Kansas City Chiefs RB Damien Williams has returned to training camp practice ahead of the opening of the 2019 preseason.
Boots on the ground in St. Joseph, Missouri have spotted Williams back at practice today. Williams hadn’t been practicing with the Chiefs after suffering a hamstring injury during the first training camp practice back on July 27. Hamstring injuries can linger if they’re not properly taken care of, so the Chiefs took some extra caution before getting him back out there.
Williams was named the starter ahead of the start of training camp. During the past 10 days of practice there were some questions about running back group, specifically who would be the primary backup. In his absence Carlos Hyde and Darrel Williams shared first team repetitions, with Hyde taking the majority of the snaps with the first team.
It appears that as part of Damien’s return to action, the Chiefs are not having him do much work during live contact periods. This is fairly common when teams are easing players back in from long absences after injury. Look no further than last year, when RB Spencer Ware returned from injury. It took a few days for them to ease him into the contact periods. Approaching the end of practice, Williams took a few snaps during 11-on-11 in goal line situations, but didn’t get a full workload.
So when you see that Hyde is still taking first team repetitions, you shouldn’t worry about him overtaking Williams for the starting job. At this rate, you’d like to see Williams get at least some live practice repetitions with the first team before the start of the preseason. It’s hard to imagine him getting any action against the Bengals when the Chiefs take the field for the first time on Saturday without having a full workload in Thursday’s practice.
