2005 kansas city chiefs seasonal highlight clips

Transcription

2005 KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
SEASONAL HIGHLIGHT CLIPS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
One More Reason To Win It Now For Lamar Hunt – Nick Athan
2-5
Backfield Time Share – Dennis Dillon
6-8
Chiefs Hoping Colquitt Will Finally Solve Their Punting Problems – Doug Tucker 9-10
Green Needs To Win Big One To Elevate Status – Bob Lutz
11-12
Chiefs Defensive Coordinator In Charge Of Turnaround – Doug Tucker
13-14
Allen’s Secret Out – Adam Teicher
15-16
Chiefs Counting on Knight, Surtain To Revive Secondary – Doug Tucker
17-18
Old School D – Jeffri Chadiha
19-20
Chiefs Move Up At Linebacker – Adam Teicher
21-22
All Eyes On DJ – Rick Dean
23-24
Chiefs Assemble NFL’s Best Offense Mostly From Spare Parts – Adam Teicher 25-27
First Vs. Worst – Liz Merrill
28-30
Cunningham Attempting To Change Culture Of Losing – Adam Teicher
31-34
Gonzalez Built His KC Persona With Looks, Money, Charm – Wright Thompson 35-36
Chiefs’ Holmes Visualizes Another TD-Heavy Season – Jim Corbett
37-39
True Grit – Liz Merrill
40-41
Coaches Worked Hard To Make Mitchell Meaner – Adam Teicher
42-43
Cavalry Has Arrived – Adam Teicher
44-45
It’s A Year To Toast Vermeil – Liz Merrill
46-48
Sudden Impact – Liz Merrill
49-50
Days Of Wine & Bruises – Phil Barber
51-53
Parker Catching On Fast – Adam Teicher
54-55
Holmes Happy Sharing The Load – Adam Teicher
56-58
Roaf Can’t Be Replaced – Rick Dean
59-60
Steady Eddie – Liz Merrill
61-62
Roaf Makes Big Difference – Liz Merrill
63-65
Chiefs Missing Roaf On The Line – Mark Schlereth
66-67
They’ve Got Black’s Back – Liz Merrill
68-69
Many Happy Returns – John Dudley
70-72
For Tynes, It’s About Forgetting The Misses – Liz Merrill
73-74
One Man’s Offensive Opinions – Bob Gretz
75-77
Chiefs’ Joyride Sputters – Adam Teicher
78-79
Scout.com: One More Reason to Win it Now for Lamar Hunt
Page 1 of 4
COLLEGE
RECRUITING
NFL
MLB
PRO SPORTS
Lawrence Tynes: Special Teams Player of the Week
Willie Roaf: Held Out of Practice Tuesday
Ryan Sims: No More Cast for Defensive Tackle
Eric Warfield: Will Start Against San Diego
Eric Warfield: Back In The Fold?
HIG
Login | Register for
Conta
MORE HOT NEWS...
Front Page
Message Boards
Top Stories
Team Info
NFL Stats
One More Reason to Win it Now for
Lamar Hunt
NFL Draft
Free Agency
F
Subscribe today and get a full
year of Warpaint Illustrated
Magazine with an annual Total
Access Pass.
By Nick Athan
Publisher
Date: Oct 26, 2005
Lamar Hunt in 1959 with the AFL
Founding Fathers
On Tuesday afternoon the NFL
lost one of the games signature
pioneers when New York Giants
icon Wellington Mara passed
away at the age of 89. It brings
to mind that owners like our very
own beloved Lamar Hunt are not
going to be around forever.
That's why the Kansas City
Chiefs need to make the most of
their 2005 season.
Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt symbolizes everything that an
owner should be in the NFL. With the Daniel Snyders and Jerry Jones of
the league trying to change the game each and every year, Wellington
Mara like Mr. Hunt has always put the league and the game first. The
NFL is successful because of visionaries like Mara and Hunt.
Back in the 1960’s when the NFL was changing the landscape by
broadcasting its games on Television; Mara told then commission Pete
Rozelle that he was willing to share the lucrative New York television
rights and fees with all the other owners so each team could survive.
Granted the television rights fees where nowhere close to what they are
now; but that gesture sent a message to every NFL owner that sum of
the league was better served sharing revenues instead of acting
selfishly like they did in other professional sports.
Lamar Hunt did his part by convincing Rozelle and Mara that merging
his rival AFL league with the more stout and prestigious NFL was
something that would benefit everyone. Hunt earned a great deal of
respect for Wellington Mara and no two owners of that era had as much
of an impact on the merger than those great titans.
http://chiefs.scout.com/2/457838.html
10/27/2005
Page 2 of 4
“I knew him first as a friendly adversary and later, after the 1966
merger, as a compatriot and partner in what I believed to be the most
successful sports league in the world,” remembered Chiefs founder
Lamar Hunt. “Most of all I will always remember his wisdom and grace.”
Hunt and Mara are considered the Grand Marshals of the NFL. With
Mara’s passing, Lamar Hunt’s presence in the scope of the NFL is even
more important to Chiefs fans. Mr. Hunt has had to deal with his own
health problems the last several years but he remains a very active part
of the organization. Though his son Clark Hunt is taking on a greater
role within the organization; make no mistake about it, this is still
Lamar Hunts football team.
The city of Kansas City owes a tremendous debt to the entire Hunt
family. Don’t worry this is not going to turn into a debate about the
stadium issue. Instead to point out the obvious that we can’t take him
for granted any longer.
Lamar Hunt wants to win just as much as the fans want the Chiefs to
win each and every Sunday. He’s still active participant on game days.
He roots, cheers and remains one of the most positive cheerleaders in
the locker room win or lose. For that, he has our respect. But for him
and the organization, he’s yet to receive the AFC Championship Trophy
that bares his name. He deserves it. There are no more excuses. This
entire organization needs to get it for him this year.
In the offseason, the organization did a lot of soul searching. With the
blessing of Lamar Hunt, he gave the green light to spend his millions on
acquiring better talent. With that said, Chiefs President Carl Peterson
and Head Coach Dick Vermeil use that as an inspirational tool to make
this season very special for Lamar Hunt. They understand what this
season is all about and are driven to succeed for their Owner and
Founder.
After the Washington Redskins game, Lamar Hunt crossed the podium
in front of Vermeil. It was an emotional game for the Chiefs Head
Coach. But the game was secondary for a few seconds as Vermeil
stopped talking and focused on Mr. Hunt walking across the room. It
gave me chills. No words were said but you could tell that Vermeil
sensed this team was getting better and that they had advanced a step
further in attaining their Super Bowl dreams.
My grandfather told me that you could always tell the soul of a man
based on his eyes. Vermeil’s eyes said it all when he watched Mr. Hunt
walk in front of him. Vermeil clearly knew why he was brought to
Kansas City. Does he want to win another Super Bowl for himself? Sure
he does. But if you asked Vermeil what it would mean to him to present
Lamar Hunt with not only the AFC Championship but the Lombardi
Trophy as well; the words wouldn’t come out. Instead a fountain of
tears would fill the press room.
With those heart strings being tugged, Vermeil is trying to do
everything he can to make that a reality for Lamar Hunt. The players
and the entire organization for that matter have bought into the fact
10/27/2005
Page 3 of 4
that this is going to be year they kick in the door and get it done.
Forget the fact that they haven’t won a single playoff game in the
Vermeil era. Forget the fact that they under-achieved a season ago.
Forget all that. The past is dead and it can’t be changed. The present is
all that matters.
Nobody knew that more than Wellington Mara who held out through the
weekend just long enough to see his football team win one more game.
On Sunday with his health rapidly declining, he woke up minutes before
Giants quarterback Eli Manning threw a last second touchdown pass to
Amani Toomer. After the play, he smiled and went back to sleep. On the
other hand Chiefs fans were smiling because New York beat the Denver
Broncos.
But for Mara it was a culmination of his relationship with the franchise
that his father purchased back in 1925 when he was just nine-years old.
Five years later at the ripe young age of fourteen he and his older
brother Jack were given the title of Co-Owners with their father,
Timothy J. Mara.
For Mara he went from team ball boy to owner. To his credit over the
next 80 years of his life he made every single person in the organization
both past and present, feel like family. Today is a sad day for the NFL.
With the labor issues in doubt, owners becoming greedier by the day
and player salaries increasing with each season, the old guards are
thinning out.
But for Wellington Mara who is now watching games in Heaven and
Lamar Hunt who hopes this season leads to a Super Bowl appearance
by his Chiefs; they can feel good that they changed the NFL landscape
forever.
They made contributions that made the National Football League the
greatest entity in the history of professional sports. Wellington Mara
stood tall back in the 60’s and so did Lamar Hunt. They were
adversaries who saw the greater good for the league and they were
visionaries. It makes you wonder why others sports leagues don’t follow
their examples they implemented over forty years ago.
After Sunday’s game in New York when the players understood that
Wellington Mara was near death, they chanted the name ‘Duke’ over
and over. That was Wellington Mara’s nickname. They paid their
tributes to a man that knew loved each and every single one of them
not as football players but as men.
Those sentiments are no different in Kansas City. You ask every person
who has ever been part of this organization about Lamar Hunt and
they’ll shower you with accolades, stories and tears that could fill up
Arrowhead stadium ten times over.
But the best story might yet be told. For Chiefs fans, they hope that
chapter in the Lamar Hunt legacy is written on January 22nd, 2006.
That’s when we all hope that Carl Peterson and Dick Vermeil present
our beloved Chiefs owner his rightful AFC Championship Trophy that
symbolizes his name as one of the greatest founding fathers in the
history of the NFL.
10/27/2005
Page 4 of 4
AFL FOUNDING FATHERS: Representatives of the Embryo American
Football League pose in a football-like formation in New York City, Oct.
28, 1959. Posing in the front row from left are, Robert L. Howsam,
Denver, Colo.; Max Winter, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.; Lamar Hunt,
Dallas, Texas, the League's founder; and K.S. Adams. Jr., Houston,
Texas. In the back row from left are, Barron Hilton, Los Angeles, Ca.;
Ralph C. Wilson Jr., Buffalo, N.Y.; and Harry Wismer, New York. (AP
Photo)
Related Stories
NFL Draft '06: Scouting the tight ends
-by TheNFLexperts.com Oct 26, 2005
WP Audio: Vermeil Talks About Tuesday
Workout
-by WarpaintIllustrated.com Oct 25, 2005
WP Audio: Lawrence Tynes on His AFC
Honors
-by WarpaintIllustrated.com Oct 25, 2005
ABOUT US
Story Tools
Top Stories
Search Stories
Hot News
Discuss on Message
Boards
PRIVACY POLICY
TERMS OF SERVICE
FAIR USE
JOBS
Copyright © 2005 WarpaintIllustrated.com and Scout.com. All rights reserved. This website is an unofficia
and independent source of news and information, and is not affiliated with any school, team or league.
10/27/2005
SportingNews.com - Backfield time share
Page 1 of 3
You can find this article at:
http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=29575
Backfield time share
October 26, 2005
Dennis Dillon
Sporting News
The Chiefs didn't dally in revealing the new wrinkle in their offense this season. Took all of 60 seconds. After Priest Holmes
ran 5 yards around right end and 35 yards up the middle on the first two plays of the opener against the Jets, he came out and
Larry Johnson came in. On the next play, Johnson swept left end for a 35-yard touchdown.
The plan had been for Holmes to play the first two series and Johnson to enter the game on the third possession. After the
game, offensive coordinator Al Saunders asked Holmes why he left the field after only two plays. "I just wanted to get Larry
involved in the game real early," Holmes said. "But if I had known it was going to be a touchdown, I would have stayed in."
From 2001 until midway through last season, Holmes handled the bulk of the rushing for the Chiefs. He carried the ball on
1,156 of 1,631 rushing plays (71 percent). Then two developments altered the landscape: Holmes suffered a strained MCL
that sidelined him for the final eight games of 2004, and Johnson rushed for 541 yards and nine touchdowns in the final six
games.
From necessity and talent, a new running plan was born.
In a dual desire to try to keep Holmes, 32, healthy all season and to take advantage of the talents of Johnson, their first-round
draft pick in 2003, the Chiefs decided to redistribute the running load. Holmes still would be the leading man, but Johnson
would have more than a cameo role. The new blueprint has been successful. With Holmes running 105 times for 413 yards
and six touchdowns and Johnson producing 344 yards and four TDs on 69 carries, the Chiefs are 4-2 and rank sixth in the
league in rushing.
"If you have two talented players," Saunders says, "you have to get them on the field and find a way to utilize their talents."
For several years, NFL teams have been rotating their defensive linemen, using a "wave" system to keep them fresh and
more productive. That principle now is being applied in offensive backfields. Although the two-back attack hasn't permeated
the league, more teams are using it this season. In addition to Kansas City, Atlanta (Warrick Dunn, T.J. Duckett), Carolina
(Stephen Davis, DeShaun Foster), Cincinnati (Rudi Johnson, Chris Perry), Baltimore (Jamal Lewis, Chester Taylor), Denver
(Mike Anderson, Tatum Bell) and Pittsburgh (Willie Parker, Jerome Bettis) are among the teams divvying up carries
between at least two backs.
Now that Ricky Williams has returned from a four-game suspension, Miami plans to make him and rookie Ronnie Brown a
tandem -- and sometimes in the backfield at the same time. And with Deuce McAllister lost for the season, New Orleans is
rotating Antowain Smith and Aaron Stecker.
Titans defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz understands why the two-back approach is picking up steam. "Guys who get all
http://www.sportingnews.com/exclusives/20051026/667057-p.html
10/26/2005
Page 2 of 3
the carries for a team get beat up," he says. "If you have a guy who is a bell cow who is going to carry the ball 35 times a
game, he's going to be highly paid. But you're diminishing his effectiveness because of the pounding he's taking."
The two-back formula has other purposes besides reducing the wear and tear on the primary runner. It can extend the career
of a veteran while grooming a young player on the rise. It gives a team with a lead in the fourth quarter a fresher pair of legs
that can run more effectively and bleed time off the clock. And it poses challenges for defenses that must defend two running
backs who often have dissimilar physical characteristics and running abilities. For example, Holmes (5-9, 213) excels at
running on the perimeter and cutting back against the grain, and Johnson (6-1, 230) is a more physical inside runner.
"With two different types of backs, you continually are giving the defense a lot of confusion in terms of which types of
styles are coming at them," Holmes says. "It causes defenses not to be in a comfortable state."
Nearly half of NFL teams are using more than one back to carry the ball with regularity -- and that quotient could grow.
Bucs coach Jon Gruden, who used multiple backs when he coached the Raiders from 1998 to 2001, might be wise to adopt
that approach in Tampa Bay and alternate Michael Pittman with rookie Cadillac Williams, who had an explosive start but
missed the past two games with a foot sprain.
When coach Jim Mora and offensive coordinator Greg Knapp came to Atlanta last year, they inherited Dunn, a slasher, and
Duckett, a masher. Knapp had a two-back system background, having coached Garrison Hearst and Kevan Barlow in San
Francisco, and has followed a similar script with the Falcons.
Dunn starts the game, then Duckett comes in for the third series. As the game develops, Dunn does the majority of the
running up and down the field, and Duckett often is the red zone back. Unlike the Chiefs, who tailor their line blocking to
the different running styles of Holmes and Johnson, the Falcons don't change. They use a zone-blocking scheme no matter
who carries the ball.
Dunn has great vision and has a knack for hitting holes just as they open and just before they close. Although he's 5-9, 180,
he's a deceptively effective runner between the tackles. Duckett (6-0, 254), primarily a short-yardage and goal-line back, is a
powerful runner who makes extra yards because of his ability to run through tackles.
The Falcons led the league in rushing last year and were No. 1 going into Monday night's game against the Jets, averaging
185.3 yards per game. (That figure is skewed a bit by quarterback Michael Vick, who was averaging eight carries per game
and had accounted for 284 of Atlanta's 1,112 rushing yards.) Although he admits rotating with Duckett is beneficial in
keeping him fresher, Dunn would rather be No. 1 instead of No. 1A. "Any back will tell you he wants the bulk of the carries
to be able to go out there and really get into the rhythm and make plays," he says.
That's one criticism of the two-back system. It's difficult for a running back to get into the flow of the game if he has to come
out periodically. There are other potential drawbacks. Each back must check his ego at the locker room door. And, he might
not get enough reps in practice to improve his skills.
It also stretches the amount of preparation for the offensive staff. Saunders used to spend Friday and Saturday nights
focusing on the Chiefs' plays and matchups in the passing game. Now he devotes those two nights to the running game.
"When you focus on the play selection for a game, you've got to do it with a flow," Saunders says. "It's like you were an ice
skater or a dancer. It's almost choreographed. Now you put another variable into that and the picture changes. I've got to
imagine the game with Priest in it, and then I've got to imagine the game with Larry in it."
Saunders isn't complaining. He knows there are benefits to having both players carry the ball. And the number of disciples of
the two-running back offense is growing.
10/26/2005
Page 3 of 3
"I like it," says Bucs pro personnel director Mark Dominik. "If you have a Shaun Alexander or a LaDainian Tomlinson, you
feel like you have a bell cow. But if you've got the scatback, a smaller back so to speak, and then the bigger bruiser-type
back, it's a great package."
Here's how a two-back attack can throw a knockout punch. In the Steelers' 24-22 victory in San Diego in Week 5, Parker
carried 10 times for 26 yards and Bettis gained 54 yards on 17 rushes. Bettis' final seven carries came on Pittsburgh's gamewinning drive late in the game, with three going for first downs. After quarterback Ben Roethlisberger went out with a knee
injury, Bettis rushed three straight times, setting up Jeff Reed's 40-yard field goal with 6 seconds left.
"If you start the game with Willie, you've got a speed guy they have to defend. Then you come in with Jerome, a big, strong
guy who's going to run up inside and knock people back. It's two different styles they have to prepare for," says longtime
Steelers running backs coach Dick Hoak, who has evolved from a one-back proponent to having a two-back system, last year
with Bettis and Duce Staley and this year with Bettis and Parker -- and sometimes tossing Verron Haynes into the mix, too.
But if working out an effective game plan using two running backs presents difficulties for an offensive coordinator, imagine
the extra complications it presents for defensive coordinators, especially if the two backs have diverse styles. To get ready
for both runners, it reduces the preparation time that could be devoted to either one. "You don't have a crystal ball going into
the game," Schwartz says, "so you've got to get ready for both."
In games, a defense must concentrate on the right personnel matchups. For example, you probably want to play a base
defense when the Rams have stout running back Steven Jackson, their primary ballcarrier, in the game. But you better bring
in an extra defensive back for a linebacker if St. Louis brings in Marshall Faulk, a receiving threat who still can gouge
defenses on draws and traps.
Put 32 offensive coordinators in a room. Draw a line down the middle of the floor. Now ask them to choose between two
backs or one. Circumstances will compel many to step over to the two-back side, but several will stubbornly stay on the oneback side.
"There are lots of ways to do things, and I don't know that any one way is right," says Colts coordinator Tom Moore, who
has Edgerrin James and, not surprisingly, favors the one-back system. "I think a back gets stronger the more you give him
the ball. He sees things, and the more you give it to him, the more the game kind of slows down for him. So Edgerrin gets
the lion's share of the load."
In San Diego, Tomlinson gets the lion's share. In Seattle, it's Alexander. Other main men are Willis McGahee (Buffalo),
Julius Jones (Dallas), Corey Dillon (New England), Curtis Martin (Jets), Tiki Barber (Giants) and LaMont Jordan (Oakland).
But not every team has a supercharged Range Rover Sport revving in its backfield. Many have a Corvette ZO6 and a
Hummer H2. That's why Chiefs fans still are seeing a lot of Holmes, but a lot more of Johnson.
Dennis Dillon is a senior writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at [email protected].
Copyright © 2005
All rights reserved.
10/26/2005
Chiefs hoping Colquitt will finally solve their punting problems
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Sat, Jul. 30, 2005
DOUG TUCKER
Associated Press
RIVER FALLS, Wis. - Just half a second and about 21 feet are all the Kansas City Chiefs are asking for.
It sounds so simple, easily within reach.
