Emmett Johnson Camp Update — August 31: The Rookie Makes a Three-Man Backfield
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 31
Johnson made the initial fifty-three, and the Chiefs kept only three running backs — him, Kenneth Walker and Brashard Smith — while waiving the veteran the depth charts had penciled in second. He closed the preseason with seven carries for thirty-nine yards in the finale.
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Emmett Johnson made the team, and the team kept almost nobody else at his position. Kansas City's initial 53 carries exactly three running backs — Kenneth Walker, Brashard Smith and Johnson — per Matt McMullen at Chiefs.com. Johnson closed the preseason with seven carries for 39 yards in Friday's nine-to-nine tie with Seattle, per McMullen's game recap, six days after the one-yard touchdown he scored in Tampa, which Pete Sweeney at the Kansas City Star logged as his second productive outing in two preseason games. The room came out one man lighter than the beat expected: Emari Demercado, whom Pro Football Network's depth chart had framed as the second back on August 20-fifth, five days before the cutdown, was waived, per the Chiefs' transaction announcement at Chiefs.com, and then claimed by the Dallas Cowboys, per Jordan Foote at Sports Illustrated's Chiefs site. Jaydn Ott was waived and EJ Smith was waived with an injury designation, later reverting to injured reserve, per that same announcement and per Foote. To be careful with the causality: Demercado's exit and Johnson's survival are two facts no reporting has connected. Both rookies made it; the veteran did not.
Reid's postgame line covered the group Johnson ran with: "It was good to get the young guys in the game and the reps that they got today – I think [those] are invaluable," per McMullen quoting Reid at Chiefs.com. And the most consequential context for his role sits one locker over — Walker's week ran from a reported foot injury with Week One uncertain on August 20-fifth, per Pro Football Network, to Reid the next day calling it ankle swelling from a shoe and saying Walker will be OK, per Charles Goldman at A to Z Sports.
Last week's watch list was half answered. The touches in the finale got published: seven for 39. The pass-protection split against Brashard Smith did not — no snap counts, route counts or protection charting appeared all week, the same gap we flagged then, now one week older. But the bigger half landed loudly: we said the shape of the backfield Kansas City kept would say more than any August box score, and the shape is three deep with the fifth-round pick out of Nebraska — number 161, per Chiefs.com — on it.
In June, Johnson was a rookie whose role did not exist yet behind Kenneth Walker. After cut day the role exists on paper: he is one of three backs on the roster. What remains untested is everything about usage — a roster spot is not a touch share, not a passing-down job, and not a verdict on the battle with Smith, who made the team too. We'll check in once the season starts handing out real snaps.
_Data via nflverse._
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