Kansas City Chiefs’ positional coaches speak on where they stand ahead of season
By Calvin Silvers
The Kansas City Chiefs’ time in the community is coming to a close, as Thursday will be their final training camp session out at Missouri Western. As the Chiefs began to pack up and head back home, the media was gifted the positional coaches, who spoke at the podium on Wednesday.
Looking at the defense, defensive backs coach Dave Merritt is looking to fill that number two cornerback position, and he has quite the selection to choose from, despite losing L’Jarius Sneed in the offseason.
“You want someone to step up and be able to claim that position and not have a guy rotating and always looking over his shoulder,” Merritt said. “But again, we have a great thing going here because, you know, the fab five, all of those guys have played a lot.”
The team fields Jaylen Watson and Joshua Williams, both have gathered experience and share a total of six years combined. You also throw in Jaden Hicks, who has been thrown into four different positions so far in camp, as the team doesn’t want his talents to go unnoticed.
“Josh and Jaylen, you know, either guy can go in there and start for us, so both guys are starters anyways, so we really just talking about base personnel,” Merritt said.
For a team that typically plays six defensive backs, they would love to have Nazeeh Johnson as well, who is coming off an injury and got to practice with the first string on Wednesday.
“Having a guy that’s cerebral, that’s smart enough to understand, it’s not all man to man where you can just go out there and lock down a guy because we play a lot of zone,” Merritt said. Our corners, the main characteristic is having a guy who can understand press as well as zone concepts.”
Switching over to offense, it’s been no secret the wide receiver room has taken a lot of the headlines, so let’s take a look at the offense line. The line is anchored by Creed Humphrey, Joe Thuney and Trey Smith, but the left tackle position is still up for grabs, as no starter has been determined.
One lineman starting to stick out from the crowd is rookie Hunter Nourzad, who picks up things instantly and retains them. In fact, the coaching staff is happy with the little technique adjustments being made daily.
We can’t forget Kingsley Suamataia, who is fighting for a starting spot despite being a rookie.
“You can see it right away, his talent, his physical talent, big, strong, great movement skills, he’s shown a knack for being able to pull and make blocks in space,” line coach Andy Heck said. “He’s a young guy that’s trying to grasp all of the techniques as well as a playbook, so that’s a work in progress and kind of figuring out how does he learn best so we can help him grow as quickly as possible.
Special teams coordinator Dave Toub is continuing to craft the best way to attack the NFL’s new kick-off rule, and the first preseason game opened his eyes. Since the first go around was a lot of learning, he’s expecting to use the same returners from Saturday’s contest.
Xavier Worthy has also shown the potential to return, but due to the injury of Hollywood Brown, that changes things.
“We just need to get more reps out there and make sure that it’s clear what the rules are,” Toub said. “It was a great learning experience for everybody, everybody’s experimenting right now and, you know, we’re trying to come up with the best, you know, things for the regular season.”