But an extra split-second of hang time and a net punting average around 38.5 yards instead of 31.5 could make the difference between a
mediocre season like last year's 7-9 disappointment and a playoff push reminiscent of the 13-3 campaign of 2003.
Even in 2003, the Chiefs had trouble punting and playing defense - a dangerous combination in any league but certain to be lethal in the
NFL.
Then last year, it got uglier. The defense, with practically everyone coming back, was one of the NFL's most feeble. At the same time,
Kansas City's net punting average of 31.5 yards - crafted by three different kickers in what turned into a virtually bum-of-the-month club
around Arrowhead Stadium - was the absolute worst.
It all added up to a frustrating year for a championship-caliber offense that topped the league in total yardage.
Now, with a bevy of offseason acquisitions and the bold moxie of coordinator Gunther Cunningham, the Chiefs hope they've addressed
their atrocious defense. As many as five new starters could emerge.
But only one man can revive the punting game. His name is Dustin Colquitt. The third-round draft pick out of Tennessee who kicks leftfooted and has been known to hang the ball in the air for more than 5 seconds, about half a second longer than the NFL average.
The Chiefs have seen nothing in their first few training camp workouts to believe they've made a mistake. Dante Hall, one of the league's
most feared punt returners, has twice failed to hold onto a high, arching kick from the left-footed rookie.
"A very talented punter," said Kendall Gammon, Kansas City's 14-year veteran deep snapper.
"He's got a lot of potential. He's got a strong, strong leg. He hangs the ball up there a long time."
Kicking left-footed is a big advantage because it puts a slant on the ball to which returners are not accustomed.
"It's difficult to catch because he kicks left-footed and the ball has a funny wobble to it. He's lucky he was blessed with that," Gammon
said.
If Colquitt fails to become a topflight punter, it will be a family scandal. His father, Craig, punted for the Pittsburgh Steelers and has two
Super Bowl rings. His cousin, Jimmy, holds Tennessee's career punting average. His younger brother Britton is slated to punt for the Vols
this season.
It's no wonder the Colquitts are known in Tennessee as "the first family of fourth down."
"I've heard them say that," Colquitt said. "It's kind of true. God's kind of put it in our bloodline. My dad, my first cousin, my little brother."
Soccer was actually this Colquitt's first love. He didn't even start punting until his senior year in high school. But once an interest was
sparked, his dad jumped into the project full-bore.
"Once I took that step my senior year and I started kicking, he was out there every day," Colquitt said. "He'd leave work early. He loved it
after that. He was just wanting me to be happy, whether it was basketball, soccer or whatever I did."
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/12265354.htm?template=contentModules/printstor... 7/31/2005
Page 2 of 2
That all-important hang time may turn out to be one of his biggest assets. His goal is around 5 seconds - maybe even 5.1.
"That way, the coverage team can get down there," he said. "You get a 5.1 and they're going to be standing there waiting for it to come
down."
Coming from Tennessee, he's not likely to be intimidated by the size of the crowd at Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium. And he relishes the
challenge of solving a team's punting woes.
"I like pressure-type situations," he said. "Most of my big punts at Tennessee came in the fourth quarter, at the end of halftime and stuff
like that. I'm excited for the opportunity. I know they've had bad luck in the past but that's why they drafted me. They drafted me to fix
that."
© 2005 AP Wire and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.kansascity.com
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/12265354.htm?template=contentModules/printstor... 7/31/2005
Green needs to win big one to elevate status
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Mon, Aug. 01, 2005
RIVER FALLS, Wis. - Where do you stand on Chiefs quarterback Trent Green?
Is he a great quarterback, as some of his dazzling passing numbers would suggest?
Or is he just a good quarterback, buoyed by an offensive system that would succeed with Paris Hilton behind center?
It's a tough argument because the numbers tell two vastly different stories.
One is that Trent Green has the sixth-highest passer rating in NFL history. His 87.9 mark ranks behind only Steve Young, Kurt Warner,
Daunte Culpepper, Peyton Manning and Joe Montana.
During his four seasons in Kansas City, Green has passed for 16,103 yards. Only the Colts' Manning has more during that period.
In 2004, Green's 4,591 yards led the AFC. If he can play for three more seasons, he has a chance to zoom past Len Dawson's franchise
record 28,507 career passing yards. If that happens, Green will have done in seven seasons what Dawson did in 14.
Green, despite an injury-filled past, has started all 64 games since arriving in Kansas City in 2001. Nobody could have expected this kind
of success from a guy who was drafted in the eighth round by the San Diego Chargers in 1993.
Yet there is that other set of numbers that doesn't flatter Green.
As the Chiefs' starting quarterback, he has a 34-30 regular-season record. In his one playoff game, Kansas City lost to Indianapolis.
Green has been plagued by untimely interceptions during his career in Kansas City. Last season, two picks late in games were especially
hurtful in losses to Houston and New Orleans.
But you can make a solid argument that Green is asked to do more than any other NFL quarterback because of a defense that struggles to
keep opposing teams from lighting up scoreboards.
During KC's 8-8 season in 2002, the Chiefs lost four games in which they scored at least 32 points. Last season, Kansas City lost a pair of
34-31 games.
In Green's 64 games, the Chiefs have scored 20 or more points 45 times, including 37 of 48 the past three seasons.
But it's anything but a guaranteed win when Kansas City's offense erupts because of that defense. So Green is a victim of the same
system that has made him so wildly successful.
Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil gives his quarterbacks the keys to the family's luxury car, but the defense often drives it right into a ditch.
The buttoned-down Green would never come out and say anything negative about the Chiefs' defense, though. Or about Vermeil's system.
He knows the clock is ticking on an old Kansas City offense. He's 35 and the hair on his head is sprinkled with gray.
To be considered an elite quarterback, Green needs to get a team to a Super Bowl. The Chiefs think they have made the necessary
upgrades to their defense to allow that to happen.
Green admits to feeling a sense of urgency about the 2005 season. The team is dotted with thirtysomethings, some of whom are expected
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/sports/12272281.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
8/1/2005
Page 2 of 2
to retire after the season.
"Nobody really talks about it," Green said when asked about the feeling that this has to be the year. "But you get that sense. I think the
organization feels that way, as well. They haven't exactly come out and said it, but with some of the moves that have been made I think
it's pretty clear that we're going to make as serious of a run as we can now."
Green will be at the helm of any run -- serious or not -- the Chiefs make.
Are there other quarterbacks who could do more with this offense?
Manning has comparable weapons in Indy, but would he do even more with the Chiefs?
Tom Brady has won three Super Bowl rings in New England and has been the MVP in two of them. But the Patriots have played stifling
defense during their run of success. Would Brady be as good in Kansas City, where defense has been nothing more than a seven-letter
word during the Green era?
Yet Brady is already a sure-fire Hall of Famer and nobody would consider Green to even be a candidate.
It's fun to analyze how Green stacks up to the best of today's quarterbacks: Brady, Manning, Culpepper, Donovan McNabb, Brett Favre.
All five of those guys are A-list quarterbacks. They have led teams deep into playoffs. Brady and Favre have won Super Bowls.
Green's numbers stack up nicely when compared against them. He is precise and smart and unafraid.
Still, Green ranks on the second tier of NFL quarterbacks. At the top of that tier, but not yet with the big boys.
But his career is still fluid. A run toward a Super Bowl or two could elevate him to elite status. But time is running out. And the Chiefs'
defense needs to lend him a hand.
Reach Eagle sports columnist Bob Lutz at 268-6597 or [email protected].
© 2005 Wichita Eagle and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.kansas.com
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/sports/12272281.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
8/1/2005
Chiefs defensive coordinator in charge of turnaround
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Tue, Aug. 02, 2005
DOUG TUCKER
Associated Press
RIVER FALLS, Wis. - The hard-driving and perpetually sleep-deprived defensive coordinator of the Kansas City Chiefs trudged slowly up
the long flight of stairs toward the lunchroom.
Sorry, Gunther Cunningham said through heavy eyelids, no time now to chat. Maybe later. Too many things to think about. Too much to
do.
Then he disappeared behind closed doors, but not without permitting one sneak peek into a troubled soul.
"I'd better not mess this up," he said.
In total agreement will be about 80,000 excited fans packed into Arrowhead Stadium for the Sept. 11 season opener.
Also nodding yes are team president Carl Peterson, executive vice president Denny Thum, player personnel director Lynn Stiles, director of
scouting Chuck Cook and all their assistants, interns, secretaries and scouts.
All those cogs in the Chiefs machine have done their jobs. They've gotten very high marks for a productive offseason geared toward taking
a sorry defense and turning it into an ace.
Through both free agents and trades, they acquired cornerback Patrick Surtain and safety Sammy Knight from the Dolphins, signed
linebacker Kendrell Bell off the Steelers and defensive end Carlos Hall from the Titans. They also brought in free agent cornerbacks Ashley
Ambrose and Dwayne Washington.
And, hardly able to believe their luck, they grabbed Derrick Johnson with the 15th pick in the first round of the draft after figuring there
was no way the Texas All-American would still be left.
That's at least five new starters, all trying to learn a new scheme and get acquainted with each other and create that elusive, hard-todefine substance called team chemistry.
The front office has done its job. The rest is up to the players - and a grizzled old coordinator with a raspy voice and a patch of gray
stubble on his weathered, grandfatherly face.
"Sometimes I walk to my car and feel like I need an IV or something," Cunningham said with a grin.
"The scheme is being taught well by the assistant coaches. I'm real happy about that. But where we're lacking is in fundamentals, the
fundamentals of the game. That is really disappointing to me right now."
Cunningham is not a man to take his sport lightly. A history buff and student of warfare, he recently read "The War Fighters," a manual
provided to U.S. Marines in Iraq, and was inspired to pass its message along.
"It talks about the brotherhood. When you go out there and fight for real like those fine young men and women, you'd better stay
together," he said.
"To me, that's the most critical thing we have to do. We have to change the culture of the defense - the attitude we bring on the table, the
brotherhood, the respect we have for each other."
Improved tackling would also help.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/football/nfl/kansas_city_chiefs/12284686.htm?template=... 8/3/2005
Page 2 of 2
Teaching such a thing to NFL veterans might seem akin to teaching Tiger Woods about the proper use of the sand wedge. But it has been
an Achilles' heel for the Chiefs for more than three years.
"There's only one way to do it, and that's to tackle," Cunningham said.
"The wrap-up you feel on the field, that's live. Tackle! You don't take the guy to the ground, but you wrap. What happens is you get your
feet, you get your angles, you get your arms and body involved."
The spirited tackling Cunningham is insisting upon during two-a-day workouts in River Falls is not making a lot of friends on the offense.
"Sometimes the offensive guys don't like it," Cunningham said. "But we try to make sure we talk to them about why we do it. That's what
we're trying to do."
A week into camp, things do seem to be coming together.
"I think the defense is getting better," head coach Dick Vermeil said after Tuesday morning's practice. "They were very disruptive today to
everything the offense wanted to do. I was pleased with that."
The he players who've been with Cunningham before believe their leader is up to the task.
"Gunther is a master motivator," said defensive end Eric Hicks.
"He takes a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. He thinks it's all his fault when things go wrong. When in all reality, he did the best he
can. We're the ones out there running it."
Allen's secret out
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Wed, Aug. 03, 2005
Allen's secret out
Chiefs defensive end can expect more attention after sack-filled rookie season
By ADAM TEICHER
The Kansas City Star
R
IVER FALLS, Wis. — Even from his lofty perch as one of the NFL’s most productive pass rushers, it’s easy for Jared Allen to look back
on last season’s developments with wonder.
Allen joined the Chiefs last year from virtually nowhere — tiny Idaho State and the fourth round of the draft. He was a rare gem on an
otherwise forlorn defense, leading his team and all NFL rookies by comfortable margins with nine sacks.
Remarkable though that might be, the transition for Allen might not be as difficult as what stands before him. Opponents have had a year
to study him. They now know his moves, strengths, weaknesses and probably even what he likes for lunch.
Allen is no longer a secret, and opponents will take their information and prepare for him accordingly. How he responds to the challenge
could define the course of his career.
Will he become an Eric Hicks, a foundation of the Chiefs’ defense for several seasons? Or is he another Duane Clemons or Vonnie Holliday,
talented players who led the Chiefs in sacks for one season before quickly flaming out?
“It’s going to be more difficult for him,” Hicks said. “He’s not going to sneak up on anybody. He had that going for him last year, but not
anymore.”
The Chiefs have designs on improving their defense and need Allen to be everything he was as a rookie — and more.
Recent Chiefs history is against him. The Chiefs haven’t had a repeat sack leader since Derrick Thomas in 1998 and 1999.
Hicks should know the difficulty of Allen’s quest. He led the Chiefs with 14 sacks in 2000 but fell to 3 1/2 the following season as
opponents made sure Hicks wasn’t going to be the defender to beat them.
Allen had a similar experience in college when his 10 1/2 sacks as a junior made him a marked man the following year.
“In college, teams started to pay more attention to me once I got going, so I’m kind of used to that,” he said. “I know that’s not the NFL,
but this is a team sport and I’ve got 10 other guys playing with me who are as good as me, if not better. So if I get more attention, I know
other guys are going to get more one-on-one situations and they’re going to win. I’m going to be careful of trying to do too much.
“I can go out and improve in the areas where I wasn’t as strong. I’m trying to improve my run defense. I’ve put on some muscle mass and
lost some body fat, which is good. I’ve even gained three pounds in training camp, though I don’t know how that’s happened.”
Few Chiefs are more tough-minded than Hicks, but he acknowledged being plenty frustrated as his sacks declined following his doubledigit season. Opponents inevitably sent a back or tight end to Hicks’ side or scooted their offensive line his way.
He rebounded to lead the Chiefs with nine sacks in 2002 and had five in each of the last two seasons.
“My advice to him is to not get discouraged,” Hicks said. “He’s going to make his plays, but he can’t get discouraged if he goes a few
games without a sack. Sacks usually come in bunches, anyway. They’re going to give him a lot more attention, and that’s going to make it
more difficult.
“It’s tough on your ego. He’s an animated person, all about having fun. When people stop giving you the recognition you’re used to, it can
be tough for a guy to deal with. I think Jared will be able to fight through that. He’s a tough-minded guy.”
Allen's secret out
Page 2 of 2
Allen is among the most easy-going of Chiefs. He’s generally upbeat and not the type to brood when things go wrong.
“He likes to play, and he likes to practice,” coach Dick Vermeil said. “He likes to work. He’s just one of those guys. I think he’ll be a better
player this year than he was last year.
“He can maintain his sense of humor when he’s exhausted and working hard. Everything is fun for him. Hard work is fun for him.”
Allen could be among the Chiefs benefiting from the offseason additions of linebackers Kendrell Bell and Derrick Johnson, defensive backs
Patrick Surtain and Sammy Knight, and end Carlos Hall.
The Chiefs plan to use Hall and Allen together in obvious passing situations. Hall’s career started much like Allen’s. A seventh-round draft
pick of Tennessee in 2002, Hall had eight sacks as a rookie but hasn’t been able to maintain that pace.
“He’s going to help everybody and not just me,” Allen said. “He’ll be a good counterpuncher. He’s so fast off the ball. I don’t know what
their plans are as far as using us together, but he’s so fast he can really change things for us. He’s more of a speed rusher, I’m more of a
leverage rusher. It’s going to be fun. Adding sacks always helps.”
To reach Adam Teicher, Chiefs reporter for The Star, call (816) 234-4875 or send e-mail to [email protected].
© 2005 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
Chiefs counting on Knight, Surtain to revive secondary
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Thu, Aug. 04, 2005
DOUG TUCKER
Associated Press
RIVER FALLS, Wis. - The young linebacker, with hopes of becoming a team leader, watched intently as safety Sammy Knight quickly
closed on the tight end and knocked a pass away with exquisite timing.
"I'd like to be like Sammy Knight," said an admiring Kawika Mitchell.
A nine-year veteran who signed as an unrestricted free agent this year, Knight is drawing rave reviews from his new Kansas City
teammates for both his physical abilities and skills as a leader - qualities that have been sorely lacking among the Chiefs defense for
several years.
"I'd definitely say Sammy Knight," defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham said when asked to identify his leaders.
For many players and coaches, however, Patrick Surtain has been even more impressive during the first week in the Chiefs camp.
One of the NFL's elite cornerbacks the past few years, Surtain answered Kansas City's frantic call for a "cover corner" in the spring, when
he was traded from Miami, where he had played for two years with Knight and helped form one of the league's top defenses.
"Patrick Surtain is truth," said Dante Hall, ace kick returner and veteran wide receiver. "This defense is a lot smarter, especially with
Patrick. It's really exciting."
Everyone connected with the Chiefs seems excited about the way the new - and hopefully improved - defense is taking shape. There could
be more than five new starters and a completely new look for an outfit that's rested near the bottom of the NFL for several years and
scuttled all the benefits of a topflight offense.
Key to the new defense could be the Knight/Surtain secondary combo. There is no doubt their help was desperately needed.
During the past three years, the highest the Chiefs have ranked in overall defense among the 32 teams in the NFL is 29th. While the
offense led the league in total yards last season, the defense was next-to-last.
But their pass defense was even worse - dead last.
Knight and Surtain hope to change that.
"I've just always been the type of guy that goes after it," said Knight. "I don't know if I'm a leader who's going to talk it all up. I try to lead
by example. If leading is helping people out when they need help, that's fine. I need help, too. We're all leaders out there. Everybody's
helping each other."
Ever since two-a-days began last week, Surtain has looked every bit like the interception specialist he was known to be in Miami.
The two-time Pro Bowler has the league's third-highest interception total since 2000. In the past five seasons, he has made 25 picks.
"He's real. He's awfully good," head coach Dick Vermeil said. "He gets about a takeaway a day. He's been very impressive with a
tremendous work ethic. I look up at special teams as we're working on kickoff returns and there's Patrick Surtain covering the kickoffs.
"We brought him here because he's a fine player and a fine young man. He's got some leadership skills that will permeate how this
defense plays."
The only position group on the defense that does not have a high-profile newcomer is the line. But the improvement in the secondary is
Page 2 of 2
giving the big boys a boost, too.
"Those guys are playing great coverage behind us, which helps, which is a big change from the last couple of years," said defensive end
Eric Hicks. "Those guys seem to be picking it up well."
While the Chiefs have an offense that ranks among the most powerful in the NFL, the wish among most Kansas City fans since 2002 has
been for a defense that's at least average.
It's a hope that brings a scowl to the anchors of the new secondary.
"When I hear that it makes me sick to my stomach. It really does," said Knight. "These guys are out here busting their tails every day. We
expect to be the top defense in the league. That's what we shoot for. Just like the offense expects to be the top offense, we expect to be
the top defense.
"Anything else is uncivilized."
SI.com - Writers - Jeffri Chadiha: Cunningham goes back to Chiefs' defensive roots - Tuesday August 9,... Page 1 of 2
Powered by
Old school D
Cunningham goes back to Chiefs' defensive roots
Posted: Tuesday August 9, 2005 1:44PM; Updated: Tuesday August 9, 2005 1:44PM
There's a fierce intensity in the Kansas City Chiefs training camp that
hasn't been seen in years. Defenders fly to the ball faster than ever.
They smack ball carriers with more force than usual. They jump in the
face of offensive players, just to let their teammates know they aren't
playing second fiddle any longer. They do whatever it takes to catch
the eye of defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham because they
know jobs are on the line and he wants only the hungriest of
competitors.
There can't be a happier man in Chiefs camp than Cunningham. When
he stands at one edge of the practice field, his eyes hidden by yellowtinted glasses and his Chiefs baseball cap pulled low on his forehead,
he views a unit that finally has enough talent to play his style of
defense. They have speed, quickness and instincts. Now all they need
is that final touch that Cunningham knows how to provide -- the surly
attitude that was the trademark of the Chiefs defenses he designed
during the mid- to late 1990s.
