KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Asked what he needed to prove to his coaches at training camp if he's to win the No. 2 quarterback spot for the Kansas City Chiefs, Tyler Bray did a nice job of boiling it down to the essential.
"I need to show," he said, "that I can think like coach Reid."
If Bray can prove he's of like mind with Andy Reid, the Chiefs' head coach and the architect of their offense, he will indeed beat competitors Aaron Murray and Kevin Hogan and become the main backup to starting quarterback Alex Smith.
There's little question Bray is the most physically talented of the bunch. He showed that a number of times during offseason practice, most recently during a two-minute drill in this week's minicamp.
Bray was flushed to his left by the pass rush, and, while scrambling that way, threw a 19-yard pass across his body that wide receiver Frankie Hammond Jr. caught in the end zone.
The part about thinking like Reid may be more difficult for Bray. Until this spring, he hadn't been able to practice much for almost two years -- since the end of the preseason in 2014. He missed the rest of that season with an ankle injury, then missed all of 2015, offseason and training camp included, after he tore his ACL while playing basketball.
Bray said the time wasn't wasted. Even though he was never preparing to play in a practice or a game, he went through the video with Smith and the other quarterbacks as if he was.
"I got better mentally," he said. "You get used to playing on a (computer) screen. I did a lot of it on the iPad at home. You can sit back and digest everything that's being called. You can know better where the coaches want the ball to go in certain coverages. That helped me out a lot."
The Chiefs concluded their offseason work on Thursday. They won't gather again for a full-squad practice until the end of July, when they begin training camp.
Bray said he would use the interim time to not just throw, but work on some of the physical particulars that Reid wants to see from him.
"There are little things coach Reid is pressing me to get better at: my footwork, the quick game, keeping the ball up, being ready to dart throws," he said.
He'll work with his younger brother Austin, a quarterback at Mississippi Valley State.
"I'll go with my brother and try to teach him our offense, not plays but what to do if he sees certain things in coverage," Bray said. "That really helps me when I teach him."
Bray started and finished offseason practice as the No. 2 quarterback. Murray was the No. 2 for a stretch of three practices in the middle.
"I liked what I saw," Reid said. "I think Tyler and Aaron really worked hard and have learned from the last year or two or three and I thought they had some good quality snaps.
"The next step is to get the pads on and let's get them in a game. I think it gives you a little better evaluation, when that rush is live on them. They're not going to get that in training camp. Let's see how they're going to do in games. It's wide open, wide open competition."