What we learned about the Chiefs this week

Chiefs’ Andy Reid provides Skyy Moore, Jody Fortson injury updates

Monday marked the end of the Kansas City Chiefs' annual rookie minicamp. Speaking to the press right after the final session, the head coach talked about his two first-round draft picks — along with departed safety Tyrann Mathieu — and attended to some injury news.

First, he spoke about second-round rookie Skyy Moore, who was limited for all three days due to a hamstring injury.

“He tweaked his hamstring before he got here,” said Reid. “We’ll be ready to go when he gets back.”

Reid also provided a note on tight end Jody Fortson, who, in October, had surgery to repair the torn Achilles he suffered in the Chiefs’ Week 6 game against Washington.

“There’s a chance you get him in Phase 3,” explained Reid, referring to the last section of the OTA program. “We’ll just have to see how that goes. If not, training camp. He’s done very well with his rehab — and he’s another one of those that goes 100 miles an hour and wants to get going, but got to be smart with that, too.

CB Jaylen Watson had given up hope that the Chiefs would draft him

Then we caught up with the story one of Kansas City’s seventh-round picks had given to reporters on Sunday.

The Chiefs hosted him on a top-30 visit last month. The visit left a positive impression on Watson — but after the team spent first and fourth-round selections on cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Joshua Williams, he strongly doubted the team would take him.

“I wasn’t expecting to go that late,” Watson admitted. “So I was kind of down. Everyone was telling me, ‘Stay off your phone,’ because I’m looking at every draft pick on Day 3 — because I knew I was going to be a Day 3 guy. Everyone just kept aggravating me — and they were irritating. They didn’t understand what was going through my head. So I separated myself from the family. Me and one of my close friends went out to my car. We were just listening to music.

“I had already seen Kansas City had got two corners — and I really wanted to go to Kansas City, so I was like, ‘Maann.’ Then the call. I saw the Kansas City area code. Me and my friend looked at each other, our eyes got super big. They said, ‘This is the Chiefs,’ and I was just so excited. I just started running full speed down the street. Everyone in the house saw me and they were like, ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong? Who is it?’ I was like, ‘It’s the Chiefs!’”

5 veteran free agents who could still help the Chiefs

Then on Tuesday, Brandon Kiley highlighted some players who could fill significant holes in Kansas City — headlined by a 35-year-old who is still playing at a high level.

1. Defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh

Suh accumulated 12 sacks, 32 quarterback hits and 16 tackles for loss over the past two seasons in Tampa Bay. The only defensive tackles with more sacks during that stretch are Aaron Donald, Chris Jones, DeForest Buckner and Cam Heyward. For quarterback hits during that period, only Grady Jarrett and Jonathan Allen notched more than Suh.

The moral of the story? Suh can still play.

Defensive tackle is also one of the only positions at which the Chiefs could clearly use an upgrade. It’s also a one without a recent high draft pick that Suh would be preventing from seeing playing time.

When they signed Reed last year, the Chiefs clearly saw value in adding a veteran interior rusher. Suh’s role would be similar: joining Jones on the interior to wreak havoc on passing downs.

Chiefs complete 7 transactions following rookie minicamp

We usually see the Chiefs make some roster moves after their first look at the rookies — and on Tuesday, we got some.

The Chiefs brought back both center Austin Reiter and wide receiver Gary Jennings, who were waived on May 5 to make room for undrafted free agents ahead of rookie minicamp.

The 6-foot-4, 300-pound Glaser joins the Chiefs after making a good impression during his tryout over the weekend. Glaser started 12 games at guard for the Virginia Cavaliers during the 2021 season, and his college football career includes experience at both guard positions.

The Chiefs moved on from Gordon, who spent the offseason with the club in 2021. The Chiefs were unlikely to keep five quarterbacks on the roster entering the offseason — and that means they must have liked what they saw in Kent State undrafted free-agent Dustin Crum.