Yes, it's early, but the Chiefs are looking like they could have a defense The Chiefs' defense finished 31st overall
under coordinator Gunther Cunningham last
worth boasting about again. They have several key new faces -- most
season.
notably cornerback Patrick Surtain, strong safety Sammy Knight
Jeff Gross/Getty Images
and linebackers Kendrell Bell and Derrick Johnson, the team's firstround pick in this year's draft -- but they also have an inspired
Cunningham. Last season, in his first year back with the Chiefs, Kansas City fielded the second-worst defense in the
league. This year, Cunningham says, "I feel real really good. I can call any scheme in practice and have confidence that
they'll execute it. If you have a gun with six bullets, you shoot all of them. Last year, I had a gun with no bullets so now I
feel totally different. It's exciting."
There's no question that a Cunningham defense armed with proven playmakers is a dangerous group for any offense to
face. He possesses one of the game's sharpest defensive minds and his units were the heart of Kansas City's success for
half a decade (Cunningham served as the Chiefs defensive coordinator from 1995-98 and as its head coach from 19992000). Those defenses excelled at everything Cunningham loves. They pounded quarterbacks. They took the ball away.
They consistently beat teams down. During those five years Cunningham was involved with the team, the Chiefs averaged
33.5 turnovers a game.
But when Dick Vermeil took over the Chiefs in 2001, the emphasis went to offense. The Chiefs built an explosive team
that could hang in any shoot-out imaginable. But let's be real -- this is a town that loves its defense first and now the
Chiefs have a chance to return to their roots. Surtain is an exceptional cover corner. Knight has generated more turnovers
http://si.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=SI.com+-+Writers+-+Jeffri+Chadiha%3A+Cu...
8/10/2005
SI.com - Writers - Jeffri Chadiha: Cunningham goes back to Chiefs' defensive roots - Tuesday August 9,... Page 2 of 2
(35 interceptions and 11 fumble recoveries) than any defender in the league during his eight-year career. Bell and
Johnson bring much-needed speed to the linebacking corps and defensive end Carlos Hall should be a valuable situational
pass rusher.
Cunningham is doing his part to motivate, too. It isn't enough that this influx of new talent has generated plenty of
competition for jobs. Cunningham says he's "turned back the clock" on his coaching techniques and become a more
aggressive, in-your-face teacher this season. The reason: He wants his defenders to be just as feisty on game days. "I've
never seen Gunther this intense," says defensive end Eric Hicks, one of the few Chiefs who played under Cunningham
during his previous tenure in Kansas City. "He'd yell and curse before to show he had a fiery personality but now he's
directing that anger at individuals. He's been calling guys out during team meetings, which is something he never used to
do. It's really making people nervous."
You can't blame Cunningham for ratcheting up the intensity. He's waited a full year for some legitimate personnel and he
wants to make the most of it. He also doesn't subscribe to the popular theory that all the Chiefs need from their defense is
above-average play to reach the Super Bowl. Cunningham wants his unit to excel. Why not shoot for the top when you
finally have the people to get you there?
Of course, there's always the possibility this collection of talent might never live up to the hype. Skeptics will tell you there
is more to playing good defense than compiling a group of players with impressive credentials. It's a fair argument, but it
won't apply in this case. "We're trying to change the culture here," Cunningham says. "They got into a passive defense
that believed that offense would win it all and the defense got soft. We want to be a hard-hitting defense. What I want is
for people to know this defense is tough. If we can come out of this camp with that attitude, I believe we'll be all right."
Find this article at:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/jeffri_chadiha/08/09/chiefs.defense/index.html
Check the box to include the list of links referenced in the article.
http://si.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=SI.com+-+Writers+-+Jeffri+Chadiha%3A+Cu...
8/10/2005
Chiefs move up at linebacker
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Wed, Aug. 10, 2005
DEFENSE ADDS IMPACT PLAYERS
Speed, depth much improved at position
By ADAM TEICHER
RIVER FALLS, Wis. — The notion was nothing new to Dick Vermeil, not after he spent the last two weeks watching the Chiefs’ revamped
group of linebackers.
He still couldn’t help but marvel after practice Tuesday about the differences a year makes.
“We’ve never had three at a time that can move collectively like they can move,” Vermeil said, referring to starting linebackers Derrick
Johnson, Kawika Mitchell and Kendrell Bell. “We really haven’t seen Kendrell Bell. We hope he can move like we thought he could when we
brought him here. We haven’t turned him loose yet. Sooner or later, we’ve got to turn him loose and find out if he can move like the other
guys do. We know he used to be able to do it.”
The Chiefs have been cautious with Bell at training camp because of nagging injuries, but they are showing no serious concern that he
won’t be ready for the regular season.
Perhaps that’s because an injury at linebacker is no longer a cause for panic. An invasion of young players the last two seasons is bearing
fruit. This year, the Chiefs added rookies Johnson, Boomer Grigsby and Kris Griffin. Last year, it was Keyaron Fox and Rich Scanlon.
Johnson will start, and the other four are strong candidates to make the team.
As a result, the Chiefs might carry eight linebackers — and former starter Scott Fujita could find it difficult to claim a roster spot. Gary
Stills, a valuable special-teams player but a liability at linebacker, may also get squeezed out.
The crunch will get even tighter when Shawn Barber, another former starter, returns from a knee injury later in the season.
Defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham wanted better athletes at linebacker, and now he has them.
“We’ve got five linebackers now we can play in our nickel defense,” Cunningham said, referring to Bell, Johnson, Mitchell, Griffin and Fox.
“When I was with Tennessee, we had one or two, and we had some pretty good defenses. Hopefully, we’ll be able to cover tight ends and
backs.”
Even though Johnson arrived at camp almost a week late because of contract negotiations, he has been the Chiefs’ best defensive player.
Rare is the practice when he fails to make at least one standout play.
Johnson was responsible for covering wide receiver Jeris McIntyre on a play in Tuesday morning’s practice. The 240-pound Johnson stayed
with the 200-pound McIntyre stride for stride for 30 yards and intercepted the pass with an over-the-shoulder grab as he headed down the
field.
The Chiefs have tried to downplay Johnson’s contributions, but Vermeil at times can’t control himself.
“When you can move like he can move, there’s no limitation to what he can do,” Vermeil said. “That’s why he was a No. 1 pick. I don’t
know how long it will take him, but he’s going to be one of the premier football players in the league defensively.
“We haven’t played a game yet. But just watch what he does on the practice field and watch his ability to diagnose, quickly react, and
flash into plays and bend his knees and strike. The only thing he doesn’t have is experience.”
While Johnson was a first-round draft pick, Griffin joined the Chiefs by far different means. He was undrafted from tiny Indiana (Pa.)
University.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/12348130.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
8/10/2005
Page 2 of 2
But almost from the day he joined the Chiefs, Griffin invited comparisons to Johnson. He’s about 10 pounds lighter than Johnson and
moves almost as well. Practice observers have more than once confused the two because they are both outside linebackers and their
jersey numbers are similar — Johnson wears 56, and Griffin is 66.
“I hear that every now and then,” Griffin said of comparisons to Johnson. “We’ve got the same body type. We’re not the same player. He’s
a great player. But I think I’ve shown I can play.”
Grigsby, who has been backing up Mitchell in the middle, also comes from a small-college background at Illinois State. That’s why the
Chiefs are eager to see both players on a much bigger stage in Friday night’s preseason opener at Minnesota.
“It’s going to be a different experience to line up against somebody with the thought in your head of trying to crush him,” Grigsby said.
“Trying to play really hard without leaving your feet or hurting anybody like we do at practice makes you more reserved.
“This is the best of the best. I’m looking forward to playing some linebacker against those guys and busting some heads on special teams.”
Of the rookie linebackers, only Johnson figures to play a lot on defense. Griffin and Grigsby will be special-teams regulars but could claim
starting jobs down the line.
“I don’t think any of our linebackers necessarily need to be resting on their laurels, because we’ve got more depth at that position than
I’ve ever witnessed on a football team,” Chiefs vice president of football operations Lynn Stiles said. “We’ve got Griffin. We’ve got Grigsby.
We’ve got Scanlon. And don’t forget we’re going to get Shawn Barber back at some time. He’s a pretty good football player, too.”
Go to KansasCity.com for a photo
gallery from the Chiefs’ training camp.
To reach Adam Teicher, Chiefs reporter for The Star, call (816) 234-4875 or send e-mail to [email protected]
8/10/2005
All eyes on DJ 08/10/05
Page 1 of 2
CJOnline.com / Topeka Capital-Journal
Published Wednesday, August 10, 2005
All eyes on DJ
Vermeil: LB will be premier player
By Rick Dean
The Capital-Journal
RIVER FALLS, Wis. -- The interception was a beauty.
It was a downfield throw, 25 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, and rookie quarterback James Kilian put the ball on
the money. The receiver, the slot guy in the three-wide set, was open for a second, maybe two. But the Chiefs defender
broke quickly as the wideout made his cut to the sideline, caught up to the ball and got the pick.
It was the kind of play the Chiefs hope to see their defensive backs make a lot this season.
Only this didn't involve a defensive back.
It was linebacker Derrick Johnson, Kansas City's first-round draft choice and the talk of camp.
On Tuesday morning, Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil did most of the talking about the player who could be the most
exciting linebacker drafted by Kansas City since the late Derrick Thomas became the cornerstone of the Chiefs
renaissance in 1989.
"When you can move like he can move there are no limitations to what he can do," Vermeil said of Johnson. "He can
catch up to the football as it travels. I don't know if he can run faster than the football's flying, but he can get there.
"I don't know how long it's going to take him but he's going to be one of the
premier defensive players in this league," Vermeil added. "I think he'll be a
candidate this year for the rookie defensive player of the year."
Such high expectations, though possibly daunting to some rookies, are nothing
less than what Johnson expects of himself.
"I put a lot of positive pressure on myself to run with anyone on the field," said
the speedy 242-pound Texas product who won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as the
outstanding defender in college football last year.
"I'm glad I've got coaches who believe I can get the job done," Johnson added
when told of Vermeil's rookie of the year prediction. "I never want to count my
chickens before they're hatched. But if I'm a player who produces in my first year,
yeah, I'd like to be rookie of the year.
"I got a lot of accolades last year. Hopefully I can keep it going in the NFL."
After missing the first four days of the Chiefs camp while his first pro contract
http://cjonline.com/stories/081005/chi_dj.shtml
The Associated Press
Derrick Johnson continues to impress at
Kansas City's training camp, as the 15th
8/10/2005
All eyes on DJ 08/10/05
was being settled, Johnson has moved quickly into the No. 1 left linebacker position -which usually plays over the opposing tight end -- and brought to the linebacking
corps the kind of speed not seen in Kansas City since Donnie Edwards last played in
Arrowhead in 2001.
Page 2 of 2
overall pick in the 2005 draft made a
spectacular interception during
Tuesday's workout.
Click here to check for reprint
availability.
Faulted by NFL scouts last year for its lack of linebacking speed, the Chiefs have addressed that concern appreciably
with the drafting of Johnson and the free agent acquisition of right backer Kendrell Bell.
"We've never had three at a time that can move collectively like they can move," Vermeil said of the linebacking corps
that includes Kawika Mitchell in the middle.
"Now, we really haven't seen Kendrell Bell," he added. "We hope he can move like we thought when we brought him
here, but we haven't turned him loose yet (in full-speed contact and blitzing situations). We're not confidence, and he's
not confident yet, that he can really go."
With the two new players bracketing Mitchell, the Chiefs hope their returning middle backer won't feel the need to
make plays all over the field -- an over-eagerness that sometimes caused him to be vulnerable to cutbacks runs last
year.
The addition of Johnson also gives Kansas City hope for better coverage of running backs, tight ends and inside
receivers -- something incumbent left linebacker Scott Fujita struggled to do a year ago.
"It's always a positive if a linebacker can drop back and cover a slot receiver," Johnson said of his Tuesday
interception. "I just ran down the seam with him and stayed with him.
"I think coaches have seen what they can expect from me," he added. "I think they know I can get the job done."
DJ AS A LONGHORN
Year Tackles For Loss Sacks Int.
2001 83 13 4.5 0
2002 120 13 2 4
2003 125 20 2 4
2004 130 19 2 1
Totals 458 65 10.5 9
© Copyright 2005 CJOnline / The Topeka Capital-Journal / Morris Communications
Contact Us • Privacy Policy • Advertise on CJOnline
http://cjonline.com/stories/081005/chi_dj.shtml
8/10/2005
Chiefs assemble NFL's best offense mostly from spare parts
Page 1 of 3
Posted on Tue, Aug. 23, 2005
By ADAM TEICHER
The list of Chiefs offensive players to receive individual awards in Dick Vermeil’s four seasons is so long it could almost fill the Kansas City
phone book.
Tony Gonzalez, Priest Holmes, Will Shields, Willie Roaf, Dante Hall, Tony Richardson, Casey Wiegmann and Brian Waters have been
honored with some sort of All-Pro status.
There is no shortage of team offensive achievements. The Chiefs were in the top five in yardage all four seasons and led the league last
year. The Chiefs led the NFL in scoring in 2002 and 2003 and were second last season.
So, as the world knows, the Chiefs have an impressive collection of offensive talent. It’s easy to say that now. But it didn’t look that way
when many of these players joined the Chiefs.
Only Gonzalez and Roaf arrived as desirable players any team would have taken. Otherwise, the Chiefs have a collection of offensive
players overlooked or passed up by other teams.
Holmes and Wiegmann were free agents but didn’t have many teams in the bidding. Shields, Hall, Samie Parker and Kevin Sampson were
mid- or low-round draft picks.
Richardson, Waters and Eddie Kennison were “street free agents,” an NFL term for guys who had been dumped by another team and were
available to all. Trent Green was a backup quarterback for St. Louis.
Compare that with other high-scoring teams from Indianapolis, Minnesota or St. Louis that were all built with high draft picks at key
positions.
That makes the Chiefs’ offensive achievements all the more remarkable in comparison.
“Your players are your scheme, and you have to make sure you do what they can do best,” Chiefs offensive coordinator Al Saunders said.
“Every player has some outstanding quality. What we’ve tried to do is find out what that outstanding quality is and then manufacture our
system so these players can do those things.”
Saunders is the one who draws it all up and makes sure everything fits. He joined the Chiefs after two seasons with the high-flying Rams
and set about building an offense capable of the same thing.
He found his new players had different strengths from those he left behind. The Chiefs had a premier pass-catching tight end in Gonzalez;
the Rams didn’t. The Rams had big-time wide receivers in Torry Holt and Isaac Bruce; the Chiefs didn’t.
So Saunders tinkered with his plans and featured Gonzalez and halfback Holmes in the passing game instead.
“We have a tremendous number of things we’d like to do offensively,” Saunders said, “but we don’t do them because we don’t have guys
who can do them.”
If there’s a secret to the Chiefs’ offensive success, that’s it. Fit the plays to the players rather than the other way around.
The Chiefs worked around the fact that they’ve had a marginal group of wide receivers. Of the guys to play the position for the Chiefs the
last four years, only Johnnie Morton and Derrick Alexander arrived as sought-after players. Even then, Alexander was nearing the end of
his career when Vermeil and Saunders joined the Chiefs, and Morton was close to the end when he came to Kansas City.
But the Chiefs turned Kennison, who had been cut by Denver, into a valuable player. He had his first 1,000-yard season last year. Marc
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/football/nfl/kansas_city_chiefs/12450871.htm?template... 8/23/2005
Page 2 of 3
Boerigter arrived from the Canadian Football League in 2002 and caught eight touchdown passes.
“You wouldn’t consider us to have a great receiving group,” said Lynn Stiles, the Chiefs’ vice president for football operations. “But they’ve
been well utilized within the framework of our system.”
The Chiefs’ best personnel work has been done at other offensive positions. Take Holmes, for example.
Nobody predicted he would become one of the NFL’s best backs when he was a free agent in early 2001 — the Chiefs included. He was a
backup on Baltimore’s Super Bowl-winning team, and because he was smallish and had an injury history, he didn’t have many teams
lusting after his services.
The Chiefs saw a nifty runner who might be useful in a running game that stretched the field as opposed to the between-the-tackles
offense used by the Ravens.
“He was a great fit,” Stiles said, “for what we were trying to do.”
The Chiefs now look brilliant for signing Holmes. The same could be said for Wiegmann, their center.
Wiegmann, listed by the Chiefs at 285 pounds but probably lighter, is too small for his position to suit many teams. The Chiefs found a
way to make him a useful player.
“If we asked Casey a lot to have a one-on-one situation with a big, huge nose guard, that’s probably not in our best interest,” Saunders
said. “But what Casey does better than any center in the National Football League is get out on the perimeter and find the players he’s
responsible for. He can play in space so well.
“If we still had (former center) Tim Grunhard, we’d be running different kinds of plays. We’d be just as successful because we’d be using
his strengths.”
Left tackle Roaf and guards Shields and Waters were Pro Bowlers last season. Many observers consider Wiegmann to be as crucial a part of
the offensive line as them.
“Casey is probably the most underappreciated guy on our offense,” Green said. “From a mental standpoint, he’s making all the calls and
getting everyone communicated. From a physical standpoint, there aren’t many centers in the league that can snap and be able to pull
around the end and lead on a screen or lead on a sweep or a reverse. What he relies on so much is his mind and his quickness.
“He’s not underappreciated by the guys on this team, but I think he goes unnoticed around the league.”
On the current line, only Shields was a starter when Vermeil and Saunders arrived. The Chiefs signed Wiegmann and promoted Waters
that first year, then traded for Roaf their second year.
This year’s addition is Sampson, a seventh-round pick last year who played well in training camp before injuring a toe.
All of these line decisions worked as planned.
“They’ve been able to find players who fit,” ESPN analyst Mark Schlereth said. “Brian Waters is a great athlete. He may be one of the best
athletes in the NFL pound for pound. Casey Wiegmann, same thing. The guy can move his feet, get out for screens, runs under control.
Will Shields and Willie Roaf are supremely gifted athletes.
“That just goes to show you how important the play of their offensive line is. If you’ve got a dominating offensive line, you can win a lot of
football games. It’s not a coincidence that offensively, they lead the league every year.”
Vermeil said: “We have a lot of guys that are such good players on our offensive line that it doesn’t matter what you ask them to do
because they can do it well. Will Shields is unlimited. It doesn’t matter what you ask him to do. He will do it and do it well. That’s just like
Brian Waters, just like Willie Roaf. Those guys can do anything.”
Just like all of those first-round picks in Minnesota, Indianapolis and St. Louis.
“I don’t know if what we’ve done with our offense is more significant than what those other teams have done,” Vermeil said. “But I think
it’s more rewarding to all the people involved this way.”
Page 3 of 3
A talent roundup
How the Chiefs acquired their top offensive players:
Pos Player
How acquired
QB Trent Green
trade
HB Priest Holmes
unrestricted free agent
FB
Tony Richardson “street” free agent
WR Eddie Kennison
“street” free agent
WR Samie Parker
fourth-round draft pick
WR Dante Hall
fifth-round draft pick
WR Marc Boerigter
Canadian Football League
WR Chris Horn
Arena Football League
TE
Tony Gonzalez
first-round draft pick
OL
Willie Roaf
trade
OL
Brian Waters
“street” free agent
OL
Casey Wiegmann unrestricted free agent
OL
Will Shields
third-round draft pick
OL
Kevin Sampson
seventh-round draft pick
First vs. worst: Chiefs say chemistry's good for NFL's top offense, 31st defense
Page 1 of 3
Posted on Sun, Aug. 28, 2005
FOOTBALL 2005
First vs. worst: Chiefs say chemistry's good for NFL's top offense, 31st
defense
By ELIZABETH MERRILL
The tension of two-a-days can boil over at training camp as
the offense and defense scuffle play after play. Toward the
end of camp, defensive lineman Eric Hicks (left) and offensive
guard John Welbourn exchanged pleasantries after a play had
ended.
T
hey are Johnnie Walker Blue and Old Grand-Dad, pretty boys and grunts, and Lional Dalton stands on the defensive side of the locker
room, trying to name the offensive guys who hang with them.
He temporarily draws a blank. Brian Waters. Johnathan Ingram. He realizes he’s only rattling off offensive linemen.
“It’s a different mentality,” Dalton says. “Offensive linemen cross over, but that’s about it. The guys who do most of the grunt work on
offense tend to cross over.”
