What if what happened to Lock’s Broncos (COVID concerns) happened to Mahomes’ Chiefs?
It’s a bizarre situation, this COVID thing with the Denver Broncos.
The team’s three eligible quarterbacks — Lee’s Summit native Drew Lock, Brett Rypien and Blake Bortles — have been ruled ineligible to play in today’s game against the New Orleans Saints. They were deemed to be high-risk COVID-19 close contacts, and Broncos officials learned Saturday that none of the trio could be with the team this weekend.
That means the Broncos are expected to start practice squad wide receiver Kendall Hinton at quarterback vs. New Orleans. HInton played quarterback for his first four seasons at Wake Forest before moving to receiver in 2019.
How remarkable is this development? According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it’s the first time in 55 years that a non-quarterback has started a game under center.
This got us thinking: What are the Chiefs’ options in a similar emergency? What if Patrick Mahomes, Chad Henne and Matt Moore, who is on their practice squad, were ruled out of a game without enough time to bring in a quarterback replacement from outside the organization?
Who would line up under center for the Chiefs in this nightmare scenario?
The first thought is tight end Travis Kelce. He was an all-conference quarterback at Cleveland Heights High in Ohio, and took snaps at the position as a redshirt freshman at the University of Cincinnati. He rushed for two touchdowns that season.
Kelce has taken a handful of snaps in his Chiefs career, tossing a 4-yard pass to Byron Pringle in last weekend’s victory at the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Chiefs’ disadvantage in playing Kelce, the NFL’s top receiving tight end, at quarterback? He wouldn’t have himself to throw to.
Among other Chiefs with quarterback experience in their football lives: safety Juan Thornhill was voted the state’s top quarterback in his school’s classification in Virginia, and cornerback Bashaud Breeland rushed for 12 touchdowns as a quarterback in his senior year in South Carolina.
The best way of avoiding such a scenario, of course, is simply to wear a mask. The three Broncos quarterbacks weren’t wearing masks at some point during their contact with quarterback Jeff Driskell, who tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday.
This story was originally published November 29, 2020 at 12:52 PM with the headline "What if what happened to Lock’s Broncos (COVID concerns) happened to Mahomes’ Chiefs?."