’d catch glimpses of myself in the background and go, ‘Oh yeah, there I am.’”
For all of the new additions — perhaps with the exception of Parker — the transition from one team to another so close to the season has been a whirlwind. Players like Lucas and Ward are still being used in a scout team capacity while they learn the playbook.
But as they get adjusted to life in KC, they figure to factor in more and more to the Chiefs’ scheme.
Brooke Pryor
Brooke Pryor covers the Kansas City Chiefs and NFL for The Star.
This story was originally published September 7, 2018 at 11:49 AM.