Us and them. The NFL’s best offense versus the 31st-ranked defense. If any team had reason to be divided, it was the 2004 Chiefs. They
had the NFL’s No. 1 offense, the 31st-rated defense and a 7-9 record. Dalton says there was no ill will, that the offense never blamed the
defense for keeping them out of the playoffs.
But come on. Don’t these Pro Bowlers with their highfalutin numbers just want to scream, “Stop somebody!”?
“We don’t need to be on edge with them as far as not getting the job done,” says Chiefs receiver Dante Hall. “They know they’re not
getting the job done. We’re friends first, so we don’t need to go rubbing it in their faces. They have pride.
“I’ve never felt it was an offense-defense thing. It’s always been a team thing. We win together, we lose together.”
They meet separately, they practice against each other, they scuffle in the heat of two-a-days, when one side has been staring down the
other for three long weeks. But rarely does the tension between the offense and defense boil over to the public spectrum.
The closest it probably came in Chiefs modern times was 1996, when linebacker Derrick Thomas launched into a tirade aimed at offensive
coordinator Paul Hackett.
Thomas blasted Hackett’s play calling in a 17-7 loss to Pittsburgh. It was behind closed doors but in full view of many teammates. It was
in the middle of a dominating run in the 1990s for the defense.
Page 2 of 3
Thomas later apologized to his teammates and coaches, and the Chiefs insisted there wasn’t a rift between the offense and defense. They
lost their final three games and failed to make the playoffs. In two of those contests, the offense failed to break 10 points.
“You always had a little more pressure to perform because the defense was good,” says Tim Grunhard, a center on that ’96 team. “But
they were always behind us and always had our backs.
“But I was on a winning team. When you’re winning games, it’s a cure for all evils. I can’t speak for these guys, but I think Dick Vermeil
does a hell of a job keeping these guys focused and together.”
It’s a Dick Vermeil thing. The coach who made it chic to cry is big on chemistry and plans social events to promote it. This spring, the team
went to see “The Longest Yard” together. They went bowling, too. Vermeil even has players over for dinner and lets them sample his wine.
But even Alan Thicke would’ve had a hard time keeping all the children happy last year. With Chiefs fans planning for the Super Bowl in
the preseason, Kansas City started 0-3. After that third loss, at home against Houston, the locker room was eerily quiet.
“Obviously you feel bad when the offense is scoring 41 points and we give up 42,” says defensive end Eric Hicks. “It’s kind of hard to look
at those guys sometimes.”
The blame game went on throughout the whole team. The defense blamed themselves for giving up 34 points to Tampa Bay and San
Diego. Some of the more astute number crunchers on offense noticed a different trend — the Chiefs had 17 interceptions and 10 lost
fumbles in 2004, nine more turnovers than in 2003.
“People can say whatever they want to say about the defense,” says Chiefs guard Brian Waters. “What the defense did (last year), to be
honest with you, was no different than what they’d been doing for three years. That’s reality. What we did on offense was not
characteristic of our team. We had way more turnovers. That’s on us.
“We weren’t good enough. When you think of the best offense, I look at the Indianapolis Colts. Their defense was just as bad as ours
statistically, but yet they won games because the offense scored continuously throughout the game. And they didn’t have near as many
turnovers as we did.”
Vermeil has helped breed a win-together, lose-together attitude, but even the best-intentioned coaches can make one side feel as if it’s
not holding up its side of the bargain. Dalton says most of the defensive players could handle it when the media blitzed them. It was
tougher sometimes to hear the coaches rave about the offense, which broke an NFL record last season with 398 first downs, then compare
them with the defense.
“It’s like two children,” Dalton says. “If one kid’s bad all the time and one kid’s good, you’re always trying to compare. It’s hard. Even
though you love both of them, the bad kid feels like he’s just a bad seed. It does two things. Some people get down. I take it personally.
I’m out to prove them wrong, that we’re not second-class citizens.”
It’s a gentleman’s agreement, an unspoken code: Never blame a teammate. At least not publicly. When Rich Gannon was Oakland’s
quarterback and the Raiders offense was clicking and the defense was clunking, he heard the bickering.
It happens everywhere, Gannon says, even in his time in Kansas City. Football is a game of emotion, not manners.
“There is tension,” Gannon says. “There’s frustration. I’ve seen it pour over to where players are yelling at each other when they’re coming
on and off the field. The coordinator’s mad at the other guy. … Hopefully you avoid that and you stick together.
“It’s a fine line. You’ve got to worry about your own guys. You don’t want to step on anybody else’s toes. They’re doing the best they can,
and they’ve got leaders on their side of the ball. You’ve got to work together.”
ESPN analyst Sean Salisbury compares the ebb and flow of offense and defense to a child-parent relationship.
Parents take care of children, but at some point, the children take care of the parents.
Baltimore won a Super Bowl after the 2000 season with a lukewarm offense and the NFL’s most feared defense. Did the defense take its
locker-room shots at the offense? Probably. Did it affect the final outcome?
“Good teams can find a way,” Salisbury says. “You can bicker but still find a way to get it done.”
The gentleman’s agreement doesn’t seem to apply to kickers. Colts kicker Mike Vanderjagt questioned quarterback Peyton Manning’s
emotion. Manning fired back by calling him an idiot kicker.
Page 3 of 3
The name “Jon Baker” is still cursed in the bowels of Arrowhead. Baker’s three out-of-bounds kickoffs helped keep the Chiefs out of the
1999 playoffs.
It’s a respect thing. Hicks was considered the leader of the 2004 defense, and nearly every week, he found himself apologizing to the
offense for what the defense didn’t do. Their response, he says, was nearly always the same.
Forget about it. We’re a team.
The Chiefs made moves to stop the apologies in the offseason. They acquired linebacker Kendrell Bell, cornerback Patrick Surtain, safety
Sammy Knight and defensive end Carlos Hall through trades and free-agency. They drafted Butkus Award winner Derrick Johnson, who will
start as a rookie.
The newcomers have four Pro Bowl trips among them. Just one of the Chiefs’ starting 11 from last year — safety Jerome Woods — has
been to the Pro Bowl.
“I kind of think it’s exciting,” Hicks says, “because for the first time since I’ve been here, our defense has the opportunity to catch up with
the offense. It would be a pretty bold statement to say that we’ll be as good as them. We won’t. It would be pretty hard to jump from No.
31 to No. 1.
“If we can live up to the offensive aura this year and give something back, we won’t feel like second-class citizens.”
Or forgotten grunts. It hasn’t happened in the offseason. When training camp started, the biggest news wasn’t about Green’s arm or
Holmes’ knee. It was about Derrick Johnson, who’d wowed the coaches during the summer, getting to camp on time.
And defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham, who nearly popped a blood vessel during every practice. Even the Chiefs’ coordinators
seem to be polar opposites. While Cunningham was in the defense’s face, spraying their helmets with spit, offensive coordinator Al
Saunders was quietly plotting, slapping backs and delivering high fives.
Maybe they know how far they need to go. Maybe they’re just different.
Dalton jokingly refers to the offense as the pretty boys.
“Don’t tell them I said that,” he says.
No need to cause tension.
Cunningham attempting to change culture of losing
Page 1 of 4
FOOTBALL 2005
By ADAM TEICHER
Linebacker Kawika Mitchell (left) and the rest of the Chiefs’
defense watched the other team celebrate scoring
touchdowns too often last season.
“If you play defense, you always have to think you were better than the offensive players, because they always knew the play and the
count. Your mind-set must be you’re always better. Anytime you let yourself shift from that, you create a problem.”
— Willie Lanier (right), Chiefs linebacker, 1967-77, and Pro Football Hall of Famer
Scrawled in big black letters on a grease board in the Chiefs’ defensive staff room is a two-word mantra that coordinator Gunther
Cunningham has lived by the past eight months.
CULTURE CHANGE.
It defined every move the Chiefs and Cunningham made to repair a woeful defense, from the acquisition of several new defenders to
Cunningham’s planned game-day move from the press box to the sideline.
The Chiefs, as the entire football world knew, were a defensive mess. Cunningham returned to the franchise last year and was hailed as a
conquering hero who would make all the defensive problems disappear.
Of course, they didn’t. His first season back was a failure. The Chiefs’ defense ranked 31st in the NFL, and Cunningham realized that
nothing would work — not even new players — unless the team received an attitude adjustment along with them.
“We talk about it every night,” Cunningham said. “Not a meeting goes by when we don’t talk about changing this team’s defensive culture.
“It’s the toughest thing I’ve ever tried to accomplish because of everything that was in place when I got back here. Turning everybody’s
mind back to the middle ’90s, that’s tough to do.”
Page 2 of 4
Cunningham talks about it with his fellow coaches. He talks about it with players. He may even discuss it with his next-door neighbors.
“I’ve never seen him like this before,” defensive end Eric Hicks said. “The man is tireless to begin with, but I’ve never seen him with this
type of intensity. This is beyond how he was even when he was head coach. It seems like he’s on a quest like Joan of Arc to get us to No.
1 on defense.”
Last season was harder on Cunningham than he would like to admit. He always pushed a lot of buttons, and though not all of his moves
worked, a large percentage did.
Nothing worked in 2004. He didn’t recognize these defenders in red.
The Chiefs he once coached — now, those guys had swagger. Few teams had a more distinctive defensive culture. They carried the flag for
the great Kansas City defenses of the past, for Bobby Bell and Buck Buchanan, for Willie Lanier and Jim Lynch. Cunningham’s Chiefs got in
your face, hit you hard, had a nasty attitude and were often undisciplined.
But in his three seasons away, they turned into a beaten-down bunch that even he didn’t know whether to coddle or whip.
Much was made of an off-season spending spree that netted the Chiefs new starters on defense. But Cunningham understood that so
much more needed to be done.
“What he’s trying to do,” Chiefs longtime safety Jerome Woods said, “is turn a bunch of nice guys into a bunch of thugs.”
“Gunther Cunningham has the same philosophy our defensive coordinator, Tom Bettis, had. It’s an attack defense, and that’s what we did.
We just lined up and went after people.”
— Jim Kearney, Chiefs defensive back, 1967-75
There’s a common denominator to all dominating defensive teams.
“Everything I’ve ever known about defense is built around attitude,” said Lynn Stiles, Chiefs vice president for football operations.
“Attitude, attitude, attitude.
“It doesn’t matter how you line up or what schemes you run. It all has to do with attitude and setting a standard. … I’ve never been with a
championship team that didn’t have it, and I’ve had the good fortune of coaching in four Super Bowls.”
That the Chiefs lost that quality during Cunningham’s absence is undeniable. But it wasn’t so obvious while it was happening.
When Dick Vermeil replaced Cunningham as head coach in 2001, most of Vermeil’s time and energy were spent on upgrading an offense
that had culture issues of its own.
The Chiefs were usually efficient running the ball but had trouble consistently scoring.
While that quickly changed, the defensive nosedive happened right along with it. The Chiefs lost players with attitude — like cornerback
James Hasty and linebacker Marvcus Patton — and didn’t adequately replace them.
Any residue from Cunningham’s time was quickly lost.
“You can’t help it,” Woods said. “The atmosphere around here kind of makes you a nice guy, a friendly guy. Everything is so familyoriented. It kind of carries over on the field. Gun wants us to be nice on our own time, but he wants us to be a bunch of thugs on the field.
Nice guys finish last.”
And, by extension, nasty players don’t. When Woods joined the Chiefs in 1996, they had nasty players who took ownership of the defense:
Hasty, Dale Carter, Derrick Thomas, Vaughn Booker and Anthony Davis.
“It wasn’t hard to blend in with that,” Woods said, “That attitude was already so established. That was just the way we played.
“When coach Vermeil got in, he wanted to change some of that. He wanted us to be a smart football team that didn’t do this and do that.
That’s the right thing to do, but from a defensive standpoint, we bought into that laid-back atmosphere. To play defense in this league,
you can’t be laid-back.”
Page 3 of 4
“Before they brought in Gunther, it was kind of disgusting to sit out there and watch them play defense. I’d see them get in a defense, and
the offense would show them something different, and they never checked out of that defense and made adjustments.”
— Bobby Bell, Chiefs linebacker, 1963-74, and Pro Football Hall of Famer
A good deal of blame must fall to Vermeil. He often left defensive decisions in his early seasons with the Chiefs to coordinator Greg
Robinson.
The Chiefs also made some bad defensive choices in the draft, and many of their free-agent decisions didn’t work as they had planned.
“Those things don’t just happen overnight,” Stiles said. “You just kind of evolve to it. We’re guilty of allowing it to happen. Somewhere
along the way, the defensive phase of it just wasn’t happening for some reason. It’s not like the coaches didn’t try. The effort was there.”
Being a Chiefs defender was little fun, even in the Chiefs’ 13-3 season in 2003.
In the playoffs, Kansas City couldn’t force Indianapolis to make a single punt, and the Colts scored 38 points. It appeared the Chiefs hadn’t
even watched Peyton Manning tear apart Denver the previous week.
On the Colts’ first drive in Kansas City, Manning pump-faked and hit Brandon Stokley on a skinny post for a 29-yard touchdown pass — the
identical play in which Manning found Stokley for a 31-yard touchdown for Indianapolis’ first score the previous week.
“My litmus test for the Chiefs was if they let Manning score on any of the five touchdown passes he threw the previous week, then they
would lose,” Lanier recalled.
“If we’re playing a chess match, and if I’d just seen your move the previous week, and let’s say a touchdown is a move, than I should be
able to offset that. You might beat me with another move, but you shouldn’t beat me with one I have just seen.”
The Chiefs’ pinball-machine offense put up 31 points that day, usually enough to win a playoff game on your own home field. Not this time
— or on many occasions in the 2004 season.
Sundays were tough for Chiefs defenders. But Mondays might have been worse. That’s when they had to face their offensive teammates.
“Over time, if you hear it enough about how bad you are or how your personnel on defense doesn’t stack up to the personnel on offense,
eventually you start buying into that,” said former NFL lineman Mark Schlereth, now an analyst with ESPN. “Obviously, personnel and
scheme are at the forefront of that, but you also have to make that shift mentally. It can’t be OK anymore to be second-fiddle. … You get
beaten down mentally. It’s hard to overcome.
“The good teams I played with, when we went against our starting defense in practice, we wanted them to know that we were better than
they were. If we played second-fiddle to our defense on a daily basis, how were we supposed to respect ourselves and get the job done
when it mattered on Sunday?”
When the Chiefs went looking for defensive players in the off-season, they wanted ones who not only would fit into Cunningham’s on-field
plans, they also wanted certain types of personalities. Ones with the attitude Cunningham was looking for, the infectious kind.
“We went out and got some players to create some competition,” Stiles said. “That has a lot to do with it. Let’s face it: We needed an
overhaul. It wasn’t just additional players or better players. We brought in the kind of players that will demonstrate leadership. They will
hopefully act as a catalyst and an example to the other players.
“I think our standards and expectations have changed. That’s critical to the process.”
Central to the plan is linebacker Kendrell Bell, who would have fit in perfectly with Cunningham’s old Kansas City defenses. Or maybe even
the old AFL Chiefs.
“That guy plays with a mean streak and a nasty attitude,” Schlereth said. “I’ve seen him hit people and it made me glad I retired before he
got into the league. He’s going to be a part of changing that culture.”
If all else fails, defensive players will get a game-day earful from Cunningham. He plans to call signals from the sideline, the idea being to
better dispense his unique brand of communication when needed.
It’s all in the name of getting things back to the way they were.
Page 4 of 4
“I want people to talk about great plays the defense made to shut down Peyton Manning or a goal-line stand or a big sack and a caused
fumble,” Hicks said. “It’s great to hear, but I don’t want it to be every time that people talk about ‘Priest Holmes went 80 yards for a
touchdown’ or ‘Trent Green threw a bomb to Eddie Kennison.’
“We want to be the saviors sometimes.”
They are not alone. The 2005 Chiefs have a special group pulling for them. Kansas City’s defensive legends have a reputation to uphold,
but they are not unsympathetic.
“I can’t imagine how frustrating it has been for them over the last few years,” Lanier said. “It’s not like the team has the very worst
players who ever played the game.”
The Star’s Randy Covitz contributed to this story.
Gonzalez built his KC persona with looks, money, charm
Page 1 of 2
FOOTBALL 2005
By WRIGHT THOMPSON
RIVER FALLS, Wis. — The face, that’s what makes him different from the bruisers, from some Mark Bavaro type with blood-stained tape on
his knuckles. Tight ends don’t become the most visible person on a team, unless. … Hey, there’s no way around it, fellas: Tony Gonzalez is
a good-looking man. His mug is angular, handsome, and — yes, we know the mail that’s gonna come in over this one, not to mention the
interoffice hazing — sorta delicate.
His face has made him the most famous man in Kansas City since George Brett, and turned his credit-card-on-the-bar nights at Mi Cocina
into the stuff of 20-something KC legend. Everyone’s seen Tony G out and, more often than not, been greeted with a smile (attractive
ladies, a bit more).
That’s not an accident. He’s been working on making other people feel at ease around him, just another way to increase the worth of his
most valuable asset — his persona.
“This is my new motto,” he says. “In the offseason, I learned to treat people like they’re old friends of mine. Pretend like I’ve known this
person forever. Whether it’s kids, or dealing with fans. I guess when I take that approach, it’s helped me out a lot. I don’t feel
uncomfortable in those situations.”
Then Tony looks at you and smiles, his tone conversational. You realize he’s pulling a trick on you, and doing it so well that you don’t
really care, convinced that this is different and he actually likes doing this interview. It’s not a gift; it’s a learned skill. He’s constantly
improving himself, devouring books of daily affirmations, of motivations. He’s analytical, always watching, always cataloging. Actually, it’s
kinda freaky.
“That’s part of my deal,” he says. “I watch everybody around me. I’m really big on the hidden determinants of human behavior. I wanna
see why people act the way they do and what motivates people and how can I apply that to my life.”
During the offseason, his busiest of all, that studying paid off. He felt at ease, becoming adept at living the high-flying lifestyle his face and
sure hands provide.
This journey — transforming himself from talented athlete into mogul — began in 1999. He’d made his first Pro Bowl, and the offers
poured in. He couldn’t keep up, with any of it. He felt like he’d gone on vacation and left something at home. Felt like that 24-7.
“I was having trouble balancing stuff back then,” he says — then he laughs out loud, thinking of his current schedule, booked through the
end of the season; he can literally find out what he’s doing at 2:26 p.m. on, say, Nov. 24.
He formulated a plan. He hired a personal assistant to handle all his scheduling. He’d turn his incredible talent and his shiny personality
and, yes, his Hollywood good looks into a second career. He’d turn his face into a commodity, then he’d sell, sell, sell.
Like everything he’s ever done, this didn’t happen by happenstance. Gonzalez isn’t a man of idle threats. When he wants to learn Spanish,
he moves to Mexico for a bit. Dealing with his off-the-field opportunities is the same. Today, his coaches and teammates marvel at his
juggling.
“What I see with Tony is a guy that’s not distracted by anything,” Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil says as camp begins.
He’s got help. Team Tony is a large group now. There’s his sports agent. His marketing guys. His assistant. His assistant’s assistant. His
Hollywood agent. People who handle the travel company he’s set up.
This past winter and spring, he went around to meet with corporate boards, working on business deals for a life after the games end. He
felt like a rookie again. He liked that. It’s why he enjoyed going to Portugal a while back; it was the first place he’d been in ages where
people didn’t recognize him.
Page 2 of 2
“My career is winding down, so I’ve been creating opportunities for myself,” he says. “So I’ve got to take meetings. I’m starting out again
as a beginner. I’m going in there doing PowerPoint sessions in a meeting while we’ve got a projector up there: ‘This is what we think we
can do for your company.’ To a CEO of a company that does $200 million in sales a year.”
Just a few years ago, he wouldn’t have dreamed of talking to corporate executives. He was living a rap video.
“When I was young?” he says, laughing. “I was going out every night. I was 21, young, single, a millionaire. People knew me. I was out
there having a good time, drinking. I’ve been in situations where maybe, potentially, something wrong can happen and other situations it’s
gone wrong with other guys. I’ve been lucky, I think.”
