That didn’t take long: Melvin Ingram to make his Kansas City Chiefs debut on Sunday
A day after his first practice in Kansas City, Chiefs edge rusher Melvin Ingram said he’d spend the week seeing how quickly he could grasp a new scheme.
Pretty quickly, as it turns out.
Five days after acquiring Ingram in a trade with Pittsburgh, the Chiefs will immediately plug him into their lineup. Coach Andy Reid said Friday that Ingram will be in uniform Sunday, when the Packers visit Arrowhead Stadium for a 3:25 p.m. kickoff.
“We’ll have a few plays for him,” Reid said. “He’s looked good, yeah. He’s done a nice job.”
While Ingram has spent the bulk of his career as an outside linebacker in a 3-4 scheme, he will shift to defensive end for the Chiefs, joining a rotation that includes Frank Clark, Mike Danna and Alex Okafor. The lingo is a bit different, he acknowledged. But defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo said that during a conversation this week he began to explain a concept to Ingram, who basically completed his sentence.
How they employ Ingram will be streamlined after they see him in the system.
“You don’t really find out until you get in a game,” Spagnuolo said. “You’ll have to give us a little bit of time to figure out how to use him.”
They do know Ingram can get to the quarterback. That’s the draw. That’s why the Chiefs relinquished a sixth-round draft choice to acquire him from Pittsburgh. Ingram, who first spent nine seasons with the Chargers, has 50 career sacks, though he had just one in six games with the Steelers this season and zero in 2020 as he battled a knee injury.
The Chiefs have just 11 sacks this year through eight weeks. Only the Falcons (10) have fewer.
“I’m gonna bring me. I’m gonna bring my style, my unique style of play,” Ingram said Thursday, his first news conference with Kansas City media. “I’m gonna work hard and just try to contribute to what they’ve got going on.”
This story was originally published November 5, 2021 at 2:14 PM.