The Kansas City Chiefs officially start training camp in St. Joseph, Missouri in two weeks. At that point the NFL "dead zone" will officially have come to an end and Chiefs fans will be inundated with reports from practice. While fans will be interested in hearing how everyone from Patrick Mahomes to undrafted players fighting for a spot on the practice sqaud are doing, each position has at least one player that deserves a closer look than most. At quarterback, that player is Garrett Nussmeier.
If Chiefs fans want to argue that Patrick Mahomes will always be the player to watch, that is a valid argument, especially with Mahomes coming off a serious knee injury. However, we already know that Mahomes will be the starter when healthy, will play at a high level when healthy, and will be with the team for years to come. The only question is how quickly he will be back to 100%.
The Chiefs number two quarterback will be Justin Fields, who could be a fun player to watch as well. His athleticism is unlike anyone KC has had in camp under Andy Reid. Plus, Reid was very successful helping a similar player in Michael Vick excel later in his career. However, we also know that Fields probably doesn't have a future in KC after this season. He's with the Chiefs to give them insurance in case Mahomes isn't ready to start the season and rehab his career to possibly earn another starting chance somewhere else.
Patrick Mahomes is a lock to be in Kansas City for years to come, and Justin Fields is highly likely to be playing elsewhere in 2027. That makes rookie quarterback Garrett Nussmeier the player who can do the most to influence his future in Kansas City during training camp and the preseason.
Why Garrett Nussmeier has such a wide possibility of outcomes in Kansas City
After Garrett Nussmeier's junior season, he was seen as one of the better quarterback prospects in college football. He threw for over 4,000 yards (311.7 yards per game) with 29 touchdowns and 7.7 yards per attempt in 13 games. If Nussmeier had followed that up with a great senior season he could have potentially been a top ten draft pick. Instead, the Chiefs drafted him with the 249th draft pick and 7th round of the 2026 draft.
So what happened? The short answer is a cyst on Nussmeier's spine. The cyst is believed to be caused as an injury that happened prior to the start of his senior year. It caused severe obdominal pain while he was throwing (originally being thought to be an oblique injury). The pain caused Nussmeier to develop bad throwing mechanics. He ended up playing 9 games, throwing for 1,927 yards, 12 touchdowns (214.1 yards per game) and 6.7 yards per attempt.
Nussmeier eventually took time off at the end of the season to recover and said he no longer was dealing with any pain at the Senior Bowl where he looked much better. In the game he led two touchdown drives going 5 of 8 for 57 yards with a rushing touchdown and a two point conversion.
While Nussmeier was cleared by NFL doctors to play in the draft process, his drop in play his senior year combined with his smaller stature and unknown medical stability of having an cyst on his spine caused his draft stock to plummet. However, the talent and potential that was evident during his healthy junior season at LSU is still there. That is what makes Nussmeier such an interesting player to watch at training camp.
The Chiefs haven't given Andy Reid a true developmental talent to work with since they drafted Patrick Mahomes. They have gotten by with aging veterans who have more NFL smarts than physical gifts as their primary backups and undrafted players with a very limited ceiling as their third string or practice squad options.
In training camp, Nussmeier could flash as a true developmental young talent. While Justin Fields has the starting experience that Reid prefers and freakish athleticism that can add a new element to KC's offense, Nussmeier is actually a better stylistic match to run the offense as Reid has developed for Patrick Mahomes. So there is at least a small chance that Nussmeier could actually look more comfortable in Reid's offense than Fields does and can show himself to be the future of the Chiefs backup position.
However, Reid's offense is notoriously complex and there's also a chance that Nussmeier could look completely overwhelmed. Nussmeier could look like an undersized rookie that is struggling to compete with Chris Oladokun for KC's number three quarterback spot. If that happens it doesn't mean that Nussmeier couldn't still develop into a solid backup quarterback, but the range of outcomes is huge for him.
The best case scenario for the Chiefs is that Nussmeier looks so promising in training camp and preseason games this year and next that the Chiefs are eventually able to flip him for a much higher draft pick than they spent on him. The worst case scenario is that Nussmeier struggles with NFL defenses and Reid's system and has issues staying healthy and the Chiefs don't ever feel like he can be trusted as their primary backup.
So when training camp reports start to come out in two weeks, make sure you are looking for information on how the Chiefs rookie quarterback is doing. If you're going to training camp in St. Joseph to watch practice in person, then Nussmeier will be a great player to focus on when most of the starters are out and the third/fourth string guys are in.
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