Oct 26, 2014; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Chiefs nose tackle Dontari Poe (92) congratulates defensive end Allen Bailey (97) after Bailey
I want to know who the 2015 Kansas City Chiefs are going to be. As I have stated before, this team still has a lot of unknowns.
Training camp can be fun if you are into daily progressions on position battles. And it almost always comes with at least a few pleasant revelations – the return of Derrick Johnson looking great, and Marcus Peters impressing in his first practice in pads for instance. We will get a clearer understanding of some of those uncertainties in camp for sure. But, as Allen Iverson famously said, “We talkin’ about practice. Not a game. . . Practice.” And while it does mean something, there is only so much we can learn in practice.
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The preseason starts this weekend, with the Steelers and Viking squaring off in the Hall of Fame game on august 9th. The first Chiefs preseason “competition” will come the following weekend as they take on the Cardinals in Arizona on Aug. 15. And then there are another three preseason games for the Chiefs after that. And all of that is technically football. But none of it actually matters. And it tends to stop bearing a great resemblance to football shortly after the kickoff.
But beyond feeling like bait-and-switch on fans, the preseason also tends not to show off what a team will really be like in the season to come. As evidence of that, pro-football-reference.com does not even list a team’s preseason results. If you need any more proof, note that Kansas City has gone 1-3 in the preseason three out of the last five years. They had the same preseason record in 2012 when they went 2-14 on the year as they did in 2014, when they ended the season at 9-7.
It might matter for guys trying to make the final 53-man roster as backups. But for the team as a whole, the preseason determines success about as much as being a main character in a George R. R. Martin novel.
One more month. That is what we have left until meaningful NFL (and therefore Chiefs) football returns. But will we know what the Chiefs are really going to be this season even then? For at least the first game or two, I do not think so.
As for the first game of the season on Sept. 13 in Houston, both teams look to be at less than 100%. The Chiefs only veteran cornerback, Sean Smith, will be at the beginning of a three game suspension after a guilty plea in a DUI case. And shortly after finding that the pass rush would be back with a vengeance because of the Justin Houston signing, K.C. got the news that Pro Bowl nose tackle Dontari Poe is out for camp, and “likely part of the season” after have back surgery for a herniated disc.
Next: Houston... you have a problem