8 LEGENDS ENTER HALL OF FAME

The Pro Football Hall of Fame class of 2019 will be inducted Saturday night

Them an with the most invested in the successor failure of the Kansas City Chiefs stood beside a practice field at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, Missouri, and lamented four miserable inches.

That's how far offside former pass rusher Dee Ford was in the AFC title game, when Charvarius Ward intercepted Tom Brady with 54 seconds left and Kansas City clinging to the lead.

The yellow flag on the Arrowhead Stadium turf gave New England another shot, and this time Brady made the most of it. He marched the Patriots the rest of the way to a go-ahead score. When the Chiefs forced overtime with a field goal, Brady answered with a winning touchdown.

Four inches. The distance between the Super Bowl and the end of the season.

“Obviously being as close as we were to the Super Bowl last year, coming up four inches short, it allows us to come into the season with a lot of belief,” said Clark Hunt, the chairman and most visible face of the Chiefs' ownership family, who stopped through for a workout last weekend.

Not to mention fueled by that playoff disappointment.

The memories of that cold January evening drove quarterback Patrick Mahomes into the film room for hours on end, churning through game after game. It sent the league MVP onto the sweltering high school practice fields, where he would throw to wide receivers on his summer days off.

“We were super close ,” Mahomes said. “We fell just short.”

Hall of Fame to expand inductees class for 2020

The Pro Football Hall of Fame will expand the number of potential inductees to 20 in 2020 as part of the NFL's celebration of its 100th season.

Part of the 2020 class would be inducted in early August. The others would be enshrined Sept. 17, 2020, the date that marks 100 years from the original NFL game.

Hall president David Baker joked that with so many potential inductees next year — the current maximum is eight — there will be “a lot of doors to knock on” with the good news.

Elsewhere

Jaguars: Rookie tight end Josh Oliver has a hamstring injury that could cause him to miss the regular-season opener. A third-round draft pick from San Jose State, Oliver strained his right hamstring during practice Thursday.

Eagles: Philadelphia has signed safety Johnathan Cyprien and released safety Godwin Igwebuike. Cyprien, a second-round pick in 2013, has started 70 games for the Jaguars and Titans. He missed last season after tearing his ACL.