The Arizona Cardinals are spending a little bit of time in St. Joseph, Missouri training with the Kansas City Chiefs in a joint-practice of sorts before their match-up on Friday night against the Chiefs. This will be the Chiefs first preseason game of the season while the Cardinals are coming off the Hall of Fame game in which they played the New Orleans Saints on August 5th.
The Cardinals thought it would serve their team best to take the opportunity to stop in Kansas City and practice for a few days after playing in Canton, Ohio on Sunday night. Rather than travel all the way back to Arizona and then bus a couple of hours to their training camp, only to hop back on a plane and come back to Kansas City for the Friday night game, they decided to stay in Kansas City and practice with the Chiefs for a few days.
It's nice for the players to get to hit someone they don't recognize and to get a more game-like feel going at an opponent. One of the Cardinals players that most Chiefs fans would recognize would be Larry Fitzgerald, who along with Detroit Lions' wide receiver Calvin Johnson, are widely considered two of the best in the game at the position. After spending a day on the field with Chiefs' safety Eric Berry, Fitzgerald came away impressed. via kcchiefs.com
"I didn’t know he was that athletic," Fitzgerald said afterward. "It was the first time I’ve gotten to play against him and he’s an impressive specimen. You’ve got a free safety, strong safety, wide receiver, linebacker, cornerback – he can play any position he wants to with that athleticism."
That's a pretty good sign that the strong safety is 'athletic' enough to impress one of the games' best wide receivers at a time when some Chiefs fans might still be wondering if he's still hampered at all by the ACL injury from a year ago. This may have answered that question.