Chiefs among the small group avoiding joint training camp practices in 2026 preseason

The Kansas City Chiefs will enter the 2026 preseason without the cross-team scrimmage-style look that joint practices are designed to provide. The NFL this week announced training camp dates and locations for all 32 clubs, along with which teams will share practice sessions against an opponent. Kansas City is not included among the 28 teams scheduled for joint practices.

Joint practices are the league’s preseason version of controlled collision. Instead of relying only on standard within-team reps, they allow two franchises to run opponent-style drills and, depending on how each team structures its session, increase the intensity of early-season preparation. For many teams, they are also a bridge from training camp work to preseason games that count on game-day execution.

In the league’s list of scheduled joint-practice matchups, the Chiefs fall into the minority group of teams that will not take part in any joint session this preseason. Yahoo Sports’ report highlighted that Kansas City is maintaining its stance of avoiding joint practices, and that only four teams overall will be left out of the joint-practice schedule.

The broader takeaway for roster evaluation is less dramatic than it may sound. Missing joint practices does not prevent a team from running full-speed situational work internally, nor does it eliminate the opportunity to assess players against live, organized competition. But it does mean Kansas City will not have a built-in, two-team practice environment where offensive and defensive units can be tested against another franchise’s schemes in the same setting.

The NFL’s joint-practice framework also affects the logistics of the preseason. Teams that do share practice space build in travel, staffing, and competitive pacing aligned to another roster’s timeline. Teams like the Chiefs that avoid the format can instead focus their camp calendar on their own practice rhythms and on keeping the intensity and rep distribution consistent from one day to the next.

For fans and analysts, the most practical question is how the Chiefs will simulate the speed and physicality usually associated with joint sessions. That will likely show up in the team’s internal practice structure, the progression of training-camp depth-chart work, and how quickly the starters and key rotational players ramp in the run-up to preseason games.

With training camp dates and joint-practice matchups now formally on the calendar, the next checkpoint will be what each team emphasizes in its practices and how that planning translates once preseason games begin. For Kansas City, the absence of a joint-practice opponent simply shifts where those evaluations will be performed, moving the competitive emphasis to intrateam sessions and preseason games rather than shared practices.