The Kansas City Chiefs hit the practice field once again Wednesday night for their final night practice of the season. In fact, it was the fifth to last full practice up in St. Joe this year so four more to go.
This may have been the best attendance of the year, which we sort of expected considering it's the last night practice and the heat just seemed to disappear.
OK, onto the good stuff. Here's my practice report from Wednesday night:
The Chiefs had a new player on the field -- No. 84 WR Keary Colbert. You can tell he's an NFL veteran the way he moves but, honestly, there's no room at receiver. Ideally he increases the competition in training camp but, as I said to another media member last night, I have eight guys (at least) ahead of him: Dwayne Bowe, Jerheme Urban, Steve Breaston, Jonathan Baldwin, Dexter McCluster, Terrance Copper, Jeremy Horne and Verran Tucker.
The Chiefs also signed a kicker, Todd Carter. He wasn't out there last night and Ryan Succop was kicking fine so it doesn't appear to be injury-related. He's a kickoff specialist so perhaps that's the reason he's coming in right before Friday's game.
FB Mike Cox is the one not practicing. Looks like he had a lower leg issue but he was walking fine. He spent time in the rehab zone.
TE Tony Moeaki, WR Jonathan Baldwin and DE Glenn Dorsey were on the field. They've all been fighting minor injury bugs lately.
Rain started coming down at practice around 8:00 p.m. which caused some folks to leave. It sprinkled for a good 10 minutes before it stopped. Whew -- I'd hate to be a fan driving an hour or more up to St. Joe only to get it cut off 45 minutes into practice.
There was real, live hitting with the run game. Guys weren't taking the ball carrier to the ground but it was nice to hear the smashing of the big guys up front.
The quarterbacks and receivers worked on some goal line passing action. Right off the bat, you see QB Matt Cassel hit Bowe in the right corner of the end zone dragging his feet to keep it in. Nice play.
CB Brandon Flowers vs. Bowe is the best position matchup here, I think. It's always a lot of fun to watch and I can usually tell when it's happening because there's a big cheer for whoever comes on top that play.
So when they're working on drills a lot of times it's one group on one side of the field and another group on the other side so you have to kind of pick and choose which group you're going to focus in on. While I was looking away from the receivers, I heard a big cheer and I saw Urban getting up from the ground in the end zone with the ball as CB Brandon Carr walked away. Big play?
LB Cam Sheffield looks pretty fast. He was injured last preseason so he's really an unknown and he looked sharp going against some of these left tackles. He had a nice swim move to get inside and past RT Ryan O'Callaghan.
DE Wallace Gilberry is awesome. He's had a really good training camp and on one drill he demonstrated that. Pass-rushers were going against the offensive tackles and Gilberry decided he didn't need any moves to get past OT Butch Lewis -- he went straight through him knocking Lewis to the ground. Gilberry got a big reaction from the crowd. Get excited about him.
I missed all of Succop's field goals but he was hitting them consistently from 45-50 with no field goal unit on the field and 35-49 yards out with the field goal unit on the field.
P Dustin Colquitt and the punt team worked on punting from their own one yard line and, as usual, Colquitt was booming them. He kicked one backed up in his own end zone past the 50 yard line and around the 45. Don't discount how difficult that is concentration-wise -- every play looks like it's going to be blocked with the bodies flying in front of him.
Your return men were McCluster, Urban, WR Chandler Williams and CB Javier Arenas.
Looking at the backup offensive tackle position, I'm sticking with Mims as my top candidate to make the team. He's a big dude out there and can really shut some of these guys down physically. Of course, there's a reason he wasn't drafted -- he's inconsistent -- but the tools are there. Lewis and the offensive tackles had some struggles last night.
Williams muffed one punt and two returns later McCluster had to dive to secure a punt.
In 11-on-11 stuff, QB Tyler Palko had to run for his life a couple of times. You can't hit the quarterback obviously but a couple of guys -- LB Gabe Miller and LB Eric Bahktiari -- had would-be sacks.