Brett Veach: in the draft’s first round, ‘It was really corner the whole time’

On Wednesday, we covered the Kansas City general manager’s interview with Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, in which he spoke frankly about the trade-up to acquire Washington cornerback Trent McDuffie.

On draft day, Philadelphia — which at one time or another had held four of the five picks between 14 and 20 but went into draft day holding the 15th and 18th picks — traded into the 13th pick to select Georgia defensive tackle Jordan Davis.

Then the Eagles made a big move, giving the 18th pick to the Tennessee Titans for wide receiver A.J. Brown — which the Titans then used to take Arkansas wideout Treylon Burks.

And just like that, two of the teams that Veach thought would be competing for McDuffie were out of the picture.

“That kind of opened the door for us,” said Veach, “because I think they might have gone [with a] corner. But with them making the trade, we were able to double back [to] our conversation [with] New England and execute that.

“But it was really corner the whole time for us. I think it kind of prompted Buffalo’s move — because then, they moved up two spots to get the next corner. I think [if] we had just stayed there [at 29], both McDuffie and (Florida’s Kaiir) Elam [would have been] gone. So I think that was a strategy that worked out in our favor.”

Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen are becoming good friends off the field

After two of the AFC’s top quarterbacks attended the Formula 1 Grand Prix event in South Florida over the weekend, the Buffalo Bills’ signal-caller spoke of his developing relationship with the league’s half-billion-dollar man.

“I’ve spent a couple times around Patrick,” said Allen, “but every time I’m around him he’s just a great dude, he’s a great personality, he’s fun to be around. Obviously, all the respect that I have for him on the field. I think it’s a different vibe from what people think.”

“When we step on that field, we’re supposed to be competitors — it’s the old mantra of you’ve got to hate your enemy, you know — but I would say we have a really good relationship, especially for the type of games that we tend to play in.

“He’s awesome. He really is. Love being around him.”

Chiefs schedule 2022: Dates, game times, opponents and more

Thursday was the league’s long-awaited schedule release day — which began with NBC’s official announcement that Kansas City would play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday Night Football in Week 4. Throughout the day, we tracked leaks of schedule information. By the official release at 7 p.m., we knew where 10 of the Chiefs’ 17 2022 games would fall. Then it was just a matter of filling in the blanks.

John Dixon followed with his rundown of the best and worst games on Kansas City’s schedule. And then he joined Pete Sweeney, Ron Kopp and Rocky Magaña for a roundtable discussion of the coming season’s Chiefs games.

Predicting the Chiefs’ final record for the 2022 NFL season

Then on Friday morning, we brought you a summary of how Las Vegas oddsmakers were predicting the Chiefs’ 2022 record — and Ron made his game-by-game predictions for the year.

Week 14: at Denver Broncos
Sunday, December 11, 7:20 p.m., NBC

These two AFC West foes will be playing for the first time this season — in the middle of December. If I had to assign that as an advantage to one team, it’d be the Broncos. Quarterback Russell Wilson will have had time to get comfortable in the system with his receivers. At the same time, Wilson has a history of starting seasons at an MVP pace, but then fading down the stretch. I’m going to predict Kansas City will keep their stranglehold on this rivalry, winning their 14th-straight game against Denver.

Chiefs win (now 9-4 on the season)

Marquez Valdes-Scantling says he chose the Chiefs because it ‘seemed like home’

Then we closed out the week by covering the new Kansas City wide receiver’s talk with CBS Sports’ Jim Rome, in which he said that he decided on the Chiefs because it felt like home.

“Obviously the opportunity within itself to go out and be a great playmaker,” he told Rome about his Kansas City option. “Obviously, I had that opportunity anywhere I went, but I think this one was a better fit for me. Some things they do offensively [were] appealing to me — and obviously, a quarterback like Pat (Mahomes) [who] is going to be here for a long time also was appealing. So those two things — and then, obviously, getting here and meeting everybody. It seemed like a good fit. It seemed like home.”