Arrowhead Pride
The Kansas City Chiefs have finished their preseason with a 29-27 loss to the Chicago Bears. By 3 p.m. (Arrowhead Time) on Tuesday, they — and the rest of the NFL’s teams — must have their roster down to 53 players.
As always, we do our best to predict what the team will do — but it’s a fool’s erraad. There is almost no chance this will match the team’s first 53-man roster — and it is absolutely impossible to predict what will happen in the few days after that, when just-released players start being signed to new teams.
With those caveats in place… here we go.
No surprise here. The league’s top quarterback will have his fourth backup in as many seasons. As always, it’s a veteran: the journeyman Minshew. We’ve liked what we’ve seen from Minshew in the preseason — and also from Chris Oladokun, who is likely to once again clear waivers and do what he does best: run Kansas City’s scout team as the third-string quarterback on the practice squad.
Pacheco is a lock. During the offseason, we’ve often wondered if Hunt would prove to be too old — but he’s still looked good in the preseason. Mitchell, in contrast, hasn’t shown us very much, but has a veteran’s body of work. Then there’s Smith, who looks like the gadget player head coach Andy Reid’s Chiefs always manage to find. (But for what it’s worth, he might be the best one yet).
The odd man out appears to be Carson Steele. He had his moments during the 2024 preseason — and in a perfect world, Reid (and special teams coordinator Dave Toub) would probably like to keep him on the 53. But there are too many roster needs elsewhere — and Steele would probably clear waivers, allowing the team to keep him on the practice squad.
We can’t promise, however, that this will be the group that travels to Brazil in Week 1. It’s not hard to imagine that the Chiefs will find a recently-released running back to take Mitchell’s place.
For most of the offseason, we’ve assumed that Rice would begin the season serving a suspension. But unless that situation is resolved in the next 48 hours, he’s going to be leading the wide receiver group. Worthy and Brown are locks behind him.
Some would let go of Smith-Schuster, but we won’t. We might never have predicted it during his time with the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he’s now the room’s steady, veteran hand. We think Kansas City will keep him.
Then the Chiefs have a difficult choice to make between Thornton, Remigio and rookie Jalen Royals. All can fill important roles. None would probably survive the waiver wire. So Kansas City chooses to put off that decision...
