Kansas City Chiefs roster cuts: Gavin Escobar, Marcus Kemp among players released
By Matt Conner
Here’s your home for all roster cuts news from the Kansas City Chiefs, including some early surprises like Marcus Kemp and Gavin Escobar.
The Kansas City Chiefs have raised eyebrows with some of the players that have been released as they cut down their roster from the current 90-man allotment to the necessary final roster size of 53 players. The Chiefs will be able to keep a handful of these same players on the active roster but there’s no way to guarantee they’ll be available and not claimed by another team. Therein lies the risk for the Chiefs in making such decisions.
The most surprising roster cuts so far are likely one of two offensive players: wide receiver Marcus Kemp or tight end Gavin Escobar. Kemp was a nice special teams player who stood out in the preseason. He also caught Patrick Mahomes first ever touchdown pass. That said, there were a lot of impressive young competitors at wideout and someone had to be cut. There’s likely even more surprises coming at the position.
Escobar came over from the Dallas Cowboys as a buy-low free agent a la C.J. Spiller. He’s known for his hands, but an inability to block or even separate himself from long-term projects like Ross Travis on the roster led to his release. Many Chiefs fans thought he could make a nice tandem with Travis Kelce to create serious mismatches, but that’s not in the cards at this point.
Here’s a complete list of Chiefs roster cuts:
- Gavin Escobar, TE
- De’Vante Bausby, CB
- Orson Charles, FB/TE
- Josh James, OL
- Tevin Jones, WR
- Joel Stave, QB
- Trevon Hartfield, CB
- Marcus Rush, LB
- Devine Redding, RB
- Ricky Ali’ifua, DL
- Marcus Kemp, WR
- Andrew Tiller, OL
- Justin March Lillard, LB
- Cam Thomas, DL
- Maurice Swain, DL
- Larry Scott, CB
- Steven Terrell, DB
- Robert Wheelwright, WR
- Leon McQuay, DB
- C.J. Spiller, RB
- Joseph Cheek, OL
- Gehrig Dieter, WR
- Sam Ficken, K
- Damien Mama, OL
- Seantavius Jones, WR
- Donald Hawkins, OT
- Jacoby Glenn, CB
- Mike Person, OL
- Earl Okine, LB
- Tony Stevens, WR