KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Derrick Johnson has gotten a view during recent games from a perspective the 35-year-old isn't used to: the sideline.

“Right now the plan is not to let me play 60, 70 plays every game,” the Kansas City Chiefs inside linebacker said. “With my age, I think I can be more effective playing half the plays. I’m at the point in my career, I’m not selfish enough to say, ‘I want to get all the reps.'"

A reduced role for Johnson is another sign that change is coming to the Kansas City defense. Another longtime regular, 12th-year outside linebacker Tamba Hali, is now a part-time player and has been limited to just two games so far this season because of knee problems. He had missed just four games in his first 11 seasons.

Now Johnson is spending more time on the sideline. Johnson and Hali were first-round draft picks in back-to-back years by the Chiefs, starting with Johnson in 2005.

With regard to Johnson, the Chiefs made a pair of preseason trades to acquire inside linebackers Reggie Ragland and Kevin Pierre-Louis. The trades were made with an eye not only toward improving the play at the inside spot next to Johnson but also toward eventually replacing him.

Ragland already displaced the other onetime starter on the inside, Ramik Wilson, early in the season. Now the process has started with Johnson.

Johnson has been a fixture for the Chiefs for much of his career in their various defensive packages, whether aimed at the run or the pass. Johnson played every snap in five of Kansas City’s first eight games this season.

But he’s been a part-timer in the past two while Ragland and Pierre-Louis have played a similar number of snaps to Johnson.

“We just kind of roll them and then we’re looking and say, ‘They’re all playing pretty good, let’s get them out there,'" defensive coordinator Bob Sutton said. "Maybe the other benefit of this is that we have three guys that have got the pedal to the metal all the time. They’re not worn out.

“The driving force is that those guys elevated their game."

The Chiefs acquired Pierre-Louis from Seattle, where he was mostly a backup in three seasons with the Seahawks. The bigger prize was Ragland, a second-round draft pick by the Bills last year. Buffalo was looking to move Ragland this year after switching defensive systems, and the Chiefs moved in.

Ragland played 89 snaps in the past two games, or 10 more than Johnson. He has earned the increased playing time by being one of the Chiefs’ better defensive players.

“It is the more reps I get with the guys out there,” Ragland said. “I need to get to know my players so I know what I have to do on the field. It is just more and more when I get out there with those guys. They make me more comfortable out there by talking to them and telling me what I need to do.

“Any time you get reps doing something, you feel more comfortable.”

Johnson said he can already feel a difference from a smaller workload.

“To do half the plays with the athletes we have at linebacker, I’m loving it,” he said. “My body feels good. I’m a ballplayer, and of course I want all the reps. It’s about winning. If you’re not in this game to benefit the team, then that’s not good.

“That’s the big thing. When you switch a player out like me, you don’t want a drop-off. You want guys out there getting better. Of course they’re going to make some mistakes. It’s football. But they’re playing well. They can move. They’re big, strong. In [Pierre-Louis] and Reggie, I see myself as a younger D.J. -- attacking the ball, being fearless, reckless. That’s what I like about them … I’m happier than ever when they make a play."