Recapping first day of Chiefs rookie minicamp
Chiefs rookie class ready to make an impact while Craig Stout checks the tape on CB Mike Hughes
The Chiefs opened their three-day rookie minicamp on Friday with a streamlined roster of 29 players, including the team’s six draft picks, eight undrafted free agents and 10 first-year players from the club’s active roster.
Linebacker Nick Bolton, the team’s first pick in this year’s draft at No. 58 overall, said he’s working on picking up the playbook as he gets acclimated to the NFL.
“Not really trying to prove anything, just trying to soak everything up, learning the basic fundamentals, how to practice, how to become a Kansas City Chief and be a practice player,” Bolton said. “So I’m just doing that every single day and that’s what I hope to accomplish, proving myself and learning the playbook and also just learning how to be a Chief.”
The club’s other second-round selection, center Creed Humphrey, said he’s looking to prove his coachability to Andy Reid’s staff.
“I’m going to work my butt off making sure I’m doing all of the right things, showing them that I’m a loyal guy, I’m a team-first guy and just getting out there and competing,” Humphrey said.
Offensive lineman Lucas Niang, who opted out of the 2020 season, is the lone member of last year’s draft class attending the minicamp. He is joined by five other players who spent time with the Chiefs during the 2020 season. The club also invited five players to the minicamp on a tryout basis.
The Chiefs late Thursday announced the signing of eight undrafted rookie free agents, included SMU quarterback Shane Buechele, Nebraska cornerback Dicaprio Bootle and Georgia defensive end Malik Herring. Herring, who torn his ACL during Senior Bowl practices, watched from the sidelines and did not practice.
The Kansas City Chiefs made a trade with the Minnesota Vikings on Thursday to help solidify their secondary, acquiring cornerback Mike Hughes and a 2022 seventh-round pick in exchange for their 2022 sixth-round selection.
The 2018 first-round pick has struggled to stay on the field in the first three years of his career, suffering an ACL tear midway through his rookie season and a litany of neck injuries in 2019 and 2020. The Vikings stocked their secondary in recent years, so playing time — especially with his injury history — was going to be difficult to come by in Minnesota. Chiefs general manager Brett Veach is always looking to catch and rehabilitate talent at this point in the offseason, so Hughes made a lot of sense with little risk in the assets spent.
Health is the major concern for Hughes, obviously, but what could he bring to the Chiefs when he’s on the field? I went to the tape to look at where Hughes succeeds, where he still needs development and how he could contribute to this 2021 Chiefs defense.
Zone Coverage
Hughes looks most comfortable in zone coverage thus far in the NFL. He has terrific zone eyes that can read route distributions with his eyes in the backfield and possesses excellent peripheral vision to detect routes entering or leaving his zone.
When watching his NFL games, Hughes repeatedly makes plays on the ball by reading the quarterback and peeling off his coverage to meet the receiver at the catch point. On the play above, he reroutes the boundary receiver, identifies the developing route concept, then transitions as the ball is thrown to lay a big hit and force a PBU.
Hughes also possesses the requisite click-and-close ability to drive on underneath routes from his zone drops as well. On this particular play, the Dallas Cowboys attempt to clear out the Vikings coverage players through a fast motion into a stack that has both receivers releasing vertically. This space should free up Ezekiel Elliot to release underneath the vertical routes and put him in space with plenty of room to run.
However, Hughes does well to pass off his receiver to the deep safety before transitioning back over the flat — all the while keeping Elliot in his peripheral vision. When Dak Prescott releases the ball to Elliot in the flat, Hughes shows off his excellent burst to drive underneath and make the secure tackle to limit yardage.
Man Coverage
For as well as Hughes plays in zone coverage, he struggles in his man coverage reps. Watching games from his three NFL seasons — as well as his collegiate tape — Hughes can struggle to read the receiver’s releases and adjust his footwork. He will bite on head-fakes and stutter releases and sometimes can’t frame aggressive vertical releases from press, allowing the receiver to get a free release.
This becomes even more of a problem for Hughes when he’s matched up in man without safety help over the top, as shown in the above play. Hughes bites on the stutter release, allowing Marquez Valdes-Scantling to blow by him on a go route at the line of scrimmage. Hughes does not possess elite deep speed, so he ends up having to play catch-up. He does hustle through the end of the play, bringing the receiver down near the endzone, but he gives up the big play nonetheless.
Another aspect of Hughes’ game that hasn’t progressed much since college is his route feel in man coverage. Savvy receivers often eat up chunk yardage on deep comebacks, forcing Hughes to open his hips to protect against a vertical route before snapping off the hitch to get easy yardage. This is largely because Hughes struggles to “feel the break” in the route, as shown in the play above.
It wasn’t only comebacks that found success against Hughes, either. He routinely struggled to stay in phase through various in- and out-breaking routes because he was either worried about getting beat deep or didn’t have a good idea of the routes that were developing.
He routinely gives up easy separation after the break to better NFL receivers — something you’d expect from a young player — but hasn’t improved in his three years in the league. There could be a number of reasons for that, including injuries, poor developmental structure in Minnesota or even Hughes himself. He’ll be in the hands of the best secondary coaches he’s worked with during his career when he arrives in Kansas City, so the question of development may get answered quickly.
Chiefs rookies eager to hit the field for rookie minicamp
Creed Humphrey experienced the euphoria of draft night, hearing his name called when the Chiefs made him the No. 63 overall selection in the 2021 NFL Draft. The next day he took the stage at the team’s Draft Fest on the grass at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
None of that, however, prepared the offensive lineman for pulling on his brand new red No. 52 jersey and taking the field for his first NFL practice.
