Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid addressed the media Tuesday morning to provide some updates on training camp thus far.
The Chiefs have been in what the NFL is describing as the acclimation period of training camp. It includes one-hour each for weight training and on-field conditioning as well as some walkthroughs.
“We’re excited to be back,” Reid began. “We’re excited to have had the rookies go through the first phase of this training camp and that’s lifting and conditioning with the walkthrough. They were able to start today with their padded shirts and helmet practice. That went well. Again, numbers are minimal for how many rookies we have, but we were able to get some work done with them, which is great. For not having the time that we had before, to have it now is perfect.”
Right now the rookies are on a different track from veterans, beginning phase two, as they had an earlier report date. They’re entering what is described as the gradual ramp-up period, but they’re limited in what they can do because the team isn’t allowed a full complement of players.
“The veterans are continuing to lift,” Reid said. “They’ve got about four more days of that program and conditioning. Then they’ll be back up and going through this same process that the rookies are with the padded shirts. We’ll kind of mesh them together at that point and everybody will work together. The rookies went this morning separate from the veterans, they had a little bit earlier practice than what the veterans did.”
Once the rookies and veterans are able to practice together, they’ll be able to do more at practice. Most of all, Reid is happy to have all the players back for face-to-face instruction.
“It’s great to have them back,” Reid said. “I like the energy that they have. Like I said, they like being around each other which is important. They’re willing to work. They’ve been with Barry (Rubin) most of the time with the lifting and conditioning phase. But the times that we’ve had them in meetings and in walkthroughs they’ve been great. With the rookies today, they all put a helmet on it was fun to watch. Even though the numbers, we don’t have a lot of bodies out there, but they sure worked well.”
While the new training camp schedule takes some getting used to, Reid is confident that it’ll be enough to get the players prepared for the 2020 NFL season.
“I think the league has done a nice job, along with the [NFLPA], building ramp-up days for the guys,” Reid said. “Not only once we put the padded shirts and shells on… but also when we start in pads. There are actual ramp-up days, so it’s a shorter period of time on the field and then it gradually gets up to what the CBA rules are which is 2.5 hours on the field. I think that’s a positive. We’ve got plenty of practice, that’s one thing we do have in order to evaluate them and for our guys to get into comfortable playing shape. I think it’ll all work out well. I think it’s still going to be a good product on the field for the fans. It’ll be good to get to that point.”
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