Chiefs training camp notebook: The ‘camp battle’ we didn’t know we needed

Heading into Friday, anybody who follows the Kansas City Chiefs anticipated fullback Anthony Sherman would come ready as the champion of veteran report day; what no one understood was that Sherman would have a deserving challenger.

Sirens blared on the campus of Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, as police escorted the Chiefs fullback, driving into the players’ parking lot by way of NASCAR driver Clint Bowyer’s No. 14 black race car.

“[We have] speedsters on the offense,” Sherman explained, “and I’m an old head now, so the only way I’m going to keep up with these young kids is riding this NASCAR.”

Sherman credited Bowyer for assisting him in pulling off the stunt.

“So I started back in the May race,” he said. “I had Mike Metcalf of Chip Ganassi Racing — he helped me out, got me a McDonald’s fire suit, and I asked Bowyer if he had a car that I could borrow, and he got the custom fire suit and helmet and everything else for me, so he took care of the rest.”

Sherman’s “fire suit” was colored red, white and black and portrayed the Chiefs logo on the front with his name and number 42 on the back.

“This had sleeves when they sent it to me, and I cut them off,” he said.

After Sherman’s arrival and interview with the media, the prevailing thought among writers was that the excitement for the day was over. That was until about 20 minutes later, when a military truck came beeping down the campus roadway.

The truck carried Chiefs punter Dustin Colquitt, kicker Harrison Butker and long snapper James Winchester. As Colquitt pulled up the truck in front of the media, he yelled, “The specialists are here!”

Colquitt says he acquired the military vehicle thanks to a friend of his named Cyrus.

“I’ve been around the block a time or two,” Colquitt said as some media members laughed. “I’ve got some friends at Stonehenge Landscaping and stuff. The guy that drives this vehicle and that bought it used it to go down and help people in the Houston floods and also in Kansas City when the Blue River overflowed. He does a lot of good around the country. I thought, ‘How cool would it be to show up to training camp with it?’

“I’ve never done that before. I’ve watched people get out of Brinks money trucks and all kinds of fun stuff. I was like, ‘I need to do this for fun.’”

Colquitt joked that the purpose of the truck was to get Butker — as placekicker, a key part of the the team — to camp. But then he explained the real reason was to support United States troops.

“With this year coming up, we’ve had a lot going on in the world,” he said. “I think this is just a great way to give back. Tell the troops that we support them. We are going to try to entertain them all fall. We have a lot of fun. We are very blessed. God blessed us to be in this position to check into a training camp and do something that we love for a living. We have to entertain the country and, obviously, ‘Chiefs Kingdom’ number one.”

And so the day went. The Chiefs’ first full team, public practice begins on Saturday afternoon, and that’s when Colquitt and Sherman will presumably get back to business.

But Friday afternoon’s events were for the fans.

“You know the fans enjoy it,” Sherman said, “and I found a way to one-up last year’s outfit with the car and I appreciate everyone that wanted to help and everyone that could make this thing happen.”

Observations

• The temperature stayed in the high-70s throughout the morning practice that began at 8:40 a.m. Arrowhead Time — I can’t remember three straight days of mild practices to begin time in St. Joseph since I started on the Chiefs beat in 2014. Much better than the alternative.
• Whereas Saturday’s practice will come with some buzz, Friday was rather uneventful. Quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Chad Henne, tight end Travis Kelce and offensive lineman Cameron Erving were given veteran’s days off, as was to be expected from Chiefs head coach Andy Reid. The top two quarterbacks being absent gave Reid a better opportunity to see Chase Litton and Kyle Shurmur.
• It is far too early to tell in the third-string QB battle, though I’d give the slight edge on Friday to Litton, whose day was highlighted by a nice throw-and-catch with wide receiver Davon Grayson in seven-on-seven work. With limited players, the Chiefs held no 11-on-11 periods on Friday.
• Wide receiver Jamal Custis and tight end Nick Keizer each made tough catches, and cornerback Mark Fields did well to break up a Shurmur pass intended for Thompson.
• Tight end John Lovett worked with the running backs for the second day in a row; I expect to see him to impress once the Chiefs finally practice in pads early next week.
• It was a seemingly-quick, run-of-the-mill practice leading into veteran report day — the main course of Friday at Chiefs training camp.

Tweets of note

For veteran report day, we compiled all of our report-day tweets (videos and images) on this separate post.

Quote of the day

Chiefs left guard Andrew Wylie on bringing an “extra alarm clock” to training camp: “Mitch Schwartz always warns everyone. He always [says], bring a backup alarm clock just in case on the off chance you don’t want anything to happen. Yeah. I’m just a little superstitious.”

What’s next?

With rookie-and-quarterback workouts in the books, the Chiefs turn the page to full-team, public workouts on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Arrowhead Time and around 8 a.m. thereafter.

Check out the full schedule here.