Another padded practice is in the books for the Kansas City Chiefs and for the fourth consecutive day of practice, the Chiefs held a full live period where players were tackled and taken to the ground. They were obviously off on Tuesday, but they got right back into it Wednesday morning.

With the first preseason game coming on Thursday, August 7, offensive coordinator Doug Pederson spoke about how the team will prepare for that first game.

"We just keep going with our training camp schedule," Pederson said. "We don't deviate from that and we're going to prepare just like a regular game and get the guys ready, but these first couple of games, we're still evaluating our guys. We just want to see them play and it's good for the young guys these first couple of preseason games to get them out there and on the field."

For the first time during training camp, safety Sanders Commings was out on the field in pads and participating in practice. While working with both the first and second team defenses, Commings showed versatility before going down with an ankle injury, missing the last portion of practice.

One player who has proven to be difficult in taking to the ground is Chiefs rookie De'Anthony Thomas.

After practice on Wednesday, Pederson spoke about Thomas.

"He's really worked at learning the offense," Pederson said. "He was only here for six practices and the OTAs and then he was gone most of the time but he's put in the time, he's studied our offense [and we] give him plays he understands. We're not going to throw the whole book at him obviously, but use his skill set [and] use his talent and let him go play football."

Possessing game-breaking speed and quickness, Thomas has been moving around quite a bit here at training camp in the hopes of utilizing that skill set.

After practice, quarterback Alex Smith also spoke on Thomas.

I think he's done a great job coming in [during] the limited time [he's had]," Smith said. "It was a tough offseason for him. It was hard with really only having a few days. He's done a nice job coming in. We ask a lot of him—moving him around and doing a lot of different things with him so, it was fun today to get to see him in live ball [and] make some plays."

When the Chiefs have gone into their live periods, even running back Jamaal Charles is taken to the ground.

Pederson addressed this on Wednesday.

"It's a physical game and we got to get Jamaal (Charles) ready to play," Pederson said. "He understands he's going to get hit in some of these live periods and we don't keep him in there that long. Obviously, as coaches, we're smart about that but we got to get him ready to go because [during] this preseason game, he's going to get hit."

The physicality is a part of the game and Charles is getting prepared for the hits he's going to take come Week 1 against Tennessee.

The Chiefs return to practice Thursday morning at 8:15 a.m.

Practice bits:

• Players did not practice: RB Joe McKnight (knee), DB DeMarcus Van Dyke (hamstring), DB David Van Dyke (hamstring), WR Junior Hemingway (hamstring), Mike Catapano (illness)
• Players who left practice early: Sanders Commings (ankle), Mark Harrison (hamstring)