Chiefs Preseason Game Time: The Drive To Succeed

Chiefs Preseason Game Time: The Drive To Succeed – For football starved fans, the pre-season games offer a taste of the real thing. However, if football is a Ferrari, the preseason edition, thereof, is more like a Vespa. This is especially true for fans of teams with well established QBs. While the on-field product might not be particularly exciting to watch, it is the culmination of a lot of hard work, from a lot of young men looking to fulfill their dreams. While reports from training camp are fun, this is where the rubber meets the road.

Depth Chart Doldrums

Coaches, by and large, prefer veterans. Steve Spagnuolo said as much, though indicating that he may make an exception for Juan Thornhill. That’s fine if you’re a high draft pick, who’ll be given every opportunity to succeed, but as an UDFA, it’s a tough thing to overcome. Take Chiefs’ John Lovett. Excellent special teams player, and flashing some in practice, but stuck at 2^nd FB and last on the TE depth chart. When those are the kind of reps you get, in practice, it’s tough to prove much of anything. Players can get positive attention, in training camp, but there’s really only one way to climb the depth chart: playing the game.

Workout Warriors vs Gamers

Only the best of the best even make it to a 90 man roster. A lot of guys will show out in practice due to their natural physical ability. Once the games start though, it’s all about the heart. Football is a violent game. You know it from watching, but fans don’t really understand the extent of the damage it does to your body. Sure we know about CTE, but we often don’t think about how players drag into the locker room with scrapes, bruises and sore muscles. When we say that a guy is playing hurt, what we actually mean is that he’s playing more hurt than everybody else. Unless you’re a kicker, or a punter, you’ll be playing football in pain, at some point. If you set out to do that, and you don’t possess a fierce love for the game, your body will let you down. Every year guys look great in practice, only to flop on the field. Training camp buys you an opportunity, but they don’t watch camp drills on cut-down day, they watch game tape. If you wanna stick around, that tape better be worth watching.

The Bottom Line

For fans watching, later in the game, the eye is drawn to the flash. The backup QB who has a nice arm, the DT who can’t be blocked. All of these things are subject to the level of competition. For the front office, they’ll be looking for effort, and technique, as much as results. Guys who play their assignments, without fanfare, bypass flashy freelancers any day. If you want to know how a player did, don’t re-watch the game, look at the next depth chart that comes out. Look at the rotation changes, in camp. Coaches will tell you what’s real and what’s fake in the only currency that matters, this time of year: reps. Time for the rookies to go get some. Go Chiefs.

Bonus Thought: LIVE Practice

Kansas City possess one of the deepest defensive lines in the league. Those guys have spent the last couple weeks pulling up right before the guy in the yellow jersey. The Chiefs have live practices, where they tackle to the ground, but that never extends to the QB. Frank Clark, Chris Jones, Alex Okafor, and the rest of the group are itching to finally finish a play. I can’t wait to see them get that opportunity. It has to be a satisfying feeling. Unless you play QB for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Ransom Hawthorne — ArrowheadOne

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