[Kansas City.com] Don’t expect newly signed Chiefs quarterback Casey Printers to challenge Trent Green for the starting spot next season.

But Printers, 24, could give the Chiefs – at long last – a competent developmental quarterback. Printers, who signed a three-year contract Wednesday, was the most outstanding player in the Canadian Football League in 2004 with British Columbia.

After his big 2004 season, Printers’ play slipped last season. But that didn’t concern the Chiefs, who outbid the Detroit Lions and Indianapolis Colts to sign him.

“They convinced me I could have a great future there,” Printers said. “They told me they would be patient with me and that they would try to bring me along.”

“This is a 24-year-old kid who was (most outstanding player) in the CFL,” said Printers’ agent, Jason Medlock. “They think of this kid as a Michael Vick-Vince Young-type of player. He’s got a good, accurate arm and knowledge of how to play the game.”

“He’s a valuable guy to groom.”

That’s how Chiefs president/general manager Carl Peterson looked at it, too.

“We’ve had some good fortune with Canadian players,” Peterson said. “Joe Horn was a guy we had to draft to get out of Canada. Marc Boerigter – I look at it this way: It’s like having an additional draft choice. And this draft choice has pro football experience, albeit the CFL. It’s a bigger, wider field and so on. But I think he’s got a chance to come in and help us. He’s going to be a backup for us and learn what we do and what this offense is all about.”