Chiefs hold hot, tough practice in pads

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid watched his team work out in pads for the first time since their Super Bowl triumph last February and saw his players’ energy rise.

“Naturally it does that,” Reid said. “But I like the way they did it, how they got after each other.”

The defending champions ratcheted up the competition for an hour, 40 minutes in sweltering conditions as the heat index soared into the mid-90s.

The air wasn’t all that was hot, like when cornerback Dicaprio Bootle continued hacking at the football in the grasp of tight end Travis Kelce after a play. Cornerback Lamar Jackson raised eyebrows when he delivered a late hit on receiver Kekoa Crawford out of bounds.

Reid doesn’t mind trash-talking and spirited play as long as players keep their wits about them.

“They’re going to jaw,” Reid said. “It’s hot, humid, they’re going to jaw a little bit. As long as there are no punches thrown we’re all right.”

The Chiefs dug in during practice for three separate periods of 11-on-11, along with a nine-on-seven run session.

However, the most anticipated session in Friday’s practice focused on offensive and defensive linemen facing off in pass-rushing scenarios.

CINCINNATI — Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow could miss “several weeks” with a right calf strain, coach Zac Taylor said Friday.

The 26-year-old franchise quarterback hobbled on one leg and then went to the ground after a scramble play near the end of Thursday’s practice. He rode off the field in a medical cart.

“It will take several weeks, and that’s all the information we have,” Taylor said.

Burrow did not practice Friday, with backup QBs Jake Browning and Trevor Siemian taking the snaps. The Bengals play their first preseason game on Aug. 11 and open the regular season Sept. 10.

Taylor said Burrow “has seen the doctors” and was present for meetings at the team’s training facility Friday. The quarterback was wearing a compression sleeve on his right calf when he pulled up with the injury, but Taylor said Friday he was unaware there was anything wrong before that play.

Burrow is still negotiating with the Bengals on a long-term contract that could make him one of the NFL’s highest-paid players.

RENTON, Wash. — The brief training camp holdout of Seattle Seahawks first-round pick Devon Witherspoon ended Friday when the No. 5 overall pick from the draft signed his rookie contract.

Witherspoon missed the first two days of training camp but was expected to be on the field for Seattle’s third practice later Friday.

Witherspoon, a standout in college at Illinois, was the last player from this year’s draft class to sign his rookie contract.

Witherspoon signed a four-year contract worth a guaranteed $31.8 million as the terms of being selected fifth overall. The delay in his arrival at training camp was due to an impasse around bonus money he would be due.

Seattle coach Pete Carroll said Wednesday that he expected Witherspoon’s absence to be brief.

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Jalen Ramsey, set for surgery on Friday, addressed his Miami Dolphins teammates a day earlier about the injury and told them not to worry or feel sorry for him.

The six-time Pro Bowl cornerback suffered a torn meniscus in his left knee at the end of Thursday’s practice and is expected to miss the start of the regular season. But he vowed — bragged a little — that he could beat whatever timeline for return doctors give him.

“It really moved a lot of people,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Friday. “He first let everybody know how much he appreciated this team, how this team has accepted him, how he has been in the league a little bit and how he knows what we’re doing here, in his opinion, is special, for his position group not to waiver, and exuded all the confidence that he had in that position group.”

McDaniel said Ramsey will have surgery Friday afternoon to repair the tear and his timeline for return won’t be known until the procedure is complete.

The injury happened during an 11-on-11 drill during Miami’s second practice of training camp. McDaniel said it was a non-contact injury that happened while he was matched up against receiver Tyreek Hill. Ramsey and Hill collided on the play, but the injury, McDaniel clarified, happened before the contact.

ALLEN PARK, Mich. — The Detroit Lions invested in their linebacking corps in the offseason, drafting former Iowa star Jack Campbell with the No. 18 pick and re-signing Alex Anzalone to a three-year, $18.75 million deal to bolster a position group that was shaky at times last year.

Linebacker play will be key to Detroit’s defense after it finished 29th against the rush and 30th against the pass in the 2022 season when the team finished 9-8.

Anzalone, the veteran in the room, said this week at training camp the linebacker depth is as deep as he’s seen it in his three seasons in Detroit.

“There’s five or six guys who can legitimately start in the NFL and have started in the NFL, obviously Jack (Campbell) hasn’t yet,’’ Anzalone said.

PACKERS: Green Bay announced the release of outside linebacker Jonathan Garvin on his 24th birthday. The 2020 seventh-round pick from Miami appeared in 38 games and made one start over three seasons with the Packers.