KC Chiefs will see Chicago Bears starters in preseason opener

The Kansas City Chiefs will see the starters for the Chicago Bears in the preseason opener coming up next week.

Like every other team in the National Football League, the Kansas City Chiefs are focused on practicing and preparing for the demands of the upcoming season at this point in training camp. For now, the stages of that prep include conditioning exercises, positional drills, simulated games, and the like. Soon enough, it will feature very real games against other teams—such as the preseason-opening game against the Chicago Bears.

For the Chiefs and the Bears, there are a lot of players and positions to sort through which often means lesser playing time for the starters so that coaches and front office personnel can make the right calls for lesser positional battles. However, sometimes a younger team will play their starters more than other teams. That seems to be the case for Chicago.

The Bears are in the midst of a significant youth movement with Justin Fields locked in as the team’s quarterback. Matt Eberflus is the team’s new head coach with former Chiefs executive Ryan Poles installed as general manager. Because of the overall youth and inexperience of the roster and coaching staff, Eberflus recently told reporters that they should expect to see the team’s starters in the opener against the Chiefs.

The Chiefs are unlikely to play their starters for too long, or at least that’s true for their star players. Guys like tight end Travis Kelce or quarterback Patrick Mahomes obviously won’t need dozens of reps to get into the groove of what Andy Reid asks them to do. However, given the number of new pass catchers as well as an abundance of rookie defenders, the Chiefs might play their own starters a bit more than expected.

On the flip side, the Bears’ willingness to play their starters—including Fields, as Eberflus noted—is a solid opportunity for the Chiefs in terms of competition. Even if the Chiefs end up playing several second-string players, it’s going to help the ability to evaluate them all the more if their competition is the first-string players for Chicago. In other words, it’s going to help the Bears to play their starters, but since winning is not the goal, it’s also great for the Chiefs who get more time against better competition to see what they can do. (Not that the Bears are a major threat even with their starters.)

Andy Reid has not yet said how much the Chiefs will play their starters, but there’s still plenty of time to worry about that. The Chiefs and Bears won’t play until Saturday, August 13.