Kansas City Chiefs: Who’s Making The Grade?

The Kansas City Chiefs now have three preseason games in the books. At this point, with training camp over and three quarters of the preseason games complete John Dorsey and Andy Reid likely have a pretty good idea of which players will be key contributors and which players will be looking for work in the near future. The first cut down day is Tuesday, but many teams will announce their cuts before the deadline. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the Chiefs cuts have been announced by the time many of you read these words. The larger and more difficult cuts will then follow KC’s final preseason game this Thursday. So in less then a week’s time this roster will be down to 53 players.

So which players have helped themselves and which players have not? Some players may already have a guaranteed roster spot, but has their performance this preseason validated that spot? Any of us that have watched all three preseason games have our own opinions and there is no better way to judge a player’s performance than to watch them with your own two eyes. That having been said, not everyone that watches football is an expert at scouting the little things that players are asked to do. It’s also nearly impossible to watch every player on every snap unless you have a ton of time on your hands to rewind and watch plays over and over. Thankfully, there is a website that does that for NFL fans.

I’m guessing most of you are already familiar with Pro Football Focus, but if not you should definitely check them out. At the risk of sounding like a commercial for PFF, I will say that their premium stats are a must for diehard NFL junkies. For less than thirty dollars you can have a year’s access to all the stats and player grades you could ever want. I’ll stress again that there is still no substitute for watching a player with your own eyes. I will sometimes disagree with how they graded a player, but overall they do a nice job and are a valuable resource.

So how are the Chiefs grading out this preseason? That’s what I’m here to fill you in on. It’s often said that preseason games are more about individual performances than team results. Well this preseason KC has seen a mix of very good and very bad performances. In this post I’ll review each position and point out one or two players that have graded out well and one or two that have graded out poorly. Some of these you may have predicted, but some may come as a surprise.

Let’s start things off with the quarterbacks…..