al Chiefs linebacker spot The Kansas City Chiefs kept five inside linebackers at the 53-man roster deadline Saturday afternoon. We knew going in that the Chiefs would obviously keep starters Reggie Ragland and Anthony Hitchens. How the rest would play out remained to be seen.“That was a tough one ... I thought all those guys had solid camps Patrick Mahomes Jersey ,” Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said of the inside linebacker position on his conference all after the deadline.The Chiefs selected rookie Dorian O’Daniel with the 100th overall pick in the third round of the 2018 NFL Draft, so he was a safe bet.“Dorian is a guy we’re really excited about,” Veach said. “He’s coming on, he doesn’t really have the playbook down— I think when Dorian’s out there on passing downs, I think Dorian’s speed just jumps out at you.“He plays at a different speed than anybody that we have out there. He’s a missile. He’s just young, and he’s just got to figure it out and got to get the playbook down. (Inside linebackers coach) Mark DeLeone and our defensive staff is doing a great job with him.”Then, there was Terrance Smith, who the Chiefs first acquired as an undrafted free agent in 2016. Veach said that he made the team primarily because of his excellent work on special teams.His special-teams skills had added value at this particular cut with the Chiefs waving goodbye to veteran special-teams ace Frank Zombo.“Over the last couple of years, [Smith] has been one of our highest point-production players on special teams Travis Kelce Jersey ,” Veach explained, “so it really came down to Dorian, who has a big upside, Terrance, you’re always going to have as our lynchpin on special teams.”With one eligible spot left, Veach and the Chiefs staff had to choose between undrafted rookie Ben Niemann or 2017 fifth-rounder Ukeme Eligwe.“You just couldn’t ignore the tape—I mean, that was it,” Veach said of the 23-year-old Niemann. “Actually, we had two teams that called us about Ben Niemann Tyreek Hill Jersey , and we knew that he wasn’t going to get through the waiver-wire claim, and we knew that he was not going to make it to the practice squad. “In some of these trades that we didn’t do, the guy they wanted was Ben Niemann, so if there was any indecision, I think the dialogue we had with teams told us there’s no we can lose this guy because he’s done so much in such short amount of time.”Pundit power rankings for Week 3: Chiefs break the top five National pundits took note when the Kansas City Chiefs knocked off the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road for the first time since 1986, moving the Chiefs up to the third spot in our aggregated power rankings, and dropping the Steelers out of the top 10.Pundit Power Rankings for Week 3Chiefs AFC West Teams Other AFC TeamsHere's what the pundits had to say about the Chiefs this week:ESPN (3rd from 6th)NFL.com (Elliot Harrison - 4th from 11th)SBNation (Rebecca Toback - 3rd from 7th)Sporting News (Vinnie Iyer - 3rd from 8th)Yahoo! Sports (Frank Schwab - 4th from 7th)CBS Sports (Pete Prisco - 3rd from 8th)Among the pundits, NFL.com’s Elliott Harrison gave the Chiefs the biggest boost, bringing them up seven spots from last week.But all of them put the Chiefs at third or fourth in their rankings.The pundits are starting to think the Cincinnati Bengals could be for real.The two polls moved them up at least 10 spots Carlos Hyde Jersey , and their overall position improved by nine.The Tampa Bay Buccaneers got some more love, too, showing an overall improvement of nine, with four of the six rankings moving them up double digits.The scribes agree the Texans are headed down, but disagree a lot on how much.They fell 11 spots overall — the biggest drop of the week — ranging from down two spots to down eleven.Now the Chiefs come back to Arrowhead for the home opener against the San Francisco 49ers.We’ll see what the pundits all have to say next Tuesday.Don’t forget!Wednesday on Arrowhead Pride, we’ll start combining what the pundits say with what the number-crunchers say — to give you True Power Rankings!
