The latest
10 Sleeper UDFAs Who Actually Matter at OTAs | SI
Jeff Caldwell, WR, Kansas City Chiefs
The latest Rashee Rice news should create opportunities for the Kansas City Chiefs’ rookie wide receivers (there’s a bunch of them) at OTAs and mandatory minicamp. One of the benefactors should be undrafted wideout Jeff Caldwell. A developmental talent who needs reps, Caldwell is 6-5, 216 pounds, ran a 4.31 at the NFL Combine, and leaped a 42-inch vertical and 11-foot-2 broad jump. The Chiefs need to spend OTAs and upcoming
camps exploring his potential.
5 Teams That Should Trade for A.J. Brown That Aren’t the Patriots | Bleacher Report
Kansas City Chiefs
To be clear, this is a list of teams that should be interested in trading for Brown. The Kansas City Chiefs should at least kick the tires on a trade, as the team lacks overall depth at the position and faces uncertainty surrounding top target Rashee Rice.
Schefter reported that Rice is expected to be sidelined for at least two months after undergoing “a clean-up surgery” on his knee. According to ESPN’s Nate Taylor and Michael Rothstein, he will also miss OTAs and minicamp as he serves a short jail sentence stemming from a probation violation.
Rice was the only wide receiver to average more than 50 receiving yards per game in Kansas City this past season.
However, none of this guarantees that the Chiefs will be interested in trading for Brown. Sports Illustrated‘s Albert Breer believes they won’t.
“Do they go back? Do they circle back and maybe look at the idea of trading for A.J. Brown? I don’t think that happens,” Breer said on Wednesday’s episode of The Breer Report (h/t Bleacher Report’s Doric Sam). “They had that opportunity. They were on A.J. Brown’s list. They said no to the Eagles in the first place.”
Still, adding Brown would make sense for a team that is hoping to get back in the Super Bowl mix with a healthy Patrick Mahomes in 2026.
Head coach Andy Reid recently told NFL Network’s The Insiders that Mahomes is “doing great” in his recovery from a torn ACL.
2026 NFL offseason: AFC teams’ best and worst deals, picks | ESPN
Kansas City Chiefs
Best: Signing Kader Kohou to a one-year deal for roughly the league minimum. The Chiefs have drafted and developed plenty of cornerbacks under coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, but they’ve also been willing to take their chances on young CBs who aren’t at their peak value in the hopes of building them up. The most famous example of this is Bashaud Breeland, who played a significant role on the 2019 Chiefs (as they won their first Super Bowl in a half-century) while making $2 million.
Kohou’s career hasn’t gone as expected in just about every way. An undrafted free agent, Kohou made the Dolphins’ roster in 2022 and excelled as a rookie, posting an 83.2 passer rating in coverage. He looked like a building block in the making, but Kohou struggled badly in 2023 under Vic Fangio and lost his every-down role.
Kohou appeared to be back on track by the end of 2024, but he sustained a torn ACL in training camp and sat out all of the 2025 season. At his best, Kohou offered the ability to play inside and outside with above-average coverage skills. Tackling was a concern, which could cause Kohou problems in Kansas City, but the Chiefs are desperate for cornerbacks after losing Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson this offseason. Kohou is the right sort of risk.
Worst: Not addressing receiver. General manager Brett Veach is mostly running things back at receiver in 2026. Hollywood Brown and JuJu Smith-Schuster are gone, but the only addition the Chiefs made at wideout or tight end this offseason is fifth-round pick Cyrus Allen. Kenneth Walker III should play some role in the passing game as the team’s new lead halfback, of course, but there are no substantial additions at receiver.
A lifelong dream becomes reality: The Chiefs rookies begin their NFL journey | The Mothership
This class features seven unique journeys that each led to Kansas City.
There’s the duo of first-round picks in cornerback Mansoor Delane and defensive tackle Peter Woods, a pair of All-American honorees who – the day after being drafted – were already chatting at the team facility about how they’ll play off one another in 2026.
“We were just telling each other how our jobs are very important to one another,” Woods recalled. “I help him get interceptions, and he helps me get sacks. We just keep it that simple.”
There’s also edge-rusher R Mason Thomas, who you can call R-Mase, and cornerback Jadon Canady, whose statistical exploits include allowing the fewest receiving yards among all qualified, draft-eligible corners last season.
Coincidentally, Canady’s head coach at the University of Oregon – Dan Lanning – is a Kansas City native and, naturally, a die-hard Chiefs fan.
Chiefs’ Travis Kelce defends NFL for increasing number of games during holidays | Kansas City Star
But Jason Kelce, the ESPN analyst and former Eagles center, worried that the NFL was moving too far away from what made it the nation’s most popular sport.
