Arrowhead Pride
Following Tuesday’s next-to-last training camp practice in St. Joseph, the Kansas City Chiefs’ special teams coordinator Dave Toub spoke to media members, providing insight coming out of the team’s first preseason game — Saturday night’s 20-17 loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
The Chiefs may not have beaten the Cardinals, but Toub liked what he saw from the game’s third phase.
With touchbacks now sending the opposing offense to the 35-yard line, kickers around the league are training to create problems inside the landing zone. That includes Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker.
“Kicking was exceptional,” said Toub of his placekicker’s opening performance. “Butker is really trying to work the edges with the kickoffs. A little bit too close, really. I mean, that could have easily bounced out, but you want to try to push the limits right now during this preseason. You want to see how far you can go with it. He’s worked so hard at it, and it’s good to see him have some success there.”
Coming off his punter-battle victory over Eddie Czaplicki, Toub also thought Matt Araiza had an excellent performance.
“He had some really good punts,” said Toub. “He had the one touchback where I thought we could have [done] a better job with the hang time on that instead of the distance, but he’s moving the ball well. He’s gotten better from last year, so I’m excited about where we are right now.”
Kansas City’s wide receiver room looks deeper than expected — especially given the Game 1 performances of Tyquan Thornton and Jason Brownlee. Wideout Nikko Remigio continued to show his value as a specialist with a 48-yard kickoff return early in the second quarter.
“We know what Nikko can do,” said Toub. “He needs to do a lot more on offense, which he has been doing, so we’ll just keep working him in there.”
Remigio added two catches for 24 yards with the offense.
“Everybody knows how I feel about Nikko,” said Toub. “I love having a guy that you can depend on, solid. He’s not going to cost you a game. That’s important. It’s so important.”
Running back Brashard Smith is also among the team’s options at the returner positions. Toub alluded to the rookie continuing to be a work-in-progress on special teams.
“I had him back there a bunch,” said Toub of Smith. “He had the fair catch that he obviously should have returned; it was blocked up. But we’ve got to keep throwing him in there until he gets some more reps. Tyquan, he got one. There’s only so many reps to go around. You’ve got to try to get as many guys in as you can. Hopefully, we’ll get Brashard some more this week [to] see if he can be a dynamic guy like we think he can.”
The “dynamic” kickoff has a rule that permits up...
