Chiefs: More Unexpected Surprises

Chiefs: More Unexpected Surprises – During preseason three players received very little publicity. Why the omission of these three? Well, one was an UDFA at the deepest position on the team, defensive tackle… another was a rookie CB, who was a 4th round pick, which is usually not a first week option for a Super Bowl Champion on a #runitback mission… and the third was a UDFA rookie punter, replacing a legendary punter in K.C.. All three players have been well needed, and unexpected surprises. 

Tershawn (Turk Chop) Wharton

Wharton grew up in University City, Missouri and attended Maplewood Richmond Heights High School for his first three seasons before transferring to University City High School. As a senior, he recorded 110 tackles, with four quarterback sacks, and an interception and was named first team All-Suburban Central Conference.

Wharton’s College Career

Tershawn Wharton was a four year starter for the Missouri S&T Miners. He was undersized for the position, which is why Division I schools didn’t recruit him. He was named first team All-Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) after recording 64 tackles and 13.5 sacks in his sophomore season. He had 7.5 sacks both as a junior and senior and was named first team All-GLVC in each season. Wharton finished his collegiate career with 58 tackles for loss and 35.5 sacks. (both all-time school records).

Wharton’s Short NFL Career 

 As a Kansas City Chiefs UDFA, before the season started very little was expected from Tershawn. With the team roster depth at DT at a high level it was not expected that he would see much playing time. Many thought he only made the 53 man roster because of Mike Pennel’s suspension, but now we see him as the best rotational rookie DT, not only on the Chiefs, maybe the entire NFL.

Yes, the Chiefs coaches saw his untapped potential in training camp, but regular season snaps did not start until after an injury to Khalen Saunders in Week 1 against Houston. To begin with, Mike Danna was getting the blunt of the snaps, until Week 4 against New England, when Danna was then injured. Starting with Week 1, Turk had only 14 snaps, but now he has had 204 defensive snaps. Each week his play has improved from one game to the next game, and his snap counts have increased also. Mostly he plays DT, but he is athletic enough to also play DE part of the time, and he has taken some snaps there. Just imagine Tershawn has not yet developed into his full football playing weight and muscle. Once he does, we will see his tenacity and passion to play in the trenches at a high level. For now he is playing so well that he has the media’s attention, so much so that he has been referred to as a “diamond in the rough”. I’ll state it here and now that he is the biggest and best sleeper UDFA of the entire 2020 season. 

Pro Football Focus, states that Tershawn Wharton is the second-best-graded rookie defensive lineman this year and that only Chase Young, the #2 overall drafted player overall this year, is higher.

Above is a screencap of Tershwan Wharton’s Twitter page. Here is the link to his Twitter page. This shows his timeline is some fantastic reading that shows his passion for the game and remembering where he came leading into where he is at now, but I can’t find out how or when he got the nickname.

CB L’Jarius Sneed

L’Jarius Sneed was born in Minden, Louisiana on January 21, 1997. He went to Minden High School and while there he was a two way player, on both defense and offense, and he helped lead his team to a 9-3 record his senior year, advancing to the second round of the LHSAA 4A State Playoffs. Other notable high school highlights include:

• Received first team all-district honors his junior and senior years with all-area honors his senior season.
• As a safety his junior year, he registered seven interceptions returned for 252 yards and four touchdowns. 
• His Senior year as a WR he scored 19 TDs on just 64 catches. 

Sneed’s College Career

 L’Jarius Sneed committed to Louisiana Tech. His freshman year he was only playing on special teams. Sneed converted to playing cornerback at Tech, and his first start was highlighted by an interception returned for a touchdown — a pick-6 — against Western Kentucky during a Conference USA Championship Game. He started about half the games at corner his sophomore season before moving into a permanent starting role his junior season. As a sacrifice, and for the betterment of the team, he moved to free safety before his senior season, then was second on the team in tackles with 73, and named second-team all-C-USA season’s end. Sneed also participated in the 2020 NFLPA Collegiate Bowl.

Sneed’s Short NFL Career 

L’Jarius was drafted in the 4th round by the Kansas City Chiefs. He started in the first game of the year against the Houston Texans as the Right CB. In his first 2 games, he was playing fantastic for a rookie, collecting 2 interceptions for 39 return yards, and holding opponents to 10 completions on 17 targets; 58.8% QB completion rate against him which included only 91 yards and a 33.8 QB rating.

Sneed’s blend of length, athleticism and ball skills is rare for such a young player, and as we saw during his senior year at safety, he plays the run well too. Here’s a look at Sneed’s first, of what we hope is many, NFL INTs:

While attempting to intercept his 3rd pass of the year in the 3rd game of the year, against the Baltimore Ravens early in the game he fractured his collarbone. He has already returned to practice and I fully expect to see him back as the starting right CB, after the bye week against the Las Vegas Raiders. As he was clearly playing better than what Charvarius Ward is in his place. Chartreuse has regressed from his level of play that we saw from him last year, and he needs to be relegated to backup duties. 

Tommy “The Toe” Townsend

Thomas Townsend was born on November 12, 1996 and he attended William R. Boone High School in Orlando, Florida. 

Townsend’s College Career

He played (redshirted) his freshman year at the University of Tennessee before returning to Florida to play at the University of Florida. His college stats include: 91 attempts for 4162 yards and a 44.8 average.

His Short NFL Career

Tommy Townsend signed with the Chiefs as an undrafted free agent this past Spring. He had the difficult task of replacing a 15-year legend in Dustin Colquitt. While not lofty numbers so far in his young career, his 9 game stats are: 27 attempts for 1273 yards with a long of 67 yards and a 47.1 average. That’s good for 10th best in the league. In the fourth game of his rookie season in 2020, he had two punts that went 65 yards against the New England Patriots. He finished that game with 4 attempts for 243 yards for an average of 60.75. A new Chiefs franchise record for punt average in and a game (minimum 4 attempts).

On November 1, he completed his first career pass on a fake punt against the New York Jets. The completion went for 13 yards, which resulted in a first down. While he has been better than we should expect to see from an UDFA, there is room for improvement. We got spoiled from so many years of Dustin’s ability to place punts inside of the 20-yard line which he did 462 times. No matter who the Chiefs punter is, we still need to see that ability performed. Tommy has only placed 10 punts inside the 20 so far, at a rate of 37% which is good for only bottom ⅓ of the league. While he has had his highlight moments, we need to see more consistency and overall improvement. Many are blaming the missed extra points by Harrison Butker, on his ball holds. I do not agree with that or we would see more field goals being missed. 

Summary: More Unexpected Surprises

When you have a Super Bowl Championship team that returns a high majority of players such as the Chiefs, then you don’t necessarily expect to see rookie, or free agents breaking out. However, because of the abnormal offseason, brought on by, Covid and injuries, the Chiefs have had a need for all of the six unexpected surprise players I’ve written about. Going forward, past this year, the salary cap could cause issues, where we might see these unexpected surprises every year. Times your Brett Veach!

Alan Haupt — ArrowheadOne