KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- There were times last year, shortly after the draft, when the five Kansas City Chiefs rookie defensive backs looked at each other and wondered how they might survive training camp, much less the season.
It wasn’t always pretty as they raced to get ready for the regular season, trying to digest defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s often complex playbook and figure things out in real time on the practice field.
“There were so many days where at the end of the night it was just all the rookies together just going over and over and over playbook language, because to us it was all new and it was difficult,” said cornerback Trent McDuffie, a 2022 first-round pick.