Chiefs Injury Update on Mecole Hardman for Week 10
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At this point in the NFL season, no team is truly 100% healthy. That applies to the Kansas City Chiefs as well, as their injury report ahead of their Sunday game against the Jacksonville Jaguars contained a couple of notable developments during the week.
Wide receiver Mecole Hardman missed practice on Wednesday and Thursday with abdominal soreness, and the fourth-year player was also absent from activities on Friday. Elsewhere, cornerback L'Jarius Sneed was a full participant on Wednesday before being downgraded to limited on Thursday, but he did remain in the practice rotation to end the week. Defensive tackle Khalen Saunders had a personal matter restrict him earlier on, but he practiced fully on Thursday and Friday.
With Jacksonville's injury report containing just two players as of Friday morning, neither team is in too poor of a spot health-wise. Chiefs head coach Andy Reid took the podium on Friday afternoon to provide updates on Hardman and company heading into Week 10's game.
On the Chiefs' final injury report of the week, Hardman was officially ruled out due to his abdominal injury. Additionally, running back Jerick McKinnon was downgraded to questionable with shoulder, knee and hamstring injuries. If McKinnon misses Sunday's game, that could possibly open the door for running back Ronald Jones to log his first snaps of the 2022 regular season after being a healthy scratch on a weekly basis.
In the absence of Hardman, the first two players to look for in the Chiefs' receiver room are rookie Skyy Moore and second-year man Kadarius Toney. Moore has played at least 20% of Kansas City's offensive snaps for five games in a row and while he hasn't logged a reception since Week 6, the second-round pick still stands a chance of getting more involved moving forward. He's been targeted at least once in every game dating back to Week 4 but has only one target in each of his last two games.
Toney, on the other hand, played nine offensive snaps last week against the Tennessee Titans and hauled in two passes for 12 yards. He was one of the featured pieces in Reid's famous opening script, which says a lot considering it was his first week on the job. Once the script expires, it will be worth monitoring which of the aforementioned two receivers will stand out. Reid admitted during the week that the goal is to get Toney more and more involved as time passes, so this could be a perfect opportunity for him.