“This is the one thing that I feel like the NFL needs to hold on to, that I feel like we’re starting to drift away from,” he said on the latest episode of the podcast. “I don’t think we’re there yet. Sunday is the day of football, right? Outside of going to church in the morning, if you’re still religious and you do that, Sunday is like where so many games happen, and that’s what you grow up in. You gear your entire week around watching football on Sunday. It’s an institution at this point, the NFL playing games on Sunday.
“With every day that we keep adding in there, we’re getting away from that just a little bit. And I worry that I think the game got big. One of the reasons it got so popular and big was because it was an event. Sunday is the NFL, and everybody set their week apart to tune into their games that were happening on Sunday. … I worry that we’re getting away from that just a little bit by building too many of this (games on other days).”
Kelce added that Eagles fans are unhappy about the game on Christmas Eve, which worked out great for the NFL because it’s on a Thursday.
Travis Kelce, the Chiefs tight end, couldn’t understand why fans would be upset about a Christmas Eve game. Jason explained many people see it as family time when “presents are getting ready to be put under the tree by Santa.” But Travis Kelce believes the Christmas Eve game will be a time for family bonding.
Around the NFL
Report: Rams, QB Matthew Stafford agree to one-year, $55 million contract extension | NFL.com
The reigning NFL Most Valuable Player, 38, is now under contract for the next two years, per ESPN.
His previous deal, which was reworked last offseason, was set to run out after 2026, followed by a lengthy list of void years, per Over the Cap. That prior contract came with far more fanfare after Los Angeles granted Stafford permission in February 2025 to speak with other teams regarding his market value and to gauge potential trade interest, but he eventually stuck with the Rams on a restructured contract.
This time around, Stafford indicated he would be back for the ’26 season during his MVP acceptance speech, and was present for the first day of the team’s offseason program on April 20 as NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported the sides had made significant progress on a new extension.
Harbaugh: Nabers’ knee injury ‘not simple,’ clouding return date | ESPN
The New York Giants don’t know when star wide receiver Malik Nabers will be back from what coach John Harbaugh said Thursday was “not a simple knee” injury.
Nabers tore the ACL in his right knee in September. He underwent the original surgery, which included a full meniscus repair, several weeks later. A second surgery was required recently to remove scar tissue that was causing stiffness.
It has the Giants hopeful but uncertain if he will return for Week 1. They open their season in a “Sunday Night Football” game Sept. 13 against the Dallas Cowboys at MetLife Stadium.
“He’s in the middle of it. It’s such a hard thing. It’s an ACL, and whatever else he had in that knee,” coach John Harbaugh said after his team’s third organized team activity practice. “Not a simple knee [injury], you know? So, um, he’s in the slog of it, the grind of it, I would say. So, he’s fighting through it, and he’s here every day working hard at it.
Ward, who contemplated retiring earlier this year, said Wednesday at Colts spring practice that he feels “whole and happy” again after “getting closer to God” this offseason. The work he’s put in to navigate his grief has helped him use his daughter’s death as a source of inspiration more than pain.
That wasn’t possible last year.
“I tried to tough it out, man,” Ward said Wednesday. “Mentally and emotionally … it had got real hard for me in training camp. I had some rough moments in camp. I was having those thoughts like, ‘Man, I don’t know if I can do it.’”
Amani Joy died due to heart issues in October 2024, when Ward was still a member of the San Francisco 49ers. After signing with the Colts the following offseason, Ward said in his introductory news conference that returning to San Francisco was never really an option in free agency because there was “a lot of PTSD out there.”
He joined the Colts looking for a fresh start, but his 2025 season turned out to be a nightmare on and off the field. Ward, still grieving the loss of his daughter, suffered three concussions in 14 weeks. The scariest one occurred when Ward and Colts tight end Drew Ogletree accidentally collided during pregame warmups last October. Ward, who was not wearing a helmet, got knocked out on the field. He regained consciousness when he was being taken away in a wheelchair and spent the next month “getting dizzy” and vomiting.
In case you missed it on Arrowhead Pride
4 Chiefs with a breakout season opportunity in 2026
4. CB Nohl Williams
Out of the four names, the Chiefs’ offseason actions may have set up Williams the best for a true breakout year.
First of all, he watched two key starters at his position move on in McDuffie and Watson, but he also benefits from Kansas City being aggressive in acquiring the draft class’s top cornerback, Mansoor Delane.
If the Chiefs’ belief in Delane comes to fruition, he will be the shutdown cornerback that Kansas City got a glimpse of when cornerback L’Jarius Sneed showcased that ability during the 2023 season. He can dissuade quarterbacks from throwing his direction, and lead them to trust non-No. 1 receivers with more targets.
That should be music to Williams’ ears, who was a ballhawk in his college days, earning an FBS-leading seven interceptions during his final year at the University of California. He also broke up seven passes as a rookie despite playing just 44% of the snaps.
If he can play disciplined coverage and wait for his opportunities, there could be more than enough for him once Delane earns the reputation that most players chosen that high at cornerback achieve.
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