KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The good news for the Kansas City Chiefs and their missing quartet of stars -- Jamaal Charles, Tamba Hali, Eric Berry and Justin Houston -- is that by not playing in Saturday’s preseason game against the Bears in Chicago, those players will avoid injury, or further injury for three of them, for at last another week.

The bad news is that the preseason will be a complete wash for four of the Chiefs’ most important players. After Chicago, the Chiefs have a final exhibition game remaining, on Sept. 1 against the Green Packers at Arrowhead Stadium.

But it would be most unlike Andy Reid to use anyone he’s counting on when the games matter in the final preseason contest, whether they need the playing time or not.

A wasted preseason isn’t an ideal scenario for any of the four players. Preseason certainly isn’t as important for veterans as it is for rookies and other young players, but that doesn’t make it meaningless.

Hali, Berry and Houston haven’t played in a game since January’s playoff loss to the New England Patriots. It’s been since an October game against the Chicago Bears for Charles.

So the first game action for any of these four players, whether it’s in the regular season opener or in the case of Houston and perhaps at least some of the others later in the year, will be their first game action in a long time.

That’s a problem.

“They need it,’’ Reid said of a taste of playing time. “The speed of the game, it’s just different.

“Even with the great ones, you’ve got to give them just a little bit of time to get that field speed back. The game is so fast right now. You can’t get that in the weight room and you can’t get it doing drills (during practice).’’

While the risks of playing in games that don’t matter outweigh the benefits, there also are risks to not playing at all in the preseason. It's generally accepted that players who miss most or all of training camp tend to get injured during the regular season at a higher rate than those who are regular camp participants.

Berry, the unsigned franchise player, and Houston, who had ACL surgery in February, have yet to practice. Charles returned to practice last week, Hali on Tuesday.

The Chiefs, through no fault of their own, will be sending them into regular-season games without the preparation they need. Maybe things will work out well for the four of them.

History suggests it won’t.