Kansas City Chiefs training camp is officially underway in St. Joseph, Missouri. It's an exciting time for Chiefs fans who have been anxiously awaiting any little tidbit of news about their favorite team over the long summer months. In the coming weeks, news feeds and social media will be full of reports and clips from camp that fans will happily pore over. However, it is important to remember that no one report means much by itself.
Training camp is a time for learning and experimenting. NFL teams like to try out different things and different roles for players. They experiment with different packages and see how different players work together. The Chiefs have plenty of questions to answer in camp. Pushing players to see how they respond helps a team know what they have, but it can also lead to misleading reports or clips coming out of camp.
Why early training camp reports can be misleading
For instance, you may get a report from camp saying that "Player A" is running with the first team that day over "Player B," whom most people think is the better player. That doesn't mean that the Chiefs are planning to play "Player A" over "Player B" if the season started today. They may just want to see how "Player A" responds to playing with the first string if they need him to see game action during the regular season.
When it comes to who the Chiefs are leaning toward starting at a certain position, fans will need a couple of weeks' worth of reports to really start to get a clear picture. Eventually, it may become clear that even though they are rotating multiple guys into a starting spot, one guy is getting 60% of the starter reps while the other two options are splitting the remaining 40%.
The Chiefs also have a history of starting rookies behind proven veterans and making them earn their way up as they gain the trust of the coaching staff. Andy Reid and company like the first string to all know the playbook and expectations so they can really see how plays and players work together. The Chiefs may know that eventually a rookie is the most talented option and will become the starter, but early in camp, he has to learn the ropes while a veteran who knows what is going on runs with the starters.
Training camp is about testing, not winning
The other big thing to remember is that when the Chiefs are testing out players, there can be big plays or mistakes that might not have happened in a real game situation. Fans of all NFL teams will often panic if a quarterback throws a lot of interceptions in practice, but that is the time to test out throws to see if he can pull them off. If a quarterback is always playing it safe and only taking "gimme" throws in training camp, he is much less likely to be able to step up and make a tough throw when the game is on the line.
The same thing goes for defensive players. The team may test out how well a linebacker can run with a wide receiver. If that leads to a huge play in the passing game, fans should neither get too excited about the wide receiver who makes the catch nor too down on the coverage skills of the linebacker who got beat. That same linebacker might be just fine covering a running back out of the backfield.
Consistency matters more than highlights
Finally, fans have to be wary of the training camp sensation who puts up a few flashy highlight plays. A player might have a skill set that allows him to do one thing well. He makes a few big plays that utilize that one skill, and people get super excited. But if that same player can't do all the other things needed at that position at a high level, he may never see the field. Guys like Justyn Ross have been getting fans excited for years but have never really been able to develop into more than just a training camp sensation.
What Chiefs fans should really be looking for is consistency over the course of training camp. Is a player running ahead of his competition on a regular basis? Is a player doing the little things and making the everyday plays as opposed to just one flashy big play every few days? If the Chiefs are seeing a player perform reliably and consistently, that will go much farther than the plays that get clicks and likes on social media.
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