When the Kansas City Chiefs went into training camp, everyone assumed that one of the position battles we’d be watching would be between rookie Kingsley Suamataia and second-year player Wanya Morris — who got some game experience while filling in for Donovan Smith last season — to become the the team’s left tackle.

Almost immediately, though, Suamataia seemed to have the inside track for the job. It wasn’t long before it was obvious he had won it.

But in Sunday afternoon’s gritty 26-25 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, he didn’t really look the part. He accumulated a couple of holding penalties, gave up some pressures — and at least one sack — to the the Bengals’ defensive end Trey Hendrickson.

“I mean, he’s just an absolute monster, man,” said quarterback Patrick Mahomes of Hendrickson after the game. “I mean, like, his motor [and] the way he’s able to rush the passer? [I played against] him in New Orleans and he was like that — and then he got to Cincinnati [and he’s] been like that.

”But he did a great job today, man. He’s great against the run [and] the pass. [He’s] kind of an underrated guy — but it was a good test for us.”

Things got so bad that head coach Andy Reid finally sent Morris into the game to take the rookie starter’s place at left tackle.

“Sometimes you’ve got to take a step back to take a step forward,” observed Reid after the game. “So Wanya came in and did a nice job. Now… he also had a penalty there — but very seldom are you going to get a guy like [Hendrickson] that you’re playing against.”

Reid believes that it’s essentially a rite of passage for some young players.

“Sometimes if you get beat a couple of different times — and you’re a young guy — you haven’t quite figured out the answers to the test [and] how to fix it,” explained Reid. “Your coach talks to you. Then you’ve got to settle down — and that happens. So you go back and you learn from it.

“Wanya will do the same thing. He did a nice job jumping in there — with the exception of the penalty.”

The head coach couldn’t say whether Suamataia or Morris would start the Week 3 game against the Atlanta Falcons. He plans to go through the routine: look at the film, talk to offensive line coach Andy Heck — “and we’ll go from there.”

Mahomes doesn’t seem particularly worried about it.

“You’re not always gonna have your perfect day,” he noted. “I mean, I didn’t have a perfect day today. But just like any other great player, you have to trust in your abilities [and] you have to learn from it. You have to have that mentality [that] I’m going to come to get better [in] this next week.

“But I have all the trust in the world that he’s gonna keep getting better and better — and be a guy that I can really count on [in] every single game.”