Lions week arrives early for Chiefs
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Charles Goldman
The Kansas City Chiefs have already begun preparations for the Detroit Lions. They’re treating the end of this week as if it were the beginning of next week with the Labor Day weekend and players getting a day off on Monday.
“We look forward to this challenge, this is a big, big challenge for us,” Chiefs HC Andy Reid said. “(The Lions) finished absolutely on fire (last season). They play aggressive football. (Lions Head Coach) Dan (Campbell) has done a great job up there with his guys so I know we’ve got to really have a great week of preparation going forward. Between (Lions Defensive Coordinator) Aaron (Glenn) and (Lions Offensive Coordinator) Ben (Johnson) they’ve got good coordinators, both their schemes are good on both sides of the ball.”
The Chiefs are trying to keep the schedule as normal as they possibly can with the holiday and the season kicking off on Thursday night. It’s admittedly difficult, but Reid seems to have a good grasp on how to structure things so that his players are prepared and ready to go.
“They’ll study the players and they’ll study the schemes and by the time we get to Thursday, we’ll have all the different situations down, so it’s a normal week,” Reid said. “Today for me is a Monday, in the football world so that’s how we’re doing it as a staff, the players are off on Mondays during the season if it’s a Sunday game. We’ll start the regular week tomorrow with the players in here lifting and doing their stuff there then we’ll follow up with our (Tuesday and Wednesday) practices from there.”
Reid is honed in on the Lions’ defense as he gets his offense finely tuned for 2023. He said they’re a much-improved unit from where they were just a season ago on that side of the football.
“Yeah, they kind of answered that, midway through the season,” Reid said. “I thought they really were playing good football as it went down the stretch there defensively. I know they’ve made some upgrades to their defense – some of the players we know, one of their safeties (C.J. Gardner-Johnson) was in the Super Bowl against us. Anyway, there are players there that I’m familiar with that are really good football players so we’ve got to be sharp from an offensive standpoint.”
Chiefs release first “unofficial” depth chart
On Chris Jones contract negotiations:
While Brett Veach provided a positive update on Wednesday, Andy Reid had a rather short fuse talking about the situation on Friday. He said that he still doesn’t know when or if Jones will show up, and he wouldn’t clarify his level of involvement in contract talks.
“I’m not going to get into that, whether I’ve been involved or not involved,” Reid said. “This is ongoing, I think (General Manager) Brett (Veach) explained it the best, it’s an ongoing thing. Right now, obviously, my focus is on what we’ve got here – you guys have been around me long enough to know how I roll with that. That’s where I’m going. I let Brett do his job and his guys over there, I have full trust in them and the way they are going about it.”
At this juncture, it’s hard to tell if things are actually heading in the right direction. All the talk would suggest that they’re no closer to a deal than they were weeks ago. We’ll see what tomorrow brings in the Chris Jones saga.
Transactions :
9/1 - Practice squad contract terminated - DT Chris Williams
9/1 - Signed to practice squad - TE Gerrit Prince
9/1 - Waived from IR - LB Olakunle Fatukasi
Quick Hits:
- New Chiefs DT Neil Farrell Jr. and CB Darius Rush were assigned jersey numbers.
- Chiefs LB Drue Tranquill was featured on the latest episode of “The Franchise”.
- Chiefs TE Travis Kelce spoke on Chris Jones’ holdout on the “New Heights” show.
