The Kansas City Chiefs are expected to sign former New York Giants CB DeAndre Baker to their practice squad.
The transaction hasn’t yet been made official as Baker will need to go through mandatory COVID-19 screening before joining the team. Still, Baker was a hot topic during Andy Reid’s Wednesday media availability. While Reid no longer makes personnel-related decisions, he’s familiar with the player from pre-draft work in 2019.
“I remember that he was a good player in college,” Reid told reporters. “He did a nice job at Georgia—he and Mecole Hardman are good buddies—and really, Brett’s (Veach) been doing everything to this point and will continue to do it. So, full trust in him, whatever he wants to do with it, we go. He and his guys do a great job of evaluating. Other than that, I don’t know much about him other than he was a good player at college.”
Baker was released by the Giants back in September over charges related to an alleged armed robbery. He’s since been cleared of those charges, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be concerns about his character, work ethic and so on. He didn’t exactly have an astounding rookie season and he followed it up with this unfortunate legal fiasco.
“Yeah, I mean, listen, there’s a bunch of things that go into it,” Reid said. “I know when he gets here, he’ll see the environment that we have and he’s going to be asked to work hard and keep his nose clean. So, that’s what you do and we’re very honest with that and open, so when Brett deals with that, he keeps that real with these guys, whoever we’re bringing in. But anything else isn’t acceptable and that’s how we go.”
This really is a second chance for Baker to make an impression on an NFL coaching staff. He failed to do so with the Giants and they really had no choice but to release him when the allegations came up. It was similar to the circumstances surrounding the Chiefs and Kareem Hunt — the trust between the player and the organization had been damaged.
Reid runs a tight operation in Kansas City and Baker will be held to the same standard that all of the Chiefs’ players are. He’ll either sink or swim in Kansas City. There is, however, a lot of hope that they have an environment that can help Baker turn his career around and that he can help the Chiefs win some games down the line.
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