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Ah yes, the eight man practice squad. The "B" team of the NFL. Is there anything worse for an young NFL player than having to sit on the practice squad? You're either waiting for your NFL dreams to come true or hoping your mother hasn't cleaned out your spot in her basement when you get coldly cut from the squad. Not to discount mother's basements. I'm a blogger. By definition then, I live in my mother's basement. But I've got pants on which makes me more respectable than most.
The practice squad gets little attention and rightfully so. A player signed on a Monday to the practice squad is just as likely to be gone the next Monday as he is to remain on the squad.
The practice squad is a way for teams to get a longer look at players they may not currently have room for on the active roster. Some, like current Chiefs PS member TE Michael Allan, were drafted by their team and injuries or other situations arose that required them to move off of the active roster. Others, like T Ramiro Pruneda, are "projects" of sorts and have been on the PS for months now.
Then there are guys like WR Brent Little. Little was signed in mid-June, cut from the team when it came to to trim the roster to 53 men and signed again to the PS in the middle of September. Where is he now? Oh he was cut a week later on September 19th and hasn't caught on anywhere else. And probably won't be picked up by any other team. Little was local to the KC area and that seems to be a factor with these PS guys.
To come back to the point of this post, the Chiefs have signed and released five wide receivers in the last 34 days to the practice squad. And I was curious what insights we can gather from that, if any.
The newest member of the squad is WR Matt Trannon, who was just signed today. Standing 6-6 and out of Michigan State, Trannon was also a member of the Spartans basketball team for three years.
I've casually heard that Eddie Kennison's MRI didn't point to any serious damage beyond a pulled hamstring. But Eddie is 34 years old and certainly not getting any younger. 2007 may be his last season.
WR Bobby Sippio has not seen any action aside from special teams work since he was called up to the active roster on September 11th. Could Sippio please just get one pass thrown to him, even if its just to shut us up?
Jeff Webb and Samie Parker's jobs are secure for now. But beyond those two guys, the Chiefs have little depth at the WR position. Enter in the game of musical chairs on the practice squad.
So many receivers being looked at in such a short time mean that the Chiefs brass is looking for something specific in a wide receiver. I'm not really sure what that is though. Something is afoot and in time all of this movement will make sense.