Even then, he was watching how other people carried themselves. At a team luncheon early in his career, he saw friend and thenteammate Donnie Edwards give a speech. The thing was awful. Just a total disaster.
“You know what he told me before he went up there?” Gonzalez says. “He said, ‘I’m just gonna go up there and wing it.’ I said: ‘Cool.
Good luck. See what happens.’ ”
Part of Gonzalez still thought he could sneak by on charisma. Four years into the league, a speech to a company in Kansas City about
leadership brought down his façade. He figured he’d smile and wink his way to a quick payday.
“I bombed,” he says. “I was horrible. I wasn’t prepared. I’m glad that happened because it was embarrassing, and it taught me that
there’s no such thing as winging it. You can’t wing anything. Everything takes preparation, especially talking to people. Whatever it is in
life, you’d better be prepared.”
So he began taking notes. He now has files going, with speeches in constant evolution for different groups. One on teamwork. One on
motivation. Another especially for kids. He picked other stars’ brains, like Peyton Manning’s. He worked at it, and, about six months ago,
Gonzalez finally felt he’d come full circle.
“So this year, at the Super Bowl,” he says, “I went and talked to a company, and I was up there for 30 minutes. Dazzling them. Telling
’em jokes. Giving ’em good points. And I think they liked it. I felt good about that. I went in there prepared. I wrote everything down.”
He’s smiling, doing his old-friend bit. He has one point he wants to see in print, so he works the conversation back to it. Being a public face
of a franchise makes him rich, but it doesn’t come without strings. He takes the responsibility seriously.
“I think that’s really, really what’s important,” he says. “Guys can’t forget about that, and we have to realize, we are kids’ heroes, no
matter if we want to be or not. There’s nothing wrong with heroes. We had heroes growing up.”
Sometimes, when it gets crazy, when he’s flying from coast to coast, drinking with models and starring in television shows, he struggles to
remember the little kid who played the game for fun, the little kid who had heroes. That’s why he likes where he is now, sitting at a
lunchroom in River Falls, Wis., gearing up for the season, munching on some fruit and other cafeteria fare. It’s a long way from Hollywood
nights at Mood with the other A-listers.
“Sometimes you have to refocus yourself,” he says between bites. “That’s one of the things I particularly enjoy about camp. Most of the
guys, they get TVs. I don’t get a TV. All I bring is a radio, some candles and a book. I bring a journal because I like to write, and I bring a
bunch of books.”
He’s ready for this season to start. A year ago, he had almost 1,300 receiving yards, and he hopes he can do even better in 2005. Besides,
at least he’s done jacking with his reality television show, “Super Agent.” It didn’t do so well, and Gonzalez isn’t used to failing. But at
least he can make a joke out if it. “Put it this way,” he says. “My family doesn’t even watch it.”
Suddenly he’s off. Got another commercial to film. The crew is set up near the cafeteria. A woman is holding the script. Tony Gonzalez
walks into the room, takes a peek at his lines and flashes his engaging smile. He looks at them like they’re old friends, and they melt.
USATODAY.com - Chiefs' Holmes visualizes another TD-heavy season
Page 1 of 3
Powered by
Chiefs' Holmes visualizes another TD-heavy season
By Jim Corbett, USA TODAY Sports Weekly
Priest Holmes sharpened his vision for running to daylight inside a darkened University of Texas
classroom, listening to a woman's voice guide him through an imaginary forest. Back then, Holmes ran in
Ricky Williams' shadow and needed an edge. So he took then-Texas coach John Mackovic up on his
visualization recommendation. It was one of the best moves Kansas City's three-time Pro Bowl back ever
made.
Priest Holmes doesn't see himself playing beyond ten years. But he says, "This is my ninth year, and I feel real
good."
B Ann Heisenfelt, AP
The NFL's most prolific touchdown scorer the past three years attributes those Friday sessions for enhancing his extraordinary cutback vision, especially inside the red zone. Holmes is money inside an opponent's 20-yard line. His 66 touchdowns over the past
three seasons are the most during that span in league history.
Holmes scored 15 TDs in eight games last season before a sprained right knee shut him down.
"I've always had a knack for finding the goal line," Holmes says, recalling the visualization training. "It would only be myself and two,
three linemen. We'd sit there for an hour in a dark room.
"There was nothing to look at. But this woman's voice would walk you through a forest and she would tell you everything you were
about to smell, touch and walk past. 'Now the path turns. Do you hear the trickling water?' Then, you'd hear a bird chirping in the
distance.
"The drills really helped me envision things. It translated to football because I was able to slow down and sense where defenders
are. I developed more of a sixth sense.
"I've always kept up those drills."
Holmes, who turns 32 in October, will likely duel San Diego running back LaDainian Tomlinson, Seattle's Shaun Alexander, New
England's Corey Dillon, New York's Curtis Martin, Baltimore's Jamal Lewis, Buffalo's Willis McGahee, New Orleans' Deuce
McAllister and Dallas' Julius Jones for the league scoring lead.
Holmes lets blockers lead the way before shooting through openings only he can see.
"I'm usually playing off flashes of color," Holmes says. "But when I'm really locked in and have done everything possible to study
film, when I know that defensive back doesn't like to hit, or that linebacker overpursues, or that safety is more worried about
dropping back than coming up — that's when the game really slows down.
http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=USATODAY.com+-+Chiefs%27+Holme... 9/1/2005
Page 2 of 3
"I see it all. I see your uniform number. I see the details in your hairstyle. That's when I really feel I'm in tune with what my offensive
linemen are doing and I can just see holes opening."
Chiefs president Carl Peterson, who compares Holmes' vision to Marcus Allen's, recalled the first time he spotted a player practicing
alone from his office overlooking the Arrowhead Stadium field.
"There was one guy out there with a football after a Saturday walk-through and it was Priest," Peterson recalls. "He's practicing
scoring a touchdown, catching the football, turning and running to the pylon in slow motion. The next game he catches a pass, runs
to the pylon and I say to myself, 'I've seen this play before.' "
Holmes has scored more on slow-motion Saturday touchdown practice than most backs do in their careers.
"Some people see Priest going out there on Saturday for the first time and say, 'What's he doing?' " coach Dick Vermeil says. "He's
poised to have a great season."
Coming off his third knee injury since suffering a torn left ACL in 1995 at Texas, Holmes says his rehabilitated right knee is strong
enough to stand up to a grueling season.
It will be interesting to see who has made the quicker comeback, Holmes or quarterback Chad Pennington, when the Chiefs host
the Jets in their Sept. 11 season opener. Pennington, who couldn't brush his teeth right-handed for two months after Feb. 8 rotator
cuff surgery, is remarkably ahead of schedule despite a panic attack generated by a couple of end-zone interceptions Aug. 26
against the New York Giants. Pennington's reunion with go-to receiver Laveranues Coles will test the Chiefs' defense, which has
five new starters.
Yet for all the hype about this season's "Generation Next" running backs, from second-year starters Jones in Dallas and Detroit's
Kevin Jones to Miami rookie Ronnie Brown, Tampa Bay's Carnell "Cadillac" Williams and Arizona's J.J. Arrington, Holmes runs with
the patience that can only develop over time.
Touchdown visualization and hard work are his only performance-enhancing boosters.
"Priest is a machine, an old-school workout guy," says Bay McClinton, the assistant strength and conditioning coach for the NBA's
San Antonio Spurs, with whom Holmes trained for eight years. "We run hills. He spent time this offseason running on a treadmill in a
hydro pool at the Spurs' facility to take pressure off his joints.
"Priest and I have talked about how guys in the NFL are heroes to little kids. Playing dirty isn't the way to go.
"I tell the college kids I work with, 'Watch the way Priest works.' He takes every catch to the end zone and jogs back. He's not a tall
dude. He's compact. But he's got great heart."
Watching his hometown Spurs capture the NBA championship reinforced the ticking sense of urgency the Chiefs feel with seven
offensive starters over 30.
Holmes has unselfishly groomed Larry Johnson, a talented third-year back who had a strong preseason. Vermeil will keep Holmes
fresh by working Johnson in more.
Savor Holmes while you can.
"I never really thought about playing beyond 10 years," Holmes says. "This is my ninth year, and I feel real good.
"I have no individual goals this season other than winning that Super Bowl championship. We want to win it for coach Vermeil and
our owner, Lamar Hunt."
Herrion update: What can be said to ease players' minds after the death of 49ers guard Thomas Herrion, four years after Vikings
tackle Korey Stringer died of heatstroke? That layer of invincibility is gone.
"Other than saying, 'Listen, this game has been played for a long, long time,' I can tell you there's more monitoring of players today
done by more medical personnel, particularly after what happened to Korey Stringer," says Elliot Pellman, the NFL's medical liaison.
Page 3 of 3
"It's just statistically that sometimes bad things happen.
"We don't have all the information yet (concerning Herrion's death). But I can say there is more monitoring of these athletes today
than by any other sport in the world."
Herrion's heart showed no abnormality, according to the initial autopsy report, though further tests were planned.
Emergency response following Herrion's collapse in Denver was textbook, in accordance with a two-year-old plan to have a trauma
care specialist trained in inserting breathing tubes at every game. A committee of doctors appointed by Commissioner Paul
Tagliabue nearly two years ago to carefully analyze cardiovascular health will soon define a baseline profile to help identify players
at increased cardiovascular risk.
Have some players gotten too big for their own good?
"The obesity issue is one that has been there," Pellman says. "They're going to start this year and next to get body-fat measures
across the league. They'll look at cholesterol profiles, blood pressure (and) EKGs. It really is about cardiovascular health.
"The committee has to decide how you define obesity in the NFL. It's based on body fat, and there's much more scientific ways of
calculating body fat.
"I suspect the physicians talking about obesity being a problem in the NFL are gathering information off the Internet and from what
they see on television. ... The players in the NFL are a separate, unique population."
A lot of questions must still be answered for the mental health of that unique population.
E-mail: [email protected]
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/columnist/2005-08-31-corbett_x.htm
Check the box to include the list of links referenced in the article.
True grit
Page 1 of 3
Posted on Fri, Sep. 09, 2005
True grit
Green’s 64-game streak seemed unlikely
Before there were streaks and stents and panic about Trent, a young man sat in the training room at Arrowhead Stadium with a
contraption that monitored his left leg. He didn’t say much. Couldn’t practice.
If this was the Chiefs’ new man of steel, at least a couple of players wanted to check Trent Green for rust.
“You were just trying to figure out how healthy he was,” Pro Bowl guard Will Shields says. “The first time you meet him, he’s in the
training room. You’re looking at him like, ‘Is he going to be OK?’ ”
That’s the thing about tough guys. They sneak up on you. Through four seasons, a few broken ribs, a sore shoulder and 64 straight starts,
Green has uttered three words at least a hundred times: I’ll be fine. He said it that spring in 2001, when he overcame four knee surgeries
and was swapped for a first-round draft pick in one of the riskier acquisitions in franchise history.
He said it during pregame warm-ups two weeks ago, when he couldn’t jog from the 50-yard line to the end zone just before the preseason
game with Seattle. That’s when offensive coordinator Al Saunders knew something was wrong. At first they just thought his shoes were
too tight. Green had already changed them.
He played two series that night, then underwent a battery of tests that eventually revealed a torn artery in the area behind his left knee.
Green had surgery to put a stent in his leg and was on blood thinners until Thursday morning.
It won’t stop him from making his 65th straight start Sunday in the season opener against the Jets, a streak that ranks fourth among
active NFL quarterbacks.
Ask just about anybody, with the exception of Saunders and maybe coach Dick Vermeil, and they’ll say Green’s staying power has been a
surprise. Before he came to Kansas City, the longest starting streak he’d held in the NFL was nine games, in Washington, in 1998. He’d
attempted just one pass in the three seasons before that.
But when opportunity finally arrived, so did the injuries. A hip ailment, sore shoulders, dozens of bumps and bruises. The streak has been
in jeopardy three times in the past year alone. Green fought through the end of 2004 with broken ribs and watched part of training camp
with a sore shoulder. Then came the torn artery and a quick procedure to get back on the field.
“I’m not surprised by anything Trent Green does,” Saunders says.
“Football is a physically violent game. And Trent is a very, very tough guy. Part of his leadership role as a quarterback is to play through
those kinds of injuries. That’s why he addressed the team when he had this leg situation. He said, ‘Hey, I’m going to be playing. I’ll be
ready for you.’ That’s why guys respect and rally around him.”
It hasn’t hurt Green that he’s been protected by one of the best offensive lines in the NFL for the last four years. Shields is a 10-time Pro
Bowler who’s started 191 straight games. Willie Roaf and Brian Waters have been to Hawaii too. Casey Wiegmann has been Green’s center
for the last four years.
To last as long as Green has, former Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson says, you need a good line, a little luck and a few intangibles. Some
quarterbacks can feel the pressure without looking at it. Green, Dawson says, falls in that category.
But all the intuition couldn’t stop Green from being carted off the field in the 1999 preseason in St. Louis, when Rodney Harrison came in
low on a tackle and knocked Green out for the season. The Rams won the Super Bowl, Green lost his starting job, and Sports Illustrated
called him “The Unluckiest Guy in America.”
9/9/2005
True grit
Page 2 of 3
The luck changed when he came to Kansas City. Green has gone on to throw for 16,103 yards in four seasons, which ranks second in the
NFL behind Peyton Manning. His 87.9 passer rating tops Dawson’s from 1962 to 1975.
Mind, body and spirit. Green, Saunders says, is fanatical about taking care of all of it. He locks himself away for film study and lifted so
much in the offseason that he developed a sore shoulder.
“He’s not really built like a quarterback,” fullback Tony Richardson says. “Look at his physique … I mean, the guy is built well, and I say
that as a man who is very secure with his manhood. He’s put together well. He busts his butt in the weight room. He really takes care of
his body.”
At 35, Green knows he has to. He’s the second-oldest starting quarterback in the NFL next to Brett Favre. He spent training camp
relegated to the one-workout-a-day duty given to many of the Chiefs’ aging offensive veterans.
When Dawson was around Green’s age, he had to swing at a racquetball before each game to loosen up his shoulder. He’d slather on
analgesic balm and press hot packs on the aching wing.
“The older you get, the slower you heal,” Dawson says. “I was playing at that age myself, and the aches and pains don’t get over with
until about Friday as opposed to a Wednesday. It lingers on. Oftentimes, you have to do what you have to do to play in a game.”
Green says he’s healthier than the average 35-year-old because he hasn’t had the typical NFL mileage. He sat in ’99 and spent roughly six
seasons trying to find his way in the league.
Although he wished the knee injury never happened, Green says it shaped him as a quarterback in Kansas City. It made him tougher.
More focused.
When Green had his stent operation last week, it was the first time he was separated from his team since his days in St. Louis.
“I didn’t like it,” Green says. “It wasn’t a situation that I want to be in ever again. You always want to be there. Even though in that game
I probably would’ve taken five to 10 snaps, you still want to be out there with your guys, being in that locker room and supporting
(them).”
In the days before the diagnosis last week, Green, for maybe the first time since he’s been in Kansas City, was worried. His foot was
numb, and his muscles ached. Doctors couldn’t find the problem.
When a diagnosis was made Aug. 30, Green decided to have surgery immediately. He wanted to play this Sunday against the Jets. He
didn’t want to break the streak.
Shields says it’s taboo for football players to talk about streaks. Especially when they deal with quarterbacks. But with everything Green
has been through, the knee surgeries, the ribs, the stent, is there really anything that could jinx Kansas City’s quarterback?
“We don’t talk about streaks,” Shields says. “I don’t. I don’t even talk about my own.”
But maybe another former quarterback under Vermeil will. Ron Jaworski says playing quarterback in the NFL is like being in 60 car wrecks
every Sunday. What Green has done, Jaworski says, is a testament to his toughness.
“What’s troublesome to me is that I don’t think it’s nationally recognized how well he’s played over the last few years,” Jaworski says. “He
has played up there with the top five guys. I don’t think he’s gotten the credit for playing the position as well as he’s played it.”
Some of it could be because of a smaller market. Or maybe Green just got lost somewhere on I-70, between St. Louis and Kansas City and
hundreds of questions about his health.
Green can’t worry about that. He’ll be fine.
To reach Elizabeth Merrill, Chiefs reporter for The Star, call (816) 234-4744 or send e-mail to [email protected]
9/9/2005
Coaches worked hard to make Mitchell meaner
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Sat, Sep. 10, 2005
Chiefs want to change middle linebacker’s attitude
By ADAM TEICHER
When it comes to nice guys, few of the Chiefs come in ahead of linebacker Kawika Mitchell, a family man devoted to his wife, Billie, and
children Lewai and Eliza.
The Chiefs have no problem with that except for three hours each week. Then, on game day, they want their starting middle linebacker
changed into something different.
That’s why defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham and linebackers coach Fred Pagac embarked on an offseason course to, in Pagac’s
words, “work on (Mitchell’s) head.”
They had him in for regular meetings, and nasty, occasionally hateful things were said. The basic premise was to challenge Mitchell’s
manhood.
“When the game’s not on, you can be a nice guy,” Pagac said. “When you’re home with your kids, you can be a nice guy. When you’re
between the lines on a Sunday afternoon, I don’t know a whole lot of nice guys out there, particularly at that position.
“He’s our middle linebacker. He has to have an attitude. He has to set our attitude.”
So far, the Chiefs like what they see. Mitchell was one of the most pleasant surprises of training camp and the exhibition season, but the
Chiefs remain nervous about what will develop in the regular season, which begins Sunday against the Jets at Arrowhead Stadium.
Vast improvement from Mitchell is a vital element in the Chiefs’ grand plans for a defensive turnaround.
“Gunther and Fred Pagac have done a great job of fooling around with Kawika’s mind-set,” coach Dick Vermeil said. “They want an ornery
son of a gun there. Some kids aren’t naturally ornery. That doesn’t mean they aren’t tough. They were very demanding, probably more
demanding on him than any player on our football team in this training camp.
“They put the pressure on him as the (middle) linebacker to become the leader of the defense. Then they put three times that amount of
pressure on the field on him. They didn’t give him much room to (fail).
“He’s always been a hard worker. He’s always been a self-motivated kid. But he needed a lot of work. A lot of things just didn’t come
natural to him. It’s taken some time.”
The Chiefs believe they started to see signs late last season that Mitchell, their second-round draft pick in 2003, was coming around.
“I saw him flash into plays, explode into ball carriers, knock screens down and receivers down,” Vermeil said. “You saw it. You just didn’t
see it consistently. They’ve gotten him to do that more consistently.”
Mitchell acknowledged he hardly played like a Pro Bowler last season but often wondered why he was being singled out as the main source
of the defensive problems.
He finally figured out that it came with the territory as the middle linebacker, a position as close to the defensive equivalent of the
quarterback as there is.
The constant harping from his coaches got that fact through. That the Chiefs added one linebacker in veteran Kendrell Bell and adding
three others as rookies, including top draft pick Derrick Johnson, helped the message sink in.
Page 2 of 2
It was this: The Chiefs would find a middle linebacker with a mean streak, whether it was Mitchell or someone else.
“Gunther didn’t hold much back,” Mitchell said. “He told me what he thought was the truth. The things he was saying really didn’t describe
me, I didn’t think. I thought I was a tough person. I thought I was being a leader. I thought I was capable of a lot of good things. That’s
why the Chiefs drafted me.
“When I heard them question that, when I see them bring middle linebackers in, when I hear the media talk about me that way, it made
me look at myself. Maybe I wasn’t playing up to my potential.
“I don’t think I’ve changed a lot. They just applied the pressure and I just reacted to it.”
Occasionally, Cunningham wondered whether he went overboard.
“Kawika is a fine young man,” Cunningham said. “I guess I wanted to turn him into a likeness of me. Day by day, it worked. I said some
things to him on a personal level that weren’t real nice. There were times when I drove home and I wondered whether I had stepped over
the line. I would call him at his house, and we would talk some more. He would tell me he would understand, but he still didn’t get it until
camp.”
Cunningham and Mitchell engaged in a face-to-face shouting match one day at practice in Wisconsin. Expletives were flying in both
directions.
To Cunningham, hearing such talk from the mild-mannered Mitchell was sweet music.
