By MATT PIKE
With a sour taste in their mouth after losing the Super Bowl last year, the Kansas City Chiefs started their journey to get back today at Training Camp in St. Joseph.
It's the 15th training camp at Missouri Western State University, and head coach Andy Reid's message to the team was to attack it with urgency.
Patrick Mahomes says the way he interprets that message is just that everyone needs to keep getting better
"I think that's something that people lose track of when you have success," Mahomes tells reporters following practice. "Obviously we didn't win that last game, but we had a lot of success last year, and I think sometimes people want to be stagnant and they want to go out there and do it over again, but you see with the rest of the AFC West, the rest of the AFC, and the rest of the NFL is everybody's getting better, so we have to get better, and so that's about keeping urgency in practice and competing."
The Chiefs kicked off training camp with two big pieces of their young core locked up for the foreseeable future.
Prior to camp, the Chiefs locked up a key piece to their offensive line in guard Trey Smith.
For Smith, a former sixth round pick who fell in the draft due to medical issues, it was an emotional moment
"I lost my mom when I was 15 and I made two promises to her, that I would get my degree and I would play in the NFL, I didn't promise her I would be the highest paid, but I made a promise," Smith tearfully says. "And my parents sacrificed so much for me to be here, so much, and to have that moment with them it's special bro, it's special, and it's something I won't take for granted man."
Smith signed a four-year $94 million contract, making him the highest paid guard in the league.
Less than one week later, the Chiefs extended the contract of defensive end George Karlaftis.
Karlaftis says he's been very vocal about there being nowhere he would want to be other than Kansas City, and says the reason starts with the team
"The team, Coach Reid, the guys on the team, the locker room, everything about this organization from the top down really, just amazing, no place I'd rather be really," Karlaftis says. "And then the city, you know my fiancée and I have grown to love this place, calling it home now, and yeah it's awesome."
Karlaftis and the Chiefs agreed to a four-year contract extension that will keep the 24-year-old in Kansas City through 2030.
The Chiefs practiced today for just over an hour. They are back at practice tomorrow at 9:15.
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