“It didn’t really set in completely until I got up here for the rookie minicamp,” Humphrey said on Friday as the Chiefs opened their three-day rookie initiation. “I’m just so excited to be up here. Obviously, the fans are some of the best in the league, the team is one of the best in the league, so I’m coming into a great spot and I just can’t wait to get to work.”
Humphrey isn’t alone in feeling the adrenaline of this welcome-to-the-NFL weekend. Linebacker Nick Bolton, however, said he’s making every effort to stay within himself as he sees his NFL dreams come to reality.
“Trying to soak in the moment, trying to get everything up and get everything settled in, getting up here and trying to give myself a chance to compete,” Bolton said. “Just being in Kansas City, thankful to be here, I'm ready to get to work. Other than that, that's kind of my mindset, that's how I've been.”
The expectations that come with joining the two-time Lamar Hunt Trophy winners and Super Bowl LIV champions are off the charts, as defensive end Joshua Kaindoh said he’s learned upon his arrival in Kansas City.
“What I’ve come to realize is the standards here are high,” Kaindoh said. “A team with great tradition and a family just like other places. Today I put on that practice jersey, got out on the field—it was just a little walkthrough – but definitely a surreal moment just getting out on the field and getting coached up by the coaches here.”
This three-day minicamp has multiple purposes but for the rookie draft class, much of the focus is on learning the ropes, acclimating to their new environment and diving into a brand new playbook.
Humphrey sees some similarities and definitely differences in Andy Reid’s playbook compared to the offense he learned at Oklahoma.
“There’s a lot of stuff that I like,” Humphrey said in his first review of the Chiefs’ offensive playbook. “Great run schemes, great passing plays, everything like that. I’m excited to dive into it deep and really get everything down.”
On the other side of the ball, Bolton finds himself trying to pick up as much as he can about all three of the Chiefs’ linebacker positions in an effort to carve out a role.
“I don’t really have a position,” Bolton said when asked what role he expected to play in Kansas City. “I’m just trying to learn as much as I can throughout the next three days and OTAs. I really don't have a position. I’m just trying to come in every single day trying to compete and get better. Just trying to expand my knowledge of the playbook.”
All three of the team’s top draft picks share a similar enthusiasm for their first NFL practices this weekend but each has different mindsets when it comes to impressing their new coaches. Bolton wants to prove that he’s a competitor; Humphrey wants to demonstrate his coachability. Kaindoh has a much simpler goal.
“What do I want to show? I just want to show that I can play ball, just like anybody else,” he said.
Minicamp practice report
The 29 players at the minicamp are a far cry from the numbers attending the rookie indoctrination in a typical season. In 2019, the Chiefs brought a total of 72 players in for the minicamp. As a result, players on Friday took part in individual drills, installation periods and seven-on-seven work but did not conduct any full squad drills due to the lack of numbers.
That didn’t stop the rookies and other first-year players from getting their feet wet. The squad participated in a walkthrough Friday morning before taking the field in the afternoon for their first practice.
With only four offensive lineman and three defensive linemen in the camp, the only field work for the big guys in the trenches came during individual drills and the installation period. Lucas Niang, the club’s third-round pick last season, lined up at the right tackle position with Creed Humphrey taking snaps at center. Sixth-round pick Trey Smith primarily lined up on the left side.
Under center were quarterbacks Shane Buechele and Anthony Gordon, who appeared to take a fairly even rotation of snaps while splitting the No. 1 position during drills. They shared the backfield with running backs Derrick Gore and Corey Taylor, with Gore getting the bulk of the work.
Most of the seven-on-seven period focused on the passing game, allowing receivers and defensive backs to take the spotlight. Dalton Schoen, the former Kansas State wide receiver and Blue Valley Northwest product, made a nifty sliding catch on a comeback route down the right sideline from Buechele.
During the second seven-on-seven period, fifth-round pick Cornell Powell followed up a dropped pass with a spectacular high-point catch on a throw from Buchele. Former Western Kentucky cornerback Devon Key broke up a pass intended for tight end Jody Fortson, while former Marshall cornerback Jaylon McClain-Sapp turned in one of the stronger defensive plays in breaking up a pass intended for Chris Finke.
Cornerback Rodney Clemons, who spent last season on the club’s practice squad, attended the minicamp practice but was not wearing a helmet and did not participate.
The Chiefs have two more rookie practices scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.
Chiefs rookie minicamp roster
Draft picks
LB Nick Bolton (No. 54)
TE Noah Gray (No. 83)
OL Creed Humphrey (No. 52)
DE Joshua Kaindoh (No. 59)
WR Cornell Powell (No. 14)
OL Troy Smith (No. 65)
Rookie free agents signed by Chiefs
DB Zyne Anderson
DB Dicaprio Bootle
QB Shane Buechele
DB Marlon Character
LB Riley Cole
DE Malik Herring
DB Devon Key
DB Jaylon McClain-Sapp
Tryout players
WR Daurice Fountain
LB Lawrence Garner
DB Thomas Leggett
DB Manny Patterson
RB Corey Taylor
Active roster players
DT Tyler Clark
DB Rodney Clemons
WR Maurice Ffrench
WR Chris Finke
TE Jody Fortson
QB Anthony Gordon
RB Derrick Gore
OL Lucas Niang
WR Dalton Schoen
OL Darryl Williams