Nate Orchard has gone from a highly drafted pick of the Cleveland

Browns to a featured star on HBO's documentary series "Hard Knocks" to the couch as an unemployed linebacker in the NFL.Now Tony Gonzalez Jersey , he's suiting up for a team with Super Bowl aspirations.Maybe even the Super Bowl favorites.Orchard signed with the Kansas City Chiefs on Wednesday to shore up their pass rush besieged by injuries. Justin Houston could miss several weeks after hurting his hamstring in last Sunday's win over Jacksonville while Dee Ford and Tanoh Kpassagnon have been dealing with nagging injuries."It was a nice time to be with my family," Orchard said while standing in a mostly empty Chiefs locker room Wednesday, "but I'm very fortunate to be here with the record they have."The Chiefs (5-0) have become the trendy pick to win the AFC after routing the Jaguars last week, and they can validate those hopes with a win Sunday in New England. But winning on the road against Tom Brady and Co. became a lot tougher after the Chiefs' defense sustained a surfeit of injuries last week.Along with their ailing linebackers, the Chiefs had to put right guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif on the disabled list with a broken bone in his leg and Armani Watts on the IR with a core muscle injury.The Chiefs signed Frank Zombo, who had spent the past five seasons with Kansas City, when they made those roster moves on Tuesday. They added Orchard to further bolster their depth."Nate had a real good college career. He played for a good friend of mine at Utah," Chiefs coach Andy Reid said of Utes coach Kyle Whittingham. "(Orchard) knows the system, he's familiar with it, then he's a good player. A very hard worker. And he's smart."The secondary is in a similar state of shambles.Strong safety Eric Berry remains sidelined with a heel injury that was supposed to keep him out a short period Derrick Thomas Jersey , but has instead sidelined him since early in camp. Daniel Sorensen remains on IR with his broken leg, though he could return in the next few weeks, and Watts has joined him on the list.Their backup, Eric Murray, was held out of practice Wednesday with a lower-leg injury.The Chiefs thought Watts had merely sustained a groin injury against the Jaguars, but trainer Rick Burkholder said an MRI revealed more damage. Watts was headed to Philadelphia for core muscle surgery on Thursday, though he should be ready for the start of practices next season.The fact that Chiefs general manager Brett Veach chose to add pass rushers in Orchard and Zombo and not an extra safety means they likely believe Berry and Sorensen will be able to help soon.Jordan Lucas, who arrived in a trade with Miami just before the season, picked off his first career pass after entering the game against Jacksonville. He's in line to get more snaps alongside Ron Parker, and journeyman safety Josh Shaw could factor into the mix."It's a collective. This defense is no single guy out there being dominant Christian Okoye Jersey ," Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones said. "It's a collective whole. Everyone making plays, that's what we focus on."That goes for all levels of the defense, including outside linebacker, where Houston's injury and the uncertain status of Kpassagnon could mean a crucial opportunity for Breeland Speaks.The Chiefs' second-round pick has been active for all five games, but he has mostly been used on special teams and to give the starters a breather. Now, the former Ole Miss star could be counted upon to put some pressure on Brady and cover the Patriots' pass-catching running backs."I look for Breeland to keep progressing all around," Jones said. "He's got a veteran in Justin Houston in the room. Dee's in the room. Those guys he can learn from."As battered as the Chiefs defense is right now, he'd better learn in a hurry.Notes: Burkholder said Duvernay-Tardif's injury was also more severe than first believed in that the offensive lineman tore ligaments in the ankle along with breaking his fibula. Duvernay-Tardif is scheduled to have surgery Monday in Green Bay, Wisconsin. "We'll know more after the surgery how much he'll miss," Burkholder said. ... Reid confirmed that Jordan Devey is likely to start in Duvernay-Tardif's place. "He has experience Marcus Allen Jersey ," Reid said. "Everybody is confident in him that he can step up and go." By the time players reach the NFL, it’s pretty reasonable to think there is not much they can do to surprise us.Most of them spent their college careers under the bright lights of a major program, where they’ve been interviewed, cataloged and analyzed to ridiculous lengths.Then comes the draft process, where it starts all over again. There’s a whole industry that’s grown up around collecting and collating every conceivable detail about these players so they can be endlessly discussed by NFL fans before draft day. How can there be anything we don’t know about these guys?Yet sometimes, they surprise us.And that continues to happen with Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.We knew that he had incredible arm talent.We knew that he had incredible vision and athleticism.We knew he could be aggressive and make plays.Denny Medley-USA TODAY SportsBut the thing we did not know — that we could not know — was how he would adjust to being an NFL quarterback.During the opening days of training camp, Mahomes addressed this.“In high school, [the system] is very generic,” he said. “At Texas Tech, it is a spread. They put a lot on the quarterback Larry Johnson Jersey , but it is still not as much as you do now. You get here and the complexity of the offense is something that you really have to get after it and grind through. For me, every single day is a learning experience, every single day I have to push myself to get better.”A few days later, head coach Andy Reid was obviously pleased with how Mahomes was working through all of it.“The great thing about Pat is that he never makes the same mistake twice,” Reid said. “It doesn’t happen. He sees everything. He knows it. When he makes a mistake, he comes back and can talk to you about it. He’s done nothing but get better and better as we go. He has a load on him here and is responding exactly how we’d like. You don’t see him repeat mistakes. It’s fun to watch.”Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY SportsBut Reid has said that they expected this from Mahomes — as he did during the preparation for the Week 3 game against the San Francisco 49ers.“When we brought him in we spent a bunch of time with him trying to exhaust him with that day you can spend. We came out of it knowing he can handle a load. He came in behind Alex. You weren’t going to run out of gigabytes with Alex. [Pat is] right there. We haven’t slowed down with what we’re doing or anything else. Alex a brilliant guy and this guy is hanging right in there with it and has been since he got here. He is where we hoped he would be.”And as the season has progressed, so has Mahomes.Each week, when he’s asked about what he learned in the previous game, he gives us a window into his development — as he did on Sunday night after the 45-10 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals.He was asked about what went wrong on his interception on Sunday night, when his pass to Tyreek Hill was underthrown.“Yeah Joe Montana Jersey , [Tyreek] burnt the dude.It wasn’t a bad read. It was Cover 4 and Tyreek was the post-alert. I had been asking Coach Reid for it all game. I got there and I was like, ‘I don’t want to overthrow him,’ but [I} forgot that you can’t overthrow him. I left it short and they picked it off.”Even on a successful play — like Kareem Hunt’s incredible 21-yard run that set up the Chiefs’ first touchdown of the game — afterward, Mahomes is thinking about what went wrong.“It was RPO (run-pass option) and I probably made the wrong read. Then I handed it to him. It should’ve been a tackle for loss and then he broke a tackle and jumped over a dude. This is a very talented defense who have a lot of guys who are built to stop the run. It just speaks to the strength and the power that [Kareem] has when he runs with the football.”We knew a lot about Mahomes before the Chiefs drafted him in 2017, and there was ample reason to be excited about his talent and potential.But what we didn’t know — his ability to learn and develop so quickly into one of the NFL’s premier quarterbacks — is the best surprise we could have had.