4. Linebacker Cooper McDonald continues to be a great story.<\/p>\n
In a season marred by struggles, McDonald is certainly a bright spot.<\/p>\n
McDonald, who initially earned a contract following a successful tryout at rookie minicamp in May, not only made the Chiefs’ roster out of training camp, but as of Sunday, he’ll have appeared in all 17 of Kansas City’s games.<\/p>\n
For some context of how improbable McDonald’s journey to an every-week contributor has been, he was one of just three tryout players (of the 60 in attendance) to earn a contract back in May. He then fought an uphill battle to win a roster spot during training camp, and from there, McDonald impressed enough on special teams to become a regular contributor.<\/p>\n
In fact, according to Assistant Head Coach \/ Special Teams Coordinator Dave Toub, McDonald will likely end the year as the Chiefs’ top-graded special-teamer based on their internal metrics.<\/p>\n
So, while this season hasn’t been the year that the Chiefs expected, McDonald’s improbable journey is worth celebrating, and it may just be getting started. He had a chance to log 21 defensive snaps against Denver last week, and according to Pro Football Focus, he was the Chiefs’ third-best defender on the field.<\/p>\n
McDonald will have a chance to stack another strong game in both areas \u2013 special teams and defense \u2013 as the Chiefs close out the season on Sunday.<\/p>\n
5. Tight end Travis Kelce can make some more NFL history on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Kelce passed Anquan Boldin for sole possession of the ninth-most catches in NFL history last week (1,077), and with just two more catches, he can pass Terrell Owens for eighth place on that list.<\/p>\n
Other than Owens, only Jerry Rice (1,549), Larry Fitzgerald (1,432), Tony Gonzalez (1,325), Jason Witten (1,228), Marvin Harrison (1,102), Cris Carter (1,101) and Tim Brown (1,094) have more career receptions than Kelce.<\/p>\n
Sunday may or may not be Kelce’s last game as a professional, but that’s for him to decide on his own time. Regardless of that decision, Sunday represents another opportunity to celebrate Kelce’s extraordinary career, and once again, maybe some more NFL history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"4. Linebacker Cooper McDonald continues to be a great story. In a season marred by struggles, McDonald is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2063],"tags":[501,346,7,497,118,110,2438,2437,6,498,499,505,503,502,504,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-651285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-chiefs","8":"tag-andy-reid","9":"tag-chiefs","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-geha-field-at-arrowhead-stadium","12":"tag-kansas-city","13":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs","14":"tag-kansascity","15":"tag-kansascitychiefs","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-nfl-football","18":"tag-patrick-mahomes","19":"tag-super-bowl","20":"tag-super-bowl-iv","21":"tag-super-bowl-liv","22":"tag-super-bowl-lvii","23":"tag-travis-kelce"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115832527882217982","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651285","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=651285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}