“I walked away from that, and everybody saw me smile,” Cunningham said. “That’s when I knew he arrived.
“It was a tough six months. It was one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do. But I think it worked. You can’t be a nice guy. I don’t
think he’s a nice guy on the field anymore.”
N.Y. Jets at Chiefs
■ WHEN: Noon Sunday
■ WHERE: Arrowhead Stadium
■ TV/RADIO: Chs. 5, 13; KCFX (101.1 FM)
To reach Adam Teicher, Chiefs reporter for The Star, call (816) 234-4875 or send e-mail to [email protected].
Cavalry has arrived
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Sun, Sep. 11, 2005
Cavalry has arrived
Knight, Surtain embrace challenge to help defense
By ADAM TEICHER
Call Patrick Surtain and Sammy Knight mercenaries if you must. There’s probably some element of truth there.
The two defensive backs, among the newest members of the Chiefs, are getting a nice chunk of coin to help fix a forlorn unit that ranked
near rock bottom of the NFL last year. That’s particularly true for Surtain, who could make as much as $51 million before his contract runs
out.
But if it were only money, that could have been found elsewhere in the league. There are other reasons Surtain and Knight made the
choice to parachute into Kansas City.
“We wanted guys who wanted the challenge of turning this culture around, and they wanted the challenge,” defensive coordinator Gunther
Cunningham said. “I tried to sense it before they even got here. We knew a lot about the guys we brought in.”
The Chiefs took a look at many defensive free agents. More than anyone else, cornerback Surtain and safety Knight, who had been
teammates at Miami, embraced the idea of making something out of nothing.
Both already were accomplished players. Knight is a former Pro Bowl selection who leads the NFL in takeaways during his eight seasons.
Surtain is a two-time Pro Bowler and widely acknowledged as one of the game’s top cover corners.
It was also important for the Chiefs to have players who not only could deal with the stench of defensive failure, but who actually
embraced it. Both players knew the Chiefs failed defensively in recent seasons and had been warned away from the situation by friends
around the league.
They pressed on anyway.
“I wasn’t going to pay too much attention to what other people said,” Knight said. “I was going to make my decisions based on what I saw
and what I experienced. We all knew Gunther was a great defensive coach. We all knew they had a lot of good defensive players already
here. So it wasn’t like anybody was looking at this as an impossible situation.”
Impossible, no. A little frightening for some, maybe. As the Chiefs brought various job candidates to town for interviews, Cunningham
watched closely as he mentioned the defensive issues.
He didn’t always like the body language or the words he heard in response.
“I had specific questions I was asking everybody we brought in about this situation,” Cunningham said. “ ‘Do you think you can come here
and be the man and take control of this or that?’
“(Linebacker) Ed Hartwell came in and shook a lot of hands. I didn’t want a handshake. I want guys to come in here and knock other
people on their butts. He’s a fine football player. I wouldn’t say anything bad about his ability. But he can’t run like I want our guys to run.
That was a big deal to me.
“(Surtain and Knight) looked me right in the eye. They understood we brought them here to win football games. They accepted what the
Kansas City Chiefs had and what we want to become.”
Surtain, a career Dolphin, played on some great defensive teams and with some great players on those units. The Dolphins were a top-10
defense in each of his seven seasons.
But because of a lifeless offense, Surtain’s Dolphins rarely achieved much. New coach Nick Saban saw Surtain’s fat contract as an
9/11/2005
Cavalry has arrived
Page 2 of 2
obstruction to the rebuilding process and offered him to any interested taker.
Surtain started looking around at prospective new employers. The more he looked at the Chiefs, who showed interest from the start, the
more he liked — particularly when they started talking contract figures.
“I was coming from a team that was oriented around the defense,” he said. “The offense wasn’t that good. To come in here and not
necessarily be a savior but be counted on to make a play and make a difference, it was too good to pass up.
“I just felt this was the place for me because of where they were ranked defensively, because of the culture around here where offense
ruled. I wanted to come here to make a difference.”
Surtain knew the Chiefs had some defensive players worth building around. He knew Eric Hicks once had a season with 14 sacks. Ryan
Sims was a high draft pick. Jared Allen was coming off a promising rookie season. Surtain played with Jerome Woods in a Pro Bowl a
couple of years back.
The Chiefs had already added Knight, Kendrell Bell and Carlos Hall and were about to draft Derrick Johnson with their No. 1 pick when they
completed the trade with Miami for Surtain. The Dolphins received a No. 2 pick.
“Something didn’t add up here,” Surtain said. “I thought the players were better than the results, so something was missing.”
If the Chiefs reach the Super Bowl, Surtain will look even more like a football hero
“We have a chance to be pretty good,” Surtain said. “Guys are hungry, ready to get after it.”
9/11/2005
It’s a year to toast Vermeil
Page 1 of 4
Posted on Sun, Sep. 11, 2005
I
n the solitude of the rolling Pennsylvania hills, a man can plant himself on his tractor, thrash about his log-cabin house, leave without
ever stopping.
They’ve tried family vacations before. There’s a time-share condo in Key West, and sometimes, Dick Vermeil actually plops down with a
book, sticks his toes in the sand and snoozes. Most of the time, he skips it.
With the midsummer sun beating on what could be his final season, Vermeil arrived at his 110-acre ranch in Pennsylvania in late June with
11 months of neglect. His 68-year-old body was tired; the house needed work. He hopped on his tractor and kept going.
“Dick is very task-oriented,” says his wife, Carol, “and he likes to accomplish things. He’s not good with idle time at all.”
Vermeil can’t stop. Not near the elevator last week after a long practice with his hair mussed and a radio show at 5 o’clock and meetings in
between and the Jets coming to town. Not to talk about something that is four months away.
He’s entering the last year of his contract with the Chiefs, and he won’t say whether this is his final ride. He says he doesn’t know. If the
Chiefs are successful in 2005, chances are, Vermeil says, he’ll stay. And if they’re not …
9/11/2005
Page 2 of 4
This is where it gets confusing. This is where Vermeil says he’ll go. But can a man who’s left pro football twice and come back really finally
say goodbye? Can the coach who’s taken two different teams to Super Bowls leave a project that never got finished?
“Listen, I can leave in any way I want to leave,” Vermeil says. “I just … I would not want to put Carl (Peterson) and Lamar (Hunt) in a
position that they have to tell me to leave. I’ve never been in a football program that wasn’t successful. And to this point now, I think we
should’ve been a playoff team three out of the last four years and we haven’t been.
“It bugs the hell out of me. Bugs the hell out of me.”
Carol Vermeil will know. She’s been with him the longest.
They were high school sweethearts in Calistoga, Calif., wandering souls in a school of about 100 where everybody knew everybody. Carol
was drawn to the football player not because he was a Super Bowl coach in the making, but because she thought he was cute.
“What else draws you to anybody?” she says.
Money was tight after they were married, and Vermeil worked at a warehouse stacking boxes in between class and football at San Jose
State. One summer, he dug a pool as an odd job. He did it with a shovel.
When Vermeil was a younger coach in Philadelphia, his hours were Jon Gruden-esque. He’d leave when Carol was sleeping and come home
when she was in bed. Burnout won out in January 1983, when he gave an emotional farewell speech and retired from coaching. He’d done
just about everything. He’d been to the Super Bowl.
For decades, the Vermeils have referred to the players as “our boys.” Little Lional Dalton, the 315-pound tackle? He’s one of our boys. Ron
Jaworski, who’s 54 now? He’s our boy too. But when Vermeil retired the first time, Carol thought he could spend more time with his own
kids.
Then came a 14-year broadcast career, and Vermeil treated it as if he was preparing for the playoffs. He researched every player, every
statistic. He ended up using about 2 percent of his material.
The thing he missed most in those years away was the people. He’d bring players over for dinner and learn about their lives. They’d drink
wine and listen to music. Vermeil’s into jazz. He’d spin disco.
Vermeil says he can leave the game, that he’ll be OK, but Carol wonders. She knows how much 2004 ate at him. She wonders how much
they’ll miss their boys.
“There’s nothing better he likes than when a rookie that isn’t drafted is successful and gains confidence in himself,” Carol says. “He just
loves the whole process of being with his players. That’s the best part, and that’s going to be the hardest part of not doing it. He loves
these guys. It’s going to leave a huge void.”
Every season since Vermeil has been in Kansas City, Carol invites the immediate family and a handful of friends to sit in their suite for the
opening game. This year’s contingent will be the same, roughly 20 people. They’ll be pressed in like sardines. They won’t know whether
this is their final gathering.
“He really, desperately, wants this team to win,” Carol says. “Not necessarily for his record but for the kids themselves. Because you
know, there’s nothing like success. Why do you work so darn hard? It’s to be successful. That’s the uppermost thing in his mind, to have a
good season. I think it’ll be very disappointing if we don’t. Because he’ll realize that he couldn’t get it done here, that we couldn’t get it
done.”
Carl Peterson will know. He’s the one who got Vermeil into this fix.
Fuming over a losing season in the early days of 2001, the Chiefs president and general manager made a call to Vermeil’s ranch. Vermeil
was retired, again, and was by all accounts happy. He’d gone out on top in St. Louis the year before, hoisting a Super Bowl trophy. This,
and he meant it, was it.
Peterson just asked for a visit. They’d been together for years, in Philadelphia and at UCLA, and had won a lot of games. No was an
unacceptable answer.
“The night before he flew, I told him, ‘Don’t even come and see me,’ ” Vermeil says. “And he came anyway. He did a good job because he
knows me well enough to hit the buttons.
9/11/2005
Page 3 of 4
“And I appreciated it very much. To have the opportunity to work for Lamar and Norma Hunt and work with Carl and these people I love
very much has been a real, real bonus for me.”
Vermeil broke into tears last week at a luncheon when he talked about Hunt and wanting to give the Chiefs’ owner a memorable season.
In four years in Kansas City, Vermeil has gone 34-30 but has made just one trip to the playoffs. The 2004 season was the most painful.
The Chiefs went into the year with Super Bowl expectations and left dragging a 7-9 record.
In his final news conference of the season, Vermeil said that 2005 would probably be his last season. That comment was made, he later
says, when he was dead-tired. In the months since, he’s hedged.
But Peterson and Hunt made offseason moves that lent to the notion that this could be Vermeil’s last hurrah. They picked up four new
starters through trades, free-agency and the draft to fix the leaky defense. They crossed their fingers and didn’t touch the offense, which
ranked No. 1 in the NFL but is running out of time with a collection of aging stars.
“We do not talk about (retirement),” Peterson says. “We’ll talk about that at the conclusion of the season. But I have to prepare that he
will not be here. This is the end of his contract. He was at one point very definitive about it. But now is not the time to talk about it. We’re
kicking off the regular season. He’s focused and I’m focused on this football team right now.”
Jaws will know. He played quarterback for Vermeil in Philly in the days when his hair was darker and his step was swifter. Ron Jaworski is
one of Vermeil’s best friends.
Jaws’ wife turned 50 a few years back, and they had a celebration on the Jersey shore. The Vermeils popped in unexpectedly. He’s always
there, Jaworski says. It’s been that way for almost 30 years.
But now Jaws worried about his old coach’s health. He knows the hours he keeps. He watches him in headset battles with whippersnappers
20 years younger.
He also knows how much it will hurt when Vermeil finally leaves.
“When you’re involved in the National Football League, the competitiveness never leaves you,” Jaworski says. “I haven’t thrown a pass in
16 years, but when I walk on the field before a game I get goose bumps.
“I know how much the coach puts into it. Everybody in Kansas City understands the work ethic of the man. You just don’t walk away from
that and not take a piece of it with you.”
But if Vermeil is aging, the Chiefs haven’t seen it. He lifts weights with the team and carries a heavy load. When 21-year-olds see Vermeil
work out, receiver Eddie Kennison says, they decide they have to work harder.
“I think he’s probably more motivated than anything,” Kennison says. “He portrays like he’s a 39- or 40-year-old man. He goes out on the
football field and in the meeting room and there’s a lot of enthusiasm. I think he has shown more this year than he probably did in the first
year.”
Vermeil, the Chiefs say, has never told them that 2005 will be it. But they’re operating with an urgency, maybe to win for him, maybe to
keep him going.
Kennison says Vermeil would never bring up the future because he doesn’t want the focus to be on him. It’s always on the season, the
week and his boys, whom he still treats to dinner.
Kennison has shared drinks with Vermeil on the Plaza. Long-snapper Kendall Gammon has rocked to KC and the Sunshine Band with his
coach.
“We want to win for him,” Gammon says, “but he hasn’t said anything. It’s pretty much business as usual.”
And business for Vermeil, at 68, is all about moving. He spent more time in the offseason studying X’s and O’s. The Chiefs noticed a higher
energy level from the coach in camp.
Just as he couldn’t let the weeds grow around his ranch, he can’t let the Chiefs suffer through another losing year. He hustles for the
elevator and gets back to his office. The season is here. There’s no time to stop.
“I don’t coach as if this is going to be my last season,” Vermeil says. “I coach this as the first game. That’s my only mind-set. This is the
first game of this year. And hopefully we’re a better football team than we’ve ever been.”
9/11/2005
Sudden impact
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Thu, Sep. 15, 2005
ROOKIE LINEBACKER A QUICK HIT
Sudden impact
Johnson makes big plays without making big waves
T
he biggest change is the shoes. Sneakers, in social settings, are now a fashion faux pas for Derrick Johnson. He’s kicking in a pair of
black shiny numbers at Circuit City, signing autographs, eyeballing a half-eaten pizza on the counter. He’s talking about the strangest
autograph request since he’s come to Kansas City. A girl asked him to sign her Chihuahua.
“That was crazy,” Johnson says.
Johnson is in his sixth hour of PR trips and radio shows, and a guy plunks down at least eight hats. Johnson signs them all.
Nothing has changed for Derrick O’Hara Johnson. Just look at him. Last weekend, the day before his NFL debut, the Chiefs’ rookie
linebacker picked his mom up in a limo, whisked her to the Peach Tree restaurant, then took her to his new townhome on the Plaza, which
is still under construction.
Johnson wants her to decorate the pad.
“He’s the baby,” Beverly Johnson says.
In a lot of ways, mother and son are alike. They never get too excited about things. Beverly’s a middle-school math teacher in Waco,
Texas, and on Wednesday, one of the football coaches there stopped in and wondered why she was so calm, why she wasn’t bragging over
her son’s nine-tackle performance Sunday against the New York Jets. Johnson also got a sack and stripped the ball from quarterback Chad
Pennington.
Rookie linebackers don’t really do that kind of stuff in Kansas City, let alone anywhere else in the NFL. A few days after the game, Johnson
graded his performance somewhere between a B-minus and a C-plus.
But he did call his mama, and he told her that he’s up for rookie of the week honors.
Derrick didn’t tell many people this, but that big breakfast was not sitting well in the hours before Sunday’s kickoff. Johnson had a serious
case of butterflies. He’d never been to an NFL game, never hit a collection of football players as big and fast as the Jets.
By the third defensive play of the game, when Johnson stuffed Curtis Martin for a 2-yard loss, those nerves were gone.
“The pressure of a game doesn’t really … I’m not saying it doesn’t bother him — it doesn’t affect him negatively,” coach Dick Vermeil says.
“He does some of the same things instinctively that he did in college. He goes to tackle a guy and takes his right hand and tries to get the
football. Now, we coach that all the time, we can coach some guys to do that and they’ll never do it. It just doesn’t fall into their instincts
at that time, their thinking pattern.
“I saw him do four or five things like that. He can make mistakes and still run and catch up and make up for it.”
He’s level-headed. That’s what Christie Burgner says as they scramble around town Tuesday doing promotional work for Vonage, a
broadband telephone service.
He’s sore. Johnson says he woke up Monday with more than the average aches and pains he had after a college football game.
But he lifted and ran on the Chiefs’ day off, and he occasionally drifted back to the couple of times Sunday when he “messed up on my
coverage.”
9/15/2005
Sudden impact
Page 2 of 2
“Some people look at it like ‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ ” Johnson says. “But I’m the type of person who tries to be the best. I’m pretty hard on
myself. I expect to do great things.”
On a defense that ranked 31st last year, Johnson already has made an impact. By Monday morning, NFL analysts were raving about the
Chiefs’ revamped defense. Johnson helped Kansas City hit the quarterback 14 times Sunday and come within 29 seconds of a shutout.
He’s spotted in shopping malls and on the Plaza now, and Johnson says he’ll always stop for an autograph. His mom noticed the high
volume of No. 56 jerseys being worn at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday. She didn’t expect that type of quick following for a rookie.
Then again, Johnson isn’t your average 22-year-old. He used to see his mom nearly every week when he played at Texas, even though
home was about 100 miles away. She’d always pull a $100 bill out of her purse and ask whether he had enough gas and groceries.
Now, Johnson’s paying his family back, and the limo ride has just begun. Before every game, Beverly’s baby used to scan the crowd and
look for his mom. It made him feel better knowing she was in the stadium. It still does.
“I’ve got a little bit more money to buy some ostrich shoes,” Johnson says, “but I won’t change. I know where I came from.”
9/15/2005
pressdemocrat.com printer version
Page 1 of 3
pressdemocrat.com
This is a printer friendly version of an article from www.pressdemocrat.com
To print this article open the file menu and choose Print.
Back
Article published - Sep 16, 2005
Days of wine & bruises
NFL coach, Calistoga native Dick Vermeil has vineyard
waiting for him
By Phil Barber
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
SPRING MOUNTAIN
Dick Vermeil has navigated the waters of the National Football League for 14-plus seasons, but Spring
Mountain is another story.
The famed coach and Calistoga native was leading the way to the mountaintop home of his partner in
winemaking, Paul G. Smith, when the dirt roads between St. Helena and Santa Rosa began to fork and
twist. He finally admitted he was lost.
Fortunately, and surprisingly given the isolated locale , Vermeil's cell phone worked. He called Smith.
Two minutes later, Smith's son met the caravan in an SUV and led everyone to the family residence,
which doubles as the facilities of OnThEdge Winery.
Inside the house, past the tail-wagging dog and the picture window with its distant views to Napa Valley,
past the blueprints graffitied with violet wine rings and hand-scribbled notes, was a photograph of
Vermeil magnetized to the refrigerator. With him in the photo was a little, halo-haired boy who would
grow up to be the young man who just bailed out the coach on the dirt road.
Coincidence is never far away for Vermeil when he returns to Calistoga, the town where he was born,
went to school, worked in his father's automotive shop (the Owl Garage) and met his wife, Carol. He's
connected to just about every local of a certain generation, and they're all interconnected by additional
threads.
Take his wine label, Jean Louis Vermeil. It honors Dick's grandfather and great-grandfather, who shared
the same name. The grapes come from Frediani Vineyard, which straddles Silverado Trail just south of
Calistoga. The current matriarch of the Frediani family is Jeanne Frediani, and her aunt acted as midwife
for the birth of Vermeil's father, Louis, in San Francisco. Jeanne's daughter, Mary Sue, is married to
Smith. And Mary Sue's brother, Jim, is the principal Frediani grapegrower.
"It kind of starts with winding the clock back 50, 60, 70 years in Calistoga, a really isolated, tiny
community way out in the middle of nowhere," said Smith, turning his attention to Vermeil.
"There were basically two families in two places that were kind of social centers for the community. One
was the Fredianis, and one was your house . .. Because they both had garages with tools."
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050916/NEWS/509160341/1010/SPORTS... 9/17/2005
Page 2 of 3
Vermeil nodded his assent. He was born in a bedroom of the Vermeil home on Washington Street in
Calistoga, down the block from the post office and in front of the barn that Louis Vermeil converted into
his garage. Before Louis moved in permanently about 1930 (and long after Robert Louis Stevenson made
it his temporary residence), it was the vacation house of the Iaccheri family, the Italian side of Vermeil's
lineage. The Vermeils are from France.
"All the old-timers that spoke French and Italian, they would all gather at our house and speak those
languages," Dick Vermeil said. "It was always sort of confusing for me as I walked by."
Football has made Vermeil a wealthy man and taken him all over the country, from Los Angeles to
Philadelphia to St. Louis and now to Kansas City, where fans are hoping his Chiefs beat the Raiders on
Sunday to improve to 2-0.
