Three key Chiefs return to practice on Wednesday

When Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid met with reporters on Wednesday, he had excellent news about several Chiefs players who are returning to practice.

According to Reid, fourth-round rookie cornerback L’Jarius Sneed — who was very impressive at the beginning of the season before suffering a broken collarbone in the Week 3 game against the Baltimore Ravens — is returning to practice on Wednesday.

Sneed was placed on injured reserve on September 30, where he officially remained as of Tuesday’s league transactions report. We expect him to be listed as designated for return on Wednesday’s report. As such, he will not count against the 53-man active roster. The Chiefs will have to activate him to the roster within 21 days (otherwise, he would revert to injured reserve for the balance of the season).

Fullback Anthony Sherman will also return on Wednesday. He was placed on the Reserve/COVID-19 list after the Week 5 game against the Las Vegas Raiders. At the time, the Chiefs said that Sherman had not tested positive for the coronavirus. Instead, he had simply been exposed to a person with the disease.

We expect that Sherman will be listed as returned to the active roster on Wednesday’s transactions report. He will then occupy the roster spot vacated by running back DeAndre Washington when he was traded to the Miami Dolphins on Tuesday.

Finally... wide receiver Sammy Watkins will return to practice on Wednesday. Watkins has been inactive for three games after sustaining a hamstring injury against the Raiders.

As Pete Sweeney noted in his tweet, we anticipate that when the Chiefs release their injury report on Wednesday afternoon, Sneed and Watkins will be listed as being limited in practice, while Sherman will be listed as a full participant.

There was a little bit of bad news, too. Reid said that right tackle Mitchell Schwartz and defensive end Frank Clark will miss Wednesday’s practice. Schwartz has been inactive the last two games — and missed almost all of a third — as he has dealt with a back injury. Reid said that Clark has a knee injury — but we were not aware that Clark missed time during Sunday’s game against the New York Jets. For the moment, we are assuming his injury is minor — but we will definitely be keeping on eye on his progress.

Then there is offensive lineman Martinas Rankin, who returned to practice October 21 after being on the physically-unable-to-perform list since before training camp began. As with Sneed, there is a timetable for his return to the active roster — Rankin’s window will close on Wednesday, November 11 — but Reid was upbeat about his chance to play.

“He’s getting there. He’s real close,” said Reid. “I think it’s great — the way this is set up where he’s got that time to get himself ready to go. He had no camp and this is the first football he’s had the last couple weeks, so it’s good for him to get in there and bang around a little bit on the scout team, so that’s what he’s been doing.”