Saturday morning was a wrap on the first week of Chiefs training camp football. While pads come on Monday and the real action begins then, Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, and the entire team got after it over the four consecutive days.
The team being back in St. Joe was certainly a welcome sight for both the fans and players, despite the heat that is sure to come. Always the single most important factor in training camp is that nobody gets seriously hurt. But football is a violent sport, and the chances of guys getting banged up are inevitable.
We saw it earlier in the week when defensive end Ethan Downs tore his ACL, ending a season when he was expected to make the Chiefs' 53-man roster. And then another blow to the edge room was second-year, third-round pick Ashton Gillotte going down with a hamstring injury, the severity of which is still unknown. And finally today, the early training camp darling Cyrus Allen went down with an apparent knee injury, further depleting an already skimpy wide receiver room.
While Kansas City has yet to address the lack of receiver depth, they did announce one signing on the d-line this morning, bringing back Iowa UDFA Ethan Hurkett to compete for snaps that would have been Downs' to take. The Chiefs signed Hurkett after the draft and then released him a day later.
Kansas City re-signed Iowa DE Ethan Hurkett, but the edge-rushing depth remains the Chiefs' biggest weakness, and it's so obvious
A little background on the 6'3", 260 lb Hurkett. He played all five collegiate seasons at Iowa, where he amassed just one sack over his first three years, and then boasted 14.5 sacks, over 20 tackles for loss, and four forced fumbles the following two years.
While the latter numbers look good, he broke out way later than you'd want a prospect to and is not necessarily all that quick-bursting off the ball or talented. Hurkett wins more with power and strength, something he could easily utilize at 22-23 years old going up against 19-year-olds. But the NFL is a different beast, and you're going up against grown men. He was a UDFA for a reason, and we shouldn't expect any real production from Hurkett.
However, the Chiefs signing another body to the defensive end room at least tells us that Brett Veach knows that room is sparse, especially if Gillotte is going to miss any significant amount of time. And I can't for the life of me understand why they refuse to sign a veteran edge rusher on the free agency market.
I understand; injuries are a part of this, and no NFL roster is ever fully healthy. Is Gillotte's injury bad luck? Maybe. But is the Chiefs' poor planning and process showing up to bite them in the butt before even the first preseason game? Absolutely. Will the issues be legitimately addressed? I doubt it, but a guy can hope
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