Important takeaways from Kansas City Chiefs training camp

One of my favorite annual football traditions is making a trip to St. Joseph, Missouri to take in a few days of Kansas City Chiefs training camp. While I'm addicted to reading all the great camp reports out there online, there's something about getting to see the Chiefs up close and personal that makes it feel like the football season is officially here.

I was at practice on Friday and Saturday, which were the Chiefs' first two padded practices of the year. Saturday's practice was cut short by rain, but I still had a chance to watch most of the players that were on my checklist to keep an eye on. I understand that two practices can't give you a perfect picture of where the team or a player is at, but I do think it can be informative.

Kansas City Chiefs training camp has changed a lot

I've been making an annual trip to camp since 2011 when Todd Haley was the coach and Matt Cassel was the quarterback. To say a lot has changed in those 12 years would be the mother of all understatements. Back then the crowds at St. Joe were small enough that you could move around and see anything and everything. They were also quiet enough that you could hear Haley's post-practice talk to the team from the bleachers.

There also wasn't an abundant stream of practice play-by-play and video highlights of what was going on in camp. Back then when I would report what I saw at camp (yes, I was writing for AA back then), it was new information for the readers. Now most fans just scroll their Twitter feed (or X feed?) each day and they're all caught up on what has transpired.

,So in hopes of contributing something new to the conversation, my training camp observations are going to focus more on what I observed could mean for the roster and team going forward. Hopefully this will add some insight as you continue to read camp reports and get ready to watch the first preseason game in a few weeks. I've even got some tips at the end of the piece if you're planning to take in a day at training camp yourself.

One last disclaimer before I get to my takeaways: I understand that players have up and down days. So if I say I wasn't impressed by "player X", I acknowledge that he could have just had a bad couple of days and still turn things around. I also understand that players can improve parts of their game, so if I say "player X" looks good at this, but struggles with that, they could work on their weaknesses and improve them. I'm just going off what I saw with my own two eyes while I was at practice.

With that said, let's get things started with my observations for the offense.