George Karlaftis reflects on the success of his first game

Kansas City Chiefs defensive end George Karlaftis had an impressive first showing in the Chiefs opener against the Chicago Bears on Sunday.

Even when he has a good day, George Karlaftis is still talking about what was left on the table.

When the Kansas City Chiefs returned home from a road trip to visit the Chicago Bears from the preseason opener on Saturday, no one was thinking about the loss by a final score of 19-14. Those results are meaningless, and in fact, they fail to tell the story of a very, very positive day overall—one in which the Chiefs looked fast, balanced, and in midseason form on offense.

On the defensive side, George Karlaftis was one of several new faces for the Chiefs making his preseason debut, and the former first-round pick made an instant impact in the exhibition. Karlaftis finished the day with 5 pressures and got his first sack in the first half against the Bears’ starters and second-string units.

Here’s Karlaftis pushing back the tackle into Justin Fields, who was lucky to have not injured his ankle too badly on the play:

When talking to reporters after the game, it was clear that Karlaftis was glad to be back playing competitive football after nothing but pre-draft training and limited practices with teammates for the last several months.

“It was great to go up against someone else, new opponents and all that stuff to kind of test where you’re at, see how things are going and that kind of stuff. It was a great first taste.” said Karlaftis.

Despite the strong first impression he made on Chiefs Kingdom, Karlaftis was also open about what he left on the field and it’s what he wants to work on as he moves forward into the next part of the schedule.

“The almost, the inches of the game. I think that’s a big difference between the NFL and college. Getting there versus almost getting there is a big difference. That’s just something you have to take back to the drawing board and practice on and work at in order to make those almosts into sacks.”