Dick and Carol own a 110-acre ranch on a Pennsylvania homestead, where Dick helped build a log house
by hand. And they're well- entrenched in Kansas City, where Carol is heavily involved with a nonprofit
organization, Operation Breakthrough, that offers daycare, before- and after-school care and social
services to inner-city kids.
But always there is the upper Napa Valley, where Dick was a four-sport star known as the Calistoga
Comet and Carol was his Calistoga High sweetheart.
The Vermeils return every year, though their schedule permits only a short stay just before training
camp. Dick's sister, Laura, lives in Lake County. His brother, Stan, lived in Rincon Valley for 30 years,
until a tragic midnight fire claimed the life of his wife, Carole, and left him with severe burns that
required skin grafts. Stan now runs a machine shop in Grass Valley. Another brother, Al, is strength
coach for the Chicago Bulls.
It was after he retired as head coach of the Rams in early 2000 - 11 days after leading St. Louis to a
victory over Tennessee in Super Bowl XXXIV - that Dick Vermeil decided to carry out the long-simmering
idea of starting his own wine label.
"I'm a Cabernet guy, and I'd been drinking Paul's wine for a long time," the coach said. "I knew we could
have some fun with it."
His retirement proved short-lived, though. Less than a year after he walked away from the Rams, his old
friend Carl Peterson - the Chiefs' president and general manager and former football coach at Sonoma
State - talked him into coaching again.
"He continues to be distracted by playing this game thing," Smith said.
Vermeil plays that game pretty well. He is one of only four coaches in NFL history to lead two teams (the
Eagles were the other) to the Super Bowl, one of only five to lead three different teams to the playoffs.
He's the only coach to win a Super Bowl and a Rose Bowl (1976, UCLA). He's won coach-of-the-year
honors at four levels - high school, junior college, NCAA Div. I and the NFL.
Along the way, he has become known as the NFL's ultimate tough-love father figure, a hard-nosed, hardworking taskmaster who isn't ashamed to express his affection for players, or to give them informal
enology lessons at barbecues.
"Every year, he'd invite guys to his house and his wife would cook - like by group, linebackers or
whatever would go over there," said Raiders fullback Omar Easy, who spent three years in Kansas City.
Page 3 of 3
"I think he really reached out to know his players. You can see it by the way he interacts with guys.
When guys leave there, they have a strong respect for him."
But no one, not even the prototypical NFL workaholic, can coach forever. At his final news conference of
2004, Vermeil said 2005 probably would be his final season. Now he's hedging, though few men have
coached professionally into their seventies.
"Anyone 69 years old is a lame duck," Vermeil said this week. "I'm on the last year of my contract, and I
just feel that if this football team is playing very well, then I think maybe my approach still works, my
process still works and I can keep coaching. If it is not doing well and (team owner) Lamar Hunt isn't
experiencing a successful season or a good football team, then I think I will leave."
He might even stay retired, pulled back to his roots by the lure of the grape.
© The Press Democrat. For copyright information view our User Agreement
Parker catching on fast with Chiefs
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Sat, Sep. 24, 2005
By ADAM TEICHER
C
hiefs coaches kept their distance from wide receiver Samie Parker as if he had some contagious disease after his potentially
disastrous fumble Sunday night in Oakland.
There was no need to tell Parker he’d done wrong. Parker was victimized by veteran defensive back Charles Woodson, who ripped the ball
from Parker’s grasp with just less than 5 minutes left and the Chiefs trying to protect a six-point lead.
Parker felt sick about the mistake, though he was off the hook when the defense held and the Chiefs escaped with a 23-17 win.
“I looked back at him on the bench a couple of times,” coach Dick Vermeil said, “and he was really depressed.”
The Chiefs wanted to see how Parker would respond when they returned to practice. Would he sulk? Would the fumble ruin the burgeoning
confidence of a first-year starter and a quiet sort who so far — unlike many of his contemporaries at receiver — lacks an interest in selfpromotion?
They’re satisfied with what they saw.
“He was really working hard on his ball security in practice,” receivers coach Charlie Joiner said. “Every time he caught one, the first thing
he would do is cover it up real fast.”
For his part, Parker was troubled by not only the fumble’s potentially devastating effects, but also by the bigger issue that he might have
spoiled the trust he’s trying to build with the rest of the Chiefs.
“I’m just trying to get my coaches and teammates on my side so that they don’t have to worry I’ll be able to get the job done,” he said.
The fumble aside, the Chiefs have fewer worries about Parker than most young starting receivers.
“He wants to do everything the right way,” Joiner said. “On that fumble, he had it nice and tight. The guy just made a great play. The
thing Samie has to learn to do is anticipate that.”
The Chiefs certainly aren’t disappointed with Parker’s play. He has only five catches, but his healthy 21.8-yard per catch average is what
the Chiefs had in mind when they released Johnnie Morton to make room in the starting lineup for Parker.
That number reflects his speed and big-play ability. He caught a 49-yard pass from Trent Green in the second quarter against the Raiders
that set up Larry Johnson’s touchdown. His 23-yard reception would have been a big play in the fourth quarter had he not fumbled.
“That’s what he’s in there for,” Joiner said. “With his speed and his skill, he should make at least one or two big plays a game.”
Green’s favorite among Parker’s catches wasn’t either of those two. It was a 14-yarder in the fourth quarter on third down and 4. Parker
had to go low to get the ball away from safety Stu Schweigert
Parker’s speed is what quickly attracts attention. He is fast enough that he was a sprinter in college at Oregon.
But Parker is quick to point out that he was a football player before he started to run track and has football skills other than an ability to
run fast.
“He’s better at coming in and out of routes than I think any of us anticipated,” Green said. “He’s able to catch the ball in traffic. He’s not
the biggest guy in the world. He’ll be the first one to admit that to you.
Page 2 of 2
“Because he can do those kinds of things, then all of a sudden you throw in the dimension of speed … he can definitely be a 1,000-yard
receiver in this system.”
Parker is outwardly excited by few things, but the suggestion of a 1,000-yard season is one of them.
“I’m kind of shooting to get up there somewhere,” Parker said. “Obviously, I’ve got to go out there and play my role. But I know they want
me to go out there and stretch the field and make plays over the top. Hopefully, that means a lot of big plays.”
It should as long as he holds onto the ball. Parker had quit beating himself up this week over the fumble.
That’s fine with the Chiefs — as long as he’s learned his lesson.
“You never want to see the ball stripped,” Vermeil said. “We lost two ballgames because of that last year. We were very much in position
to lose this one because of that. But he wasn’t careless with the football. He had it tucked in. It was a great play. We teach the same thing
and do the same thing.
“It will be harder the next time Samie is in that same position.”
Chiefs at Denver
■ WHEN/WHERE: 8 p.m. Monday
■ WHERE: Invesco Field at Mile High in Denver
Holmes happy sharing the load
Page 1 of 3
Posted on Sat, Oct. 29, 2005
Dividing time with Johnson has resulted in bigger plays and better health
By ADAM TEICHER
DAVID EULITT/The Kansas City Star
Priest Holmes has shown a penchant for making big
plays this season, partly because of the Chiefs’
running-back rotation.
J
udging only from his comments and his contented demeanor, Priest Holmes would be quite comfortable playing out the rest of his
career as part of a Chiefs halfback rotation with Larry Johnson.
“The rotation, I love it,” he said this week. “One of the things I can always tell any running back is to be careful for what you ask for. To be
a starter in this league means a whole lot. There are a lot of sacrifices on your body. For anyone to come in and bring up the idea of
switching out, I love it. I really do.”
His on-field body language says even more than his words do, as he’s showing the motivation and vigor of a much younger player. Take,
for instance, his 35-yard third-quarter touchdown in last week’s game in Miami.
Once he moved into clear field, Holmes accelerated into a gear few knew he had. He broke into a rhythmic, head-pumping gallop that left
no doubt he wouldn’t be caught from behind.
Holmes, 32, has had to work for almost every yard in this most unusual of seasons. Not only has he shared playing time with Johnson, but
running room often has been scarce because of early-season blocking problems.
His statistics through six games, 413 yards and a 3.9-yard per-carry average, are pedestrian by his standards. But that’s not necessarily a
reflection on Holmes.
“He’s looking like he’s always looked,” said San Diego’s LaDainian Tomlinson, his counterpart in Sunday’s game between the Chiefs and
Chargers. “He’s showing great speed, and he’s really able to make people miss. His cuts are there, and his reads are there. He really looks
good. He’s still running hard. I don’t think it has any effect on him at all.”
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/13026419.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp 10/29/2005
Page 2 of 3
It, of course, is the rotation of two series for Holmes, one for Johnson that the Chiefs have adopted. They went to such a system not only
to play Johnson, but also save some wear and tear on Holmes.
They are accomplishing both. The Chiefs are sixth in the league in rushing even though Holmes, their top runner, is 20th in yards.
But it might never have worked without Holmes’ blessing.
“It allows for more of our good players to get on the field,” he said. “That’s one thing we didn’t have in the past. You would never see
some of the guys on the bench that had the same type of talent. It’s serving a great purpose for what we’re trying to do.”
The Chiefs might never have tried such an arrangement if Holmes had not bought into the idea. Coach Dick Vermeil acknowledged he was
so concerned over his star running back’s reaction to the rotation that it almost led the Chiefs to ditch the idea.
Then he pitched it to Holmes.
“I asked him if he liked it or disliked it,” Vermeil said. “There was some discussion behind closed doors between the coaches that maybe
we shouldn’t do it. So I went to him about it, and he said he loved the idea. That’s all I needed to hear.
“His frame of mind is good. To me, he’s just doing things as well as he’s ever done them. It’s amazing the things he sees that tell him
when to cut and when to do certain things with his body. He hasn’t lost that edge. Two weeks in a row, he’s made the play to win the
ballgame.”
It was the 35-yard touchdown last week. It was the 60-yard screen pass he took for a score against Washington two weeks ago.
Both plays were unlike the Holmes of old. Against Washington, he took a pass on the left side, made some yards and, seeing a dead end
there, cut all the way back across the field before breaking into clear field and finishing the play.
Holmes always had been content taking what a play gives and not give back something he’d already earned.
“That’s one phase of his game that he’d like to do, is make the big play,” offensive coordinator Al Saunders said. “That’s not typical of him
to try to cut back across the grain like that. He’s always been a guy that goes with what he sees in front of him.”
Holmes had other plays this year when he’s given ground in an attempt to do something more. That could be an indication he’s feeling
pressure to make the big play.
In past years, Holmes always had the next snap to make that big play. This season, Johnson might be getting that next snap.
“In terms of being competitive and being a running back, you want that competition,” Holmes said. “For him to go out and run a 90-yard
touchdown versus Seattle (in the preseason), that makes me that much more fired up to get out there when it’s my opportunity to make
that same type of play. It’s not something that’s a negative on me or a negative in our relationship. I think it’s more of a positive. It forces
me to be more competitive.”
The most difficult thing for the Chiefs to do in moving Johnson into the lineup was determining the best situations for one and the other.
They decided they couldn’t do it, so they opted for the two-series-one-series rotation.
It left them wondering many times whether they would have been better off with the other back in the game. Holmes has the patience and
vision and might turn a 1-yard carry for Johnson into a 5-yard gain.
Johnson has the size and speed and might turn Holmes’ 10-yard carry into something much bigger.
Holmes obviously wondered about this himself. The only time he would come close to criticizing the rotation is when he said this:
“With the running-back rotation, the play that might break is a play where I may need to be in there, but L.J. may be in there and his
running style may be different.”
All in all, Holmes will take things as they are. It’s no longer the chore to get out of bed on Monday that it once was when he shouldered
the whole running-back load.
That’s a thought that appears to set him free, in a way.
Page 3 of 3
“The wear and tear will change anybody,” Holmes said. “You can ask any running back what the punishment of being a running back does
to the body. I believe it’s a warrior position. It’s one you have to decide early on in your life whether or not you want to make that
sacrifice. I made it, and I’m happy where I’m at right now.”
Dean: Roaf can't be replaced 09/24/05
Page 1 of 2
CJOnline.com / Topeka Capital-Journal
Published Saturday, September 24, 2005
Dean: Roaf can't be replaced
By Rick Dean
The Capital-Journal
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Jordan Black may once again have to play in Willie Roaf's left tackle spot when the Chiefs
play in Denver this Monday night.
That's not the same as saying Black is ready to replace the venerated 10-time Pro Bowl tackle, the man-mountain
named the left tackle of the 1990s in balloting done for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
"I'll never fill Willie Roaf's shoes," Black said Friday. "His feet are way too big."
The day is coming, though, when the 35-year-old Roaf no longer will come limping on bad pins into the Chiefs locker
room each day. That time could come on a full-time basis next year. It also could come a lot sooner.
Roaf, who has missed all but the first quarter of Kansas City's two wins this year, remains
truly questionable for the Denver game. Coach Dick Vermeil said Friday that Roaf will try to
practice today, but the decision to play Monday could come down to how Roaf feels in the
Mile High air that evening.
Just as he's not certain whether he'll be starting on national TV on Monday, Jordan Black
doesn't know when, or if, he'll be called upon to become Kansas City's full-time left tackle.
Rick Dean
He has been acceptable, at best, in his first seven quarters as an NFL left tackle. The two
holding calls levied against him on back-to-back third-quarter plays in the red zone last week
in Oakland clearly weren't career highlights.
Black played left tackle in 38 games at the University of Texas but made his first NFL starts at right tackle in four
games for the Chiefs last year.
When the sore-legged Roaf was restricted to one daily training camp practice this year, Black moved from right to left
tackle and gained valuable experience. But then right tackle Kevin Sampson went down with a foot injury, and Black
was dispatched back to the right side.
Given his nomadic wanderings from left to right and back again, Black has flip-flopped enough to be elected in both
red and blue states. It's hardly the best way to learn the most valued and best-paid position on the offensive line. Left
tackles, remember, get paid a premium to protect the blind side of right-handed quarterbacks.
Black, at least, has one thing working for him in attempting the inevitable transition to Life After Roaf.
He will hear Roaf's low baritone voice in his head for a long time after the Louisiana Legend has retired.
"I don't even have to talk to Willie -- he's always talking to me, always giving me his input," Black said.
http://cjonline.com/stories/092405/chi_roaf.shtml
9/25/2005
Dean: Roaf can't be replaced 09/24/05
Page 2 of 2
In that regard, Black is in an ideal situation as a third-year player learning about his future position from one of the
game's best.
His first-quarter exam could come Monday night at Invesco Field when he protects Trent Green from Denver's Trevor
Pryce, a 30-year-old defensive end who in his prime was one of the league's better pass rushers.
"He's the total package," Black said of Pryce, who missed all but two games in 2004 with a back injury. "He's a crafty
veteran, very athletic. He's one of those guys who's hard to play against because he's big, he's strong, he's fast and he's
got a lot of tricks up his sleeve.
"It's a big challenge for any offensive lineman. I've got to step up and do what I can."
Rick Dean can be reached at [email protected].
© Copyright 2005 CJOnline / The Topeka Capital-Journal / Morris Communications
Contact Us • Privacy Policy • Advertise on CJOnline
http://cjonline.com/stories/092405/chi_roaf.shtml
9/25/2005
Steady Eddie
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Thu, Sep. 29, 2005
Receiver quietly efficient
Steady Eddie
Chiefs’ Kennison has peace of mind and some more impressive statistics
D
ante Hall knows what makes Eddie so steady. He found God, a home in Leawood and inner happiness.
“He’s like a fine wine,” Hall says.
“Maybe he’s just a late bloomer,” Chiefs receivers coach Charlie Joiner says.
Eddie Kennison, the Chiefs’ Chateau Haut-Brion, sits at his locker and offers up just one polite no comment. He says he doesn’t want to
talk about himself. He points to a sign on the wall. It’s a Bible passage. Write this down, Kennison says. That’s all he has to say.
But on Monday night in Denver, the Mile High fans gave him an earful. Every time Kennison, a former Bronco, touched the ball, they
showered him with boos. Kennison answered with eight catches for 112 yards.
Chiefs coaches say he’s playing the best football of his career, and his numbers have never been better. Kennison had his first 1,000-yard
season in 2004 and is on pace to do the same again with 16 catches for 240 yards in three games. He’ll turn 33 in January.
Did the changes in his life lead to peace on and off the field? Did the boos in Denver only inspire him? Kennison points to the sign, then
thanks you for your time.
The sign says, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than for men.”
There was a time when Kennison wasn’t always so quiet. In 2003, just before the Chiefs were about to play his old team, Kennison told
reporters, “We’re going to put something on their (rear end). You don’t think I’m serious? I’m about to get emotional just thinking about
it.”
But Hall, a fellow Chiefs receiver, says Kennison is just as emotional and passionate when it comes to his teammates. When running back
Larry Johnson was in the headlines earlier this month after an alleged altercation with a woman at a bar, Kennison followed him in the
hallway to listen as Johnson delivered a statement about the incident.
He nodded his head when Johnson was finished and followed him back to the locker room.
Kennison’s always been vocal, Hall says. But the players seem to listen more after his 2004 season, when he caught 62 passes for 1,086
yards. He had those numbers despite missing two games with a hamstring injury.
“He’s making more big plays, that’s what it is,” Hall says. “Eddie has always been a sure-handed receiver, if you ask me. Now I think he’s
elevated his game with what he does after he catches the ball.”
Kennison’s 240 yards rank fifth in the AFC. When Joiner is asked how a receiver can find his groove into his 30s, he refers back to his own
Hall of Fame career. Joiner didn’t have his first 1,000-yard season until he was 29. He played 10 more seasons.
Kennison, Joiner says, is successful because he has a good grasp of the offense. His positive attitude hasn’t hurt, either.
“He doesn’t play like an old guy,” Joiner says. “He plays like a young guy, and I think by doing that it’s keeping him young and thinking
the way he does keeps him young also. Age is just a state of mind to me.”
Kennison bounced from St. Louis to New Orleans to Chicago to Denver before landing in Kansas City with Dick Vermeil, his former coach
9/29/2005
Steady Eddie
Page 2 of 2
with the Rams. His stays in Chicago and New Orleans lasted a season. In Denver, he appeared in the first eight games in 2001 before
leaving the team because of family issues. The Broncos later released him.
When Kennison arrived in Kansas City, Hall said he was different from how he is now.
“He was just like any other typical young male with money,” Hall says.
Now Kennison is the Chiefs’ No. 1 receiver, he’s rattling off 100-yard games, and steady Eddie is content with keeping to himself.
“I think he’s found a home,” Vermeil says. “That people here care about him and respect him. He’s a leader on our football team, he works
very, very hard, and he’s a leader in the community. And I think he loves this community and the people in it. It was a great move for him
to end up here.”
9/29/2005
Roaf makes big difference
Page 1 of 3
Posted on Sun, Oct. 02, 2005
No. 77 has been the kind of dominating lineman the Chiefs’ offense can get behind. Unfortunately, he’s not playing today.
Sweet Willie was his nickname because he was big and gentle and never seemed to bother anybody. He swiped some chocolate-chip
cookies in kindergarten, but that was out of necessity. Willie Roaf’s dad was a dentist. No respectable lineman can eat that many apples.
A couple of hundred pounds later, Roaf is wearing a ratty, torn T-shirt as he plops down alone, like he has a thousand times before. The
lights come on, and the cameras swarm. He’s somewhat startled. Everybody wants to talk to him.
How’s your hamstring? Your life? Can you play Sunday? Please?
The life of an NFL lineman is that you don’t know what you’ve got until the big lug is gone. Roaf has been to 10 Pro Bowls, he’s played in
180 games, but the Chiefs’ left tackle has always seemed to drift from public consciousness.
Then Roaf’s hamstring pops, and the man who protects Trent Green’s blind side has turned Kansas City on its backside. Roaf won’t play
today when the NFC champion Eagles come to town. And that, for Chiefs fans, is reason to gasp.
“He’s been huge,” Chiefs offensive coordinator Al Saunders says, “and you can make your own assessments of what he means to this
football team. Only one or two offensive tackles in the NFL have the stature of Willie. Orlando Pace is probably the other one. This guy is a
10-time Pro Bowler. He’s the very best at what he does.
