{"id":625067,"date":"2025-12-24T14:01:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T14:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/625067\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T14:01:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T14:01:14","slug":"chiefs-chris-oladokun-appreciates-starting-opportunity-against-broncos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/625067\/","title":{"rendered":"Chiefs\u2019 Chris Oladokun appreciates starting opportunity against Broncos"},"content":{"rendered":"

For much of the season, we thought that playoff seeding would to be on the line when the Kansas City Chiefs<\/a> hosted the Denver Broncos<\/a> on Christmas night for the Week 17 edition of \u201cThursday Night Football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunate developments, however, have stripped this matchup of most of its intrigue.<\/p>\n

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In Week 15, quarterback Patrick Mahomes was lost for the season with an ACL tear. In the next game, backup quarterback Gardner Minshew also suffered a season-ending knee injury.<\/p>\n

As a result, third-string quarterback Chris Oladokun \u2014 who has spent the past four seasons on the team\u2019s practice squad \u2014 finished Kansas City\u2019s most recent game against the Tennessee Titans<\/a>. He will now make his first career start against Denver in primetime.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely been crazy,\u201d Oladokun remarked of this sequence of events while speaking to reporters on Tuesday. \u201cStuff happens fast in the league \u2014 people always say that. So it\u2019s been a lot of preparation getting ready for this game. I\u2019m super excited to go out there and show the world what I\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> selected Oladokun in the seventh round of the 2022 NFL Draft. After being waived at the end of his first training camp, the South Dakota State product signed with the Chiefs\u2019 practice squad. While many Kansas City fans have shifted their focus to the offseason, Oladokun understands the significance of this opportunity.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s something I won\u2019t take lightly,\u201d he promised. \u201cThese opportunities don\u2019t come around often \u2014 so when you get [one], you\u2019ve got to take [it] and run with it. This is not only a big game for our team, but for me personally. [It\u2019s] a big game in terms of letting the league know what I can do \u2014 and letting these coaches know what I can do moving forward [when] having that confidence in me. [So] if something were to happen, they feel confident that I can go out there and execute the game plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, head coach Andy Reid pointed to the work Oladokun has put in while studying Mahomes and working closely with quarterbacks coach David Girardi, expressing confidence that he will be ready with standard preparation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cHe looks forward to every week,\u201d observed the coach. \u201cHe prepares himself every week to go, so that\u2019s been an easy transition with the verbiage and such. So he jumps in and gets it. He sits behind the offensive drill there, and they mock it; the two backup quarterbacks mock it as if they\u2019re in. They make the calls to David and then go about it. They stay fresh on that, [so] he\u2019s in a pretty good position that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Offensive coordinator Matt Nagy also highlighted Oladokun\u2019s decision-making against Tennessee.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the very first plays we had,\u201d recalled Nagy, \u201cwe had a little jet motion where we were going to try to time it up and snap it on time \u2014 [but] the timing was off a little bit. What he did [was] stop the motion, let them get set, got the back in the right spot and made a simple play. I think that just speaks to his calm \u2014 of where he was at in that moment early on in the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was proud of him for that. It\u2019s not easy. We were just talking about it earlier: even just the simplicity of a cadence that you just don\u2019t have with those guys. So I thought he handled the early part of it well. We had a few RPOs in there, and he made good decisions. Then he did some things with his legs. I was proud of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he kept his calm the whole time. That\u2019s not an easy moment in that situation. I just think back to the first day that he was with us, what he came from and what he\u2019s worked so hard for behind the scenes with Pat and these guys and Coach Girardi. So here he is, presented with this opportunity \u2014 and I know he\u2019s ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Reid also acknowledged the playbook will be streamlined for Oladokun \u2014 and potentially for quarterback Shane Buechele, who spent two seasons with the Chiefs and was signed<\/a> from the Buffalo Bills<\/a>\u2019 practice squad earlier this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou back it up a bit formation-wise,\u201d the coach explained. \u201cYou\u2019ve got a lot of guys that are new to it and learning \u2014 but we\u2019re still able to do enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

One voice Oladokun will not have access to this week is that of the starting quarterback. Reid said Mahomes has not been in meetings while rehabbing from surgery \u2014 and will not be cleared to be on the sideline.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still fairly short after surgery,\u201d noted Reid, \u201cso he definitely won\u2019t be on the sidelines \u2014 although he\u2019d like to be. He can\u2019t do that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For much of the season, we thought that playoff seeding would to be on the line when the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2063],"tags":[53,346,7836,258,7,8132,118,110,2438,2437,6,499,57,6770,20604,6445,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-625067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-chiefs","8":"tag-buffalo-bills","9":"tag-chiefs","10":"tag-chris-oladokun","11":"tag-denver-broncos","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-gardner-minshew","14":"tag-kansas-city","15":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs","16":"tag-kansascity","17":"tag-kansascitychiefs","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-patrick-mahomes","20":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","21":"tag-practice-squad","22":"tag-shane-buechele","23":"tag-south-dakota-state","24":"tag-tennessee-titans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115774913650516270","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}