Choji is still in the academy. If you remember Naruto, Sakura, Ino and Shikamaru were promoted by 1 year. The 4 of them are much stronger than canon because of their training.
It's good that you are treating ninjas as ninjas. Different from certain 'anonymous readers' that think they really can go against the orders of the Hokage, the military leader of great power, basically a dictator if the Hokage really wants.