Chiefs Activate Two Players From Practice Squad
With not much time to spare in order to make a decision, the Kansas City Chiefs have finalized the pair of players they will be bringing up for Sunday's season opener against the Arizona Cardinals. Per the team's official announcement on Twitter, wide receiver Daurice Fountain and linebacker Elijah Lee are being activated from the practice squad via standard elevation.
This year, all 32 NFL teams are allowed to promote a maximum of two players per week from their practice squad for games, but they must pick those players by 4:00 p.m. ET one day before their game that week. For Kansas City, this left the club with a 3:00 p.m. local deadline to officially announce the activations of Fountain and Lee. This temporarily brings the club's active roster total to 55 players, although both players will be able to be sent back to the practice squad following the game without being subject to the league's waiver claim system.
With the elevations of Lee and Fountain, this marks the first of three times they're eligible for game day as a part of the Standard Elevation Addendum to the current NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement. These decisions are entirely voluntary to begin with on behalf of the team, as the Chiefs weren't required to activate anyone from the practice squad for this week's game.
It was expected that Lee would be rejoining the roster in some capacity, although the lingering Blake Bell injury decision delayed that news ultimately being revealed. As recently as Friday, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid deferred any elevation-related decisions to general manager Brett Veach. Questions surrounding vested veteran contracts led many to believe that Lee remained on the practice squad by design, as another 4 p.m. ET deadline impacted guaranteed contracts for those four-year (or more) players.
Now, the opportunity possibly presents itself for Lee to add depth to a linebacker unit that includes the likes of Nick Bolton, Willie Gay Jr. and rookie Leo Chenal at the top. As far as Fountain is concerned, it was a minor shock to see the Chiefs release him and carry just five receivers on their initial 53-man roster. Now that he's back in the fold, however, the timeline and logic both make sense. He temporarily joins a group including JuJu Smith-Schuster, Mecole Hardman, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Justin Watson and rookie Skyy Moore.
