The Chiefs training camp talking points you hear every year

It’s the end of July. Football’s in the air. Camps are starting, and football is back.

It’s an exciting time to be alive.

But along with the return of football comes articles, reactions and overreactions, predictions and the like from fans and those who cover the Kansas City Chiefs full time (like Joel). Disclaimer: this is not a knock on those in the media; they have a very cool job. This is all in the name of fun.

So I asked Chiefs fans on Twitter what some of their favorite “typical camp story lines” are, and you guys delivered, as usual. (If you want to follow me on Twitter or like my Facebook page, that’d be cool. Or don’t. It’s whatever.)

(Oh, yeah ... before we get started, congratulations to MNchiefsfan (Seth Keysor). He’s verified on Twitter now. Tweet at him or something, because now he’s officially cool.)

The “We Can’t Win Because of Our QB” argument

This one was pretty good, actually. Since Alex Smith joined the Chiefs in 2013, fans—for the most part—usually felt that the offense was limited because of No. 11. Each year, the optimistic thought was, “This is the year that Alex jumps to the ‘next level’ and the offense really improves.” Enough of that ‘next level’ crap. The future is here in Patrick Mahomes.

The over excitement for rookies after just a few days into camp

No one in Chiefs Kingdom tweeted this one at me, but this is always one of my favorites. We’re already seeing the “rookie who will make the biggest impact” articles coming in. FanRag Sports published an article Tuesday (one day into camp) titled, “Kareem Hunt is poised to make immediate impact for Chiefs.”

The article on FanRag wasn’t a bad read, necessarily, but it just haves me wondering ... we don’t know how this rookie’s going to pan out. We’re all guilty of it, too. At the end of the day, it’s an easy route to go for the media. I just caution you to not buy the hype all the time.

A similar article from the Kansas City Star on Hunt, written by Alec McChesney, was also put up on the Star’s website Tuesday. It wasn’t a bad piece by any means—Alec had a ton of great information in it—but once again, just be careful before you buy all the hype.

For the record, I love Kareem Hunt. He’s got the potential to do some great things and compete for Spencer Ware’s starting spot.

See what I did there? Moving on.

(1) The “Best Shape Of His Life Guy,” and (2) Play-by-play analysis of camp practice

Every year, there’s always that veteran on the back end of his career. And when he comes to camp, the pictures and comments fly in that he’s in the best shape since he came into the league. It isn’t bad for a player to say this, but it’s tough to really judge how great of shape a he’s in. To me, the only real way to judge a player’s physical fitness is his play on the field once teams match up head-to-head, not a picture walking into the training facility.

Another personal favorite: fans getting excited when a quarterback throws a deep pass for a touchdown in practice. I guarantee you that you’ll see a tweet from someone explaining how “Alex Smith threw a gorgeous ball 40 yards downfield to Tyreek Hill along the sideline for a touchdown.” Is that more than 140 characters?

The hopeful “We have a really tall wide receiver who can be the next Calvin Johnson” assertion.

Virtually every team has that tall, pretty much unknown receiver in camp that they hope becomes a big target in the passing game. This was the case when the Chiefs drafted Chris Conley in 2015. Arrowhead Pride’s MNchiefs fan wrote this about Conley in his film review a couple weeks ago. “A guy with an extremely impressive combine and good size (6’3 with arms longer than a giraffe’s neck), a lot of fans were hoping Conley would come on strong right away,” Seth wrote. That sums it up, right? We’re still waiting for Conley to break through.

Even rookie Jehu Chesson is 6’3. According to this website, the average NFL wide receiver is 5’11. So it’s reasonable to think that Chesson, if he develops, could be a big target for Smith.

See, I did it again.

The “Our Organization is So Dysfunctional” sentiment.

In case you live under a rock, Blake’s referencing Tamba Hali’s tweets in which he complained about a lack of playing time in last year’s playoff loss to Pittsburgh. Guys are going to be upset, and if you want to win, you’ve got to love Tamba’s fire. Was it the best way to go about things? Probably not.

But if the Chiefs were to finish 7-9, it won’t be because Tamba fired off a handful of tweets about the 2016 season before camp.

To finish things off, here are a few tweets that should jog the memories of most Chiefs fans ...

I actually got a handful of tweets that referenced Jon Baldwin. Baldwin had such a great camp that the Chiefs traded the first-round bust to the San Francisco 49ers in 2013.

I shouldn’t even have to explain. If you really don’t know, go check out Fred Williams’ Wikipedia page or something.

I’m sure we’ll see this a time or two.

Thanks for sending in the tweets. Camp’s fun, because football is back. We’ll probably get caught in the hype, and that’s okay. Like I said earlier, we’re all guilty of it.

Are you ready for some football?