Andy Reid confirms Blake Bell will go to IR, provides other injury updates

Not even Monday’s Labor Day holiday was going to prevent Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid from getting into his usual game-week routine. With the Week 1 matchup against the Arizona Cardinals coming on Sunday, Reid wanted his team back at work on Monday morning.

As so they were — including wide receivers JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling, each of whom has been missing time with injuries in recent weeks.

“They’ll be ready to roll going forward here,” Reid told reporters in Monday’s post-practice Zoom call. “Everybody went [Monday]. [Monday] was a good, fast-paced tempo at practice.”

But “everybody” didn’t include tight end Blake Bell, who continues to recover from hip flexor surgery. Reid confirmed what had previously been reported: that after being on the active roster to begin the season, Bell would go on the Reserve/Injured list (injured reserve), from which he could return after the Chiefs have played four games.

“We’ll put him down,” said Reid of Bell. “We haven’t made any decisions on how we replace that [roster spot] going forward. We’ll get all of that taken care of this week — at least by the end of the week.”

Reid’s statement cast some doubt on the other part of the Bell story that had previously been reported: that linebacker Elijah Lee (now on the practice squad) would be taking Bell’s spot on the roster. But Reid didn’t talk as if the team was considering moving recently-signed practice-squad tight end Kendall Blanton to the active roster. Instead, he said that tight ends Noah Gray and Jody Fortson would be taking over Bell’s role as the team’s blocking tight end.

“Both of those two are capable of it,” said Reid. “We’ll mix and match people in. Noah probably did more of it than what Jody did in that particular spot. But they’re all going to play; those are good players.”