“Football starts with the offensive line, and pass protection begins with your left tackle. We do quite a few things differently without him.
You have to. It’s not even fair to ask somebody else to be at that level.”
Roaf sits at his locker and laughs at all the attention he’s finally getting … for not playing. But inside, there’s a pain of watching his
teammates get crushed at Denver last week, and knowing that at 35, this could be one of his last pushes toward a Super Bowl.
“I want to be out there,” Roaf says. “I’m disappointed because I feel like everybody’s depending on me.
“I’m not going to play football forever. Will Shields isn’t going to play forever. The young guys are going to have to play. This scenario may
be totally different next year. It’s kind of ironic … I talked about Will Shields coming back and never getting old, and I’m the one having
problems right now. I’m just happy it’s not going to be too serious and I can come back.”
On the Pine Bluff High School football team, they called Roaf “Sasquatch” because every year, his feet grew bigger.
Sophomore season, he wore a size 15. Senior year, he was up to 17s. Roaf didn’t have much meat on his 6-foot-5 frame then, but he
anchored the offensive line and led his team to the state semifinals. The Zebras depended on him.
“He wasn’t an imposing force like he is now,” says former teammate Trey Reid. “But he was a great player who was part of a good team.
“In two-a-days, when we were out there in August and it was 100 degrees in the shade in Arkansas, he was one of those guys who would
run wind sprints just as hard as anybody else and encourage the other guys not to loaf the last 10 yards.”
Having a father for a dentist and a mother who served on the Arkansas State Supreme Court meant Roaf never could loaf. In high school,
he was known as the kid brother of Phoebe or Mary, sisters who were A students and went on to Harvard and Princeton.
That, in the Roaf family, got you farther than touchdowns.
So Willie loaded up on trigonometry and physics and held his own. He didn’t totally fit in. He leaned sideways to squeeze into his desk. His
10/2/2005
Page 2 of 3
feet were so big that his trig teacher, Jerrel Boast, moved him to the front row.
“He wasn’t at the top of his class, but anybody who got in these classes was already a good student,” Boast says. “Here was a great, big
kid who was supposed to be mean and tough, and in class he was so gentle and respectful.”
Clifton Roaf taught his kids to use their minds and their God-given talents. He wants Willie, someday, to put his education to work. But
he’s been to every home game, junior high, high school and college, and drove 372 miles to New Orleans eight times a year when Roaf
played for the Saints.
Clifton is the one who made Willie honor his commitment to Louisiana Tech, a lower-level football program that actually paved the way for
Roaf to the NFL. Louisiana Tech had Petey Perot, an offensive line coach who was a former Eagles lineman. Perot taught Roaf NFL blocking
techniques. By his senior season, Roaf was an Outland Trophy finalist.
“He plays this vicious game,” Clifton says, “and somewhere, there’s a guardian angel watching over him. That is the reason he has not
sustained serious injury.”
In New Orleans, they called Roaf a warrior.
With a tear in his knee, he knocked heads with John Randle and got the better of the Pro Bowler. Roaf fought through three knee injuries
in his nine years with the Saints, but he broke a franchise record with seven Pro Bowl appearances. Some of those awards caused
animosity. But the Saints always counted on him.
When Roaf was in the game, former Saints quarterback Billy Joe Tolliver says, he never had to worry about the left side. Big Willie would
protect him.
“If you saw Willie Roaf in street clothes just walking you’d think, ‘God, how does that guy play anything?’ ” Tolliver says. “When he gets in
uniform, there’s a transformation. He’s got ballerina feet and front-end loader arms.
“The guy runs like a deer. I think that’s his secret. He lulls guys to sleep.”
Roaf started all 16 games at right tackle his rookie year, then moved to the left side. He was in on 3,392 straight plays before suffering a
partial MCL tear against San Francisco in 1996. But for all of his blocks, the Saints had just one winning season, in 2000, and one trip to
the playoffs.
The losing ate at Roaf. It depressed him. He was ready to get out at the end of 2001, and New Orleans was willing because of the
uncertainty with his knee. Roaf wanted to go to Denver. Coach Mike Shanahan, Clifton says, didn’t think Willie fit into the program.
So the lineman who was shunned by his home-state university and didn’t make all-state packed for Kansas City, a town that reveres its
linemen. And the snubs only motivated him. To this day, Roaf still talks about how his friend Trey Reid was recruited by Arkansas and he
wasn’t.
“The only thing I can say to opposing defensive ends is just don’t make Willie mad,” Tolliver says. “As soon as he is challenged, Willie will
step up to the challenge. He knows how to play with a controlled rage.
“Willie’s pride in his performance is tremendous. He doesn’t want his guy to beat him on anything.”
In Kansas City, coach Dick Vermeil calls Roaf his security blanket. He has trouble sleeping without him in the lineup.
Big Willie looked unstoppable in the season opener against the Jets. The first two series before his hamstring gave out, the Chiefs piled up
170 yards and two touchdowns. Roaf’s blocking was key on both drives. Roaf destroyed a would-be tackler before he could touch Priest
Holmes. Then Roaf was gone, and the Chiefs’ offense hasn’t been the same in a 2-1 start.
They’ve averaged 16.5 points a game with Roaf out of the starting lineup. Green was hit at least eight times at Denver.
Because it was Denver week, Roaf told the coaches he wanted to try to practice. He felt good after his work on the treadmill. His leg still
looked nasty with hematoma damage.
The pain doesn’t really bother Roaf. He’s played with it a hundred times before. But he can’t run and can’t explode with the leg, and that’s
what kept him out.
10/2/2005
Page 3 of 3
“We definitely miss him and want him back as soon as we can,” Green says. “But we want him back for the long haul. We don’t want him
to come back for a week or two and then miss another week or two.”
That means Roaf is willing to wait one more week if it means he’ll have 12 to manhandle the Chiefs’ opponents. In some ways, he’s
enjoying the brief limelight. The last time he got this kind of publicity was in 1997, when Atlanta defensive tackle Chuck Smith dominated
Roaf in one rare game.
An excerpt in Pro Football Weekly the next season read, “How well can a young offensive line built around William Roaf … play? And,
speaking of Roaf, can he regain the form he had displayed until the start of the ’97 season, when he showed up with a lot more gut and a
lot slower feet and gave up a ton of sacks to the Falcons’ Chuck Smith in their first meeting?”
Roaf, who was William early in his career and will always be Will to his family, still grimaces at that one bad game, and the fact that he
was put under the microscope for it. When a lineman does his job, Roaf says, nobody says anything. When he doesn’t …
That’s when people pay attention.
“Look at all the guys who are out for the year right now,” Roaf says. “I could’ve torn something up, and it wouldn’t have been my decision
whether I come back or not. Look at Rodney Harrison. His career could be over. He’s got two Super Bowl rings, but his career could be
over right now.
“Good thing I’m not gone permanently.”
The Chiefs depend on him too much.
Missing NO. 77
Willie Roaf played less than 12 minutes before he was injured on the 15th play of the Chiefs’ first game Sept. 11. Here’s how the Chiefs
fared during those brief minutes with Roaf and how they fared since then.
With Roaf
Without Roaf
NYJ
Category
15
Offensive plays 46
NYJ Oak
6-6
Comp-Att
9-20 18-28 23-44
87
Pass yards
104 237
83
Rush yards
115 125
74
9.2
Yards/rush
4.6
3.4
11.3
Yards/play
4.8
5.4
4.2
2-2
Third downs
2-8
5-16
4-15
14
Points
13
23
10
65
Den
68
221
3.5
Star reporter DeAnn Smith contributed to this report. To reach Elizabeth Merrill, Chiefs reporter for The Star, call (816) 234-4744 or send
e-mail to [email protected]
10/2/2005
ESPN.com - Chiefs missing Roaf on the line
Page 1 of 2
ESPN.com: NFL
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Chiefs missing Roaf on the line
By Mark Schlereth
ESPN Insider
The Kansas City Chiefs started the season hot, with two impressive looking wins over the New York Jets and the
Oakland Raiders. Their offense was exceptionally balanced and the defense was dominant. Then, all of a sudden, the
wheels seemed to fall off and they dropped two games to Denver and Philadelphia. The Broncos completely dominated
the Chiefs 30-10 with a good running game and a defense that shut down the Chiefs' running game and pressured QB
Trent Green. The Eagles defeated the Chiefs with a great comeback as they were able to get pressure on Green and
force him into some mistakes late in the game.
The common denominator in those two losses is that left tackle Willie Roaf didn't play in either game because of an
injury. Because of the serious talent on the Chiefs' offensive line with left guard Brian Waters (Pro Bowler last season)
and right guard Will Shields (10 Pro Bowls) leading the way in Roaf's absence, some people thought the Chiefs would
be able to get by. Those people don't understand the importance of the left tackle to the offensive line.
I played left guard at a high level for 12 seasons and made it to a Pro Bowl and I know that even in my prime, I couldn't
play the left tackle position. After the quarterback position, left tackle is the toughest position on the field to play and
especially in the Chiefs' case.
Roaf has the ability to neutralize the opposing defense's No. 1 pass rusher, which helps because in comparison to the
rest of the line, the right tackle is the weakest link. His presence on the left side allows the Chiefs to line up a tight end
on the right side to help that tackle because the left tackle doesn't need the help. It helps a great deal when you're able to
turn protection to the right side because that defensive end is typically the bigger of the two ends.
Roaf's absence also hurts the Chiefs' passing game because now they have to keep tight end Tony Gonzalez in for a
second longer before he can go out to run his route. That means that he's running a lot more shorter routes in which he's
easier to be accounted for and also takes away his deep seam routes that help take the safety away from the run.
Gonzalez's deep seam routes also prevent the safety from playing a true Cover Two, which allows the receivers to get
open over the top for Green.
Another way Roaf helps this team is through his athleticism. The Chiefs love to run a lot of draws and toss plays where
Roaf and the line use their athleticism to get out to into the space and into the second level of the defense. That allows
Priest Holmes to pick his lane and wreck havoc in the secondary. Roaf is one of the most athletic tackles in the business
and easily can chase and run around with linebackers. The loss of Roaf has stifled the Chiefs' most effective running
play because they don't have another tackle with that type of athleticism.
The biggest issue for the Chiefs, though, is the lack of continuity on the offensive line. Losing anyone on the offensive
line means that someone with less experience with the group has to step into the group. That means a loss in the chain
of communication, which all good offensive lines have in abundance. Now all of a sudden the years of communication
that a line has built up are eroded because of the loss of one of the links. Many linemen are used to a quick piece of
verbiage that gets them on the same page. When they have to explain the language to the new guy, they're a little bit off
their rhythm. Oftentimes, the guys on the line communicate with each other nonverbally with just a look or a grimace
to signal what should be done in the blocking scheme once they get on the line. Now all of a sudden, with a new guy in
the mix, those nonverbal clues are gone and the line will start to struggle.
http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2187210&type=story
10/12/2005
ESPN.com - Chiefs missing Roaf on the line
Page 2 of 2
I had an experience in 1996 when I was with the Denver Broncos and we lost left tackle Gary Zimmerman to a
shoulder surgery so we were going to start second-year pro Jamie Brown. We went up to play the Green Bay Packers,
and the decision was made to start Bill Musgrave at quarterback instead of John Elway. Elway had a injury and it was
deemed not worth it to start him in a game that was meaningless to us since we'd already secured home field advantage.
My job as the left guard had an entirely new dimension to it because I had to tutor Brown on the job while I was also
trying to get used to Musgrave's different cadence and snap count. It wasn't that Brown didn't know what to do in
certain situations because he did, but he just wasn't comfortable because it was his first start. So there I am, trying to get
used to a new quarterback and a new left tackle and we were getting the snot kicked out of us. At one point after a
series, I walked to the sideline, and my line coach completely went off on me, telling me that I was taking too long to
get in my stance and that it was throwing off the quarterback. I'm standing there, getting yelled at for trying to help the
new guy, so I gave it right back to my coach and shoved my helmet in his chest and told him to get out there and play
the position.
Luckily for the Chiefs, they aren't running into those kinds of problems on the sideline, but until Roaf returns, they are
going to be in trouble.
Mark Schlereth, a three-time Super Bowl-winning lineman, is a regular contributor to Insider.
http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2187210&type=story
10/12/2005
They’ve got Black’s back
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Sun, Oct. 02, 2005
Chiefs teammates come to support Roaf’s replacement
Before Willie Roaf’s hamstring popped, probably the biggest smudge on Jordan Black’s career came in his senior year at Notre Dame, when
he was suspended half of a game for parking violations.
Now Black answers to an impatient red-clad mob who counts his holding penalties, the Chiefs’ quarterback sacks, and the fact that in his
third year in the NFL, Black is not Roaf.
“It’s good because I get to play,” Black said. “But at the same time it sucks because mistakes that are made, if I don’t play on Willie’s
level, people are not used to that. People are used to Willie and the exceptional things that he does. If something doesn’t happen right in
the game, I’m the first person they’re gonna look at.
“Willie’s not here so it’s Jordan, I guess.”
Up next for the Chiefs’ young left tackle today is Philadelphia and a stingy, blitzing defense that has given up just 37 points in three games
and forced six turnovers. And Black knows the Eagles have watched tape of the “Monday Night Football” debacle in Denver and took notes.
Coach Dick Vermeil said the Chiefs learned a lot from their own video view of the game, when the Chiefs had more penalty yards than
rushing yards and it was essentially over by the end of the first quarter, when the Broncos had a 17-0 lead.
Some of it was scheme, Vermeil said. Some of it was the Chiefs being one-dimensional. Ten of their first 15 plays were passes, and Priest
Holmes and Larry Johnson, two of the offense’s biggest stars in a 2-0 start, were held to a combined 74 yards.
“The biggest thing you can’t do,” fullback Tony Richardson said, “and I don’t care what tackles you put in there, if you get one-dimensional
all those defensive ends do is take about 2 more inches outside and they pin their ears back and come rush your quarterback.
“So what we have to do, obviously, is play our style of football and mix it up. And Willie Roaf would say this, if he had to protect against
Jevon Kearse for 50 straight plays and he was running up the field, it would be a long day.”
All Roaf is telling Black is to hang in there and keep doing what he’s doing. What has been lost in all the Roaf-Black comparisons, Vermeil
said, is the fact that one of the NFL’s most stable lines has not played together, really, since the 2004 season.
Roaf and fellow veteran Will Shields sat out for chunks of training camp while they were nursing ailments. Kevin Sampson, who won the
10/2/2005
Page 2 of 2
starting right tackle job during training camp, has been sidelined with a turf-toe injury. Backup John Welbourn is serving a four-game NFL
suspension. But Sampson is back and will start today, and Black will continue to learn.
“Jordan’s going to get better every week,” Roaf said. “The problem is, Jordan was moving around from right to left, and when Welbourn
went (out), he played good at right tackle. We had four guys solidified. But anytime you throw two new tackles in there, it turns up a lot of
things.
“He’s doing good. He’s learning on the run.”
He’s learning how high emotions can run after a bad game. In the postgame gloom in Denver, Black, who was called for a holding penalty,
pinned the loss on himself. He retracted that later, saying he was 1/53rd of the reason they lost.
As much as he misses Roaf, Pro Bowl guard Brian Waters said it’s unrealistic to think that one lineman’s absence led to what happened at
Denver. He said the Chiefs won’t change much of what they do today. They’ve played without Roaf for 2½ games. They’re 2-1.
“I don’t think one guy or three guys probably would’ve made a difference in that game,” Waters said. “The number of things we did wrong,
we did as a group, not only on our side of the ball but in all three aspects of the game, even some preparation, our scheme vs. their
scheme.
“I don’t think one guy would make that much of a difference at all.”
10/2/2005
Cold, Hard Football Facts.com: Home
Page 1 of 3
All words
Many happy returns
Cold, Hard Football Facts for October 6, 2005
By Cold, Hard Football Facts senior writer John Dudley
Cold, Hard Football Facts provide the ultimate vehicle for evaluating gridiron performance.
By road-testing theories, crunching numbers and considering context, definitive
conclusions can be drawn about a particular player’s value.
In general, superlatives like “best” and “greatest” are largely reserved until the end of the
ride. It is only after a large body of work has been produced that an individual’s career can
be given a thorough inspection and properly judged relative to his peers.
Dante Hall of the Chiefs is the rare exception to that rule. Playing just his sixth season in
the NFL, he has already become the greatest scorer on kickoff returns that the game has
ever seen.
Hall tied an NFL record on Sunday by registering a kickoff-return touchdown for the sixth
time. His 96-yarder gave Kansas City an early 24-6 lead over Philly, but the Eagles rallied
for a 37-31 victory. Hall now shares the career mark for kickoff-return TDs with Ollie
Matson, Gale Sayers, Travis Williams and Mel Gray.
What makes Hall the best of the group? He also returned a kickoff for a touchdown in the
playoffs, something that none of the other four ever accomplished. In his only postseason
game to date, a 38-31 loss to Indy on Jan. 11, 2003, Hall took one back 92 yards for a
score. Combining both the regular season and the playoffs, he has seven touchdowns on
kickoff returns, putting him alone at the top.
Sayers, the former Bears star who made the Hall of Fame despite a career that lasted just
seven years, established the standard for return productivity. His average of 30.6 yards
per kickoff return, set over 30 years ago, is still the record today among those with a
minimum of 75 returns. In his first three seasons, Sayers scored touchdowns on six
kickoff returns and two punt returns – but his combined total remained at eight until his
early retirement. However, he returned just 118 punts and kickoffs in his career, giving
him an amazing touchdown rate of 6.7 percent (8 TDs on 118 returns). No player, not
even Hall (10 TDs on 386 returns, or 2.6 percent), can touch that figure.
Actually, Hall’s impact on the return game was much less immediate. He entered the
league in 2000 but saw limited action in just five games. His playing time increased in
2001, when he participated in 13 games and established himself as the Chiefs’ primary
return man, but he failed to reach the end zone with any of his 75 chances on punts and
kickoffs.
Hall played his first 16-game season with Kansas City in 2002, and he quickly became
http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/Article.php?Page=471&Category=1
10/10/2005
Page 2 of 3
one of the most feared returners in the league. Taking two punts and a kickoff back for
scores, he was subsequently named to the Pro Bowl. For his career, Hall has four puntreturn touchdowns to go with his six kickoff-return TDs (seven counting playoffs).
Including the postseason, he now has played in 62 straight games for the Chiefs,
providing the driving force behind their phenomenal special teams.
At just 5’8” and 187 pounds, Hall is definitely a compact model, but he possesses great
wheels. He is a master at changing direction and weaving through traffic. He has been
dubbed “The Human Joystick” for his variety of moves and uncanny ability to stop and
start, much like a player in a video game.
Appropriately, Hall’s career highlights almost seem computer-generated. In 2003, he
became the first player in league history to return a kick for a touchdown in four
consecutive games. Those record-setting TDs, on two kickoff returns and two punt
returns, covered an average distance of 91 yards.
Kansas City has progressively used Hall more as a wide receiver as well. In Sunday’s
game, he also added a 15-yard touchdown reception, which was by far the shortest score
of his career. Still, Hall holds the NFL record for longest average length of regular-season
touchdowns, for those with at least 10 TDs. His 15 career touchdowns – six on kickoffs,
four on punt returns and five on receptions – have averaged 78.8 yards.
Counting the first four tilts of 2005, Hall has played in 70 regular-season games. With ten
kick-return touchdowns to his credit, the easy math tells you that he has scored on a kick
return in one out of every seven games he’s played. His return-TDs-per-game percentage
of .143 is the best in NFL history. Only the legendary Sayers (.132) is close.
For combined touchdowns on kickoffs and punts, Hall now stands in third place on the alltime list. He trails only Brian Mitchell and Eric Metcalf, who played 14 and 13 seasons,
respectively. With 1,070 career returns, Mitchell has far and away the most of any player
in the history of the league, easily leading both categories. Metcalf, meanwhile, has 351
punt returns, the second-most in NFL history behind Mitchell’s 463.
Here’s a breakdown of the six most prolific scorers on kick returns (active players are
denoted with an asterisk):
Returner
Team(s)