With news coming out of the Kansas City Chiefs signing another running back in former Arizona Cardinals Kerwynn Williams Sunday afternoon, Andy Reid was asked about the strategy behind the stockpiling at the position during his media availability on Monday.
“Yeah, so we have some guys that were hurt, but in my mind and obviously in Brett’s (Veach) mind because he’s the one who did this, you can’t have enough of those guys. That’s a tough decision. There’s availability there. We figured, listen, if we have a chance to get good players lets go ahead and better ourselves, let the competition be there and see what happens. I’m expecting Spencer (Ware) to be back, but you never know and you’ve got kids that can play. There’s going to be great competition right there. It’s going to be a pretty neat battle to watch.”
Joel Thorman, Shawn Barber and I discussed on the latest edition of the Arrowhead Pride Podcast released Wednesday afternoon:
Pete: “Interesting offense for the Chiefs because the wide receiver order is pretty clear. We all know who the quarterback is going to be—Chad Henne is not really going to give (Patrick) Mahomes any problems. Demetrius Harris isn’t going to give (Travis) Kelce any problems, but at the running back position, behind (Kareem) Hunt, I don’t know what’s going to happen here.”
Joel: “Yeah, there are like four guys or five guys that all look like they’re pretty similar players, like talent-wise, and that’s kind of what I guess in some ways I expect behind your workhorse. You know? Kareem Hunt is still going to come in and get like 80 percent of the carries, right? Like we’re not expecting anything different there. And the role that they had last year for that second back was Chark (West) at the end there as like a third-down back, being able to pass block. So somebody who can do that and catch the ball out of the backfield, like Kerwynn Williams? I can sign up for that as your number two or number three back, because also, if Spencer Ware comes back and he’s as good as he was the first half of 2016, then the Chiefs are going to be loaded.”
Pete: “But it’s like how many of these guys are you going to keep? You can’t keep them all.”
Joel: “No, you should keep three of them. You’ll keep Kareem and Anthony Sherman. I got to think Spencer Ware comes back, just because they have so much experience with him, and then you’re looking at Charcandrick, Kerwynn, Akeem Hunt—you’ll keep one of those guys.”
Pete: “Damien Williams, too.”
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Shawn: “Well the one thing you can say—when you have a running back who comes out his rookie year and does what Hunt has done, kind of shocked the world, I think people thought he was going to be good but not this good, and to see him in the realm of the top three, top five running backs in the league this year, if you want to encourage him to have a better second year, you have to bring in competition behind him. You can’t let him get comfortable, he has to continue to be pushed—not only physically and emotionally, but mentally. Just let it be known that, ‘Hey, nobody’s job here is given. Great job you did last year—2017 is in the books—now it’s time to turn the page to 2018. We’re going to have a stud, a roster full of running backs, all hungry, all capable, so you have to come out here and reproduce a lot of those same numbers if you want to continue to get your playing time.’”
We break down the entire press conference from Monday, provide injury updates and read and answer your tweets on the latest edition of the Arrowhead Pride podcast, which can be found here or on the player below. Also available on iTunes and Google Play. New episodes every Wednesday.
On the show: 2:18 - Chiefs’ injury updates from this week; 11:08 - Why are the Chiefs signing all these RBs? 14:55 - Everybody is high on the offense; 21:33 - Chris Conley talks how a high-powered offense stays unselfish; 24:42 - Allen Bailey wants Chiefs’ D to be ATTACKERS; 26:30 - Chiefs losing weight; 28:30 - Reggie Ragland and Anthony Hitchens’ rapport; 30:30 - Ragland learned lessons from Derrick Johnson; 31:20 - Dustin Colquitt talks ’18 Chiefs being like the Royals’ WS team; 34:00 - Kendall Fuller didn’t know he was traded originally; 37:45 - Sammy Watkins’ weekend tweet discussion; 40:30 - Reading your tweets