Chiefs are in pads for the first time since the Super Bowl in February ... football!
You knew the practice would be fun from the first song, literally, with what seemed like a dozen or so guys grabbing various parts of their body and dancing between reps to Wipe Me Down.
You knew the practice would be fun from the first live snap, notable to fantasy players for having Clyde Edwards-Helaire with the ones, but more important to football fans for simply existing.
“Nobody works as hard as the Kansas City Chiefs,” safety Tyrann Mathieu said. “I’ll tell you that right now.”
The Chiefs’ first training camp practice in pads was also the first for a small number of us to be able to watch. And, at least for a day, it was glorious. Football is happening. Not quite real football, at least not yet — no tackling, no referees, no pressure. But, still. Football.
Tyreek Hill sprinted downfield. Travis Kelce — his second contract extension fully in place now — worked the defense’s second level. Patrick Mahomes went sidearm, that move where he momentarily fades against the play’s flow, but only so he can sling shot the ball against momentum in a way that he and maybe one or two humans are capable.
We saw highlight moments. Hill was genuinely angry with himself after one long pass was knocked down by Daniel Sorensen. Charvarius Ward celebrated a pass deflected against Demarcus Robinson. Jody Fortson made the catch of the day, one-handed against the sideline and over his defender.
We saw some early training camp moments. A fumbled snap. False starts. Delayed starts. Wrong routes.
We saw COVID-19’s effect, too. Coaches in masks or face shields (Andy Reid’s preference), their yelling just as intense but muffled a bit. No shared water. A staffer walks the field with what is essentially an enormous fanny pack filled with small bottles. The weights have moved outside, under an event tent.
We saw a crumb or two of information. Edwards-Helaire taking the first snap with the starters qualifies as the “newsiest” moment. But it was also notable that Chad Henne took every snap with the backups.
He was the No. 2 at this time last year, too, before an ankle injury ended his season. Matt Moore was signed and won one of two starts while Mahomes rehabbed the dislocated kneecap.
But, mostly, we saw football. Finally.
“Just going out there and playing football with guys who come to work every single day and fight their tail for your, man,” Kelce said. “It’s a beautiful thing.”
The Chiefs will have a different preseason than anyone else, and not just because they’re the Super Bowl champions.
This is as turnkey an operation as the NFL allows, with every assistant coach back as well as virtually all the most important players. Reid is known for hard camps. Fast camps. This one is different.
Reid uses the term ramping up constantly. They’re starting slow, building little by little, day by day, valuing consistency, diminishing the risk of piling too much on.
Every coach will handle this differently, of course, but it’s easy to see Reid’s logic here. The coaches and players know each other well. There aren’t many position battles. They aren’t breaking in a new key pass rusher, or cornerback, or quarterback.
You know things are as smooth as they can be in 2020 when a lot of the questions revolve around whether the Chiefs will become complacent with success. This isn’t a knock on the question — it’s a real thing, and it’s contributed to wrecked seasons in the past.
It’s just that there aren’t a lot of tangible football issues right now. The Chiefs are relatively young. Their best players are signed long term. They’ve been successful, and while they wouldn’t be the first team to drop after a Super Bowl championship, Reid’s seven years here have been defined by consistent improvement and unrelenting focus.
There are no guarantees. That’s always true in the NFL, and particularly true right now.
Issues will arise. Highlights will happen. The NFL machine moves on, this time with the Chiefs as a central figure. Whatever they do will be digested by some in terms of what it does for the Super Bowl race. Whatever other teams do will be talked about in terms of whether it’s enough to beat the Chiefs.
Football is back, and in so many ways, different than it’s ever been.
This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 1:00 PM.