Three centers in three weeks: Austin Reiter set to make first start for Chiefs

Austin Reiter and anyone with a heart hope his second NFL start goes better than his first.

“You had to bring that up?” Reiter joked.

Reiter will start at center for the Chiefs on Sunday against the Denver Broncos, KC coach Andy Reid said on Friday.

He has NFL experience, appearing in two games with 16 snaps on special teams for the Chiefs this season and playing in 17 games for the Cleveland Browns the previous two years.

The start came in his first NFL contest. He reached the fourth quarter in an October, 2016 Browns game at Washington, the team that drafted him in the seventh round a year earlier. Reiter got stepped on from behind and tore an ACL.

“That really isn’t in my mind anymore,” Reiter said.

Instead, he’s focusing on getting the ball to quarterback Patrick Mahomes and helping maintain the torrid pace of an offense the leads the NFL in scoring at 37.1 points and has been held under 30 only once.

Reiter is the Chiefs’ third starting center in three weeks. Mitch Morse suffered a concussion against the Patriots two weeks ago and has been ruled out of action since then. Jordan Devey stepped in for Morse at New England and played last week against the Cincinnati. He tore a pectoral muscle in the first quarter of that game but finished.

The Chiefs had a couple of options at center, including another former Cleveland Brown — Cameron Erving, who has started all season at left guard. It was Erving who had been injured while playing center with the Browns in 2016 that opened the door for Reiter’s first start.

But on Monday night, general manager Brett Veach phoned Reiter with the news and told him, “get ready to go.”

Reiter had started to work in at center, taking some first-team snaps, after the Morse injury.

“I prepare every week like I’m going to play every snap. ... Except the first one,” Reiter said.

Reiter came to the Chiefs as a waiver claim after being released by the Browns. He made the roster but was inactive for the first five games. He believes he’s up to speed.

“This is my eighth week here,” Reiter said. “I know what the assignments are. I think the biggest thing at the beginning of the week was the communication part of it. When to talk, when to say the calls, the fluidity of that.”

It’s big, Reiter said, that his debut at center for the Chiefs will be at Arrowhead.

“We should be able to hear, we won’t have to go silent cadence,” Reiter said. “That’s a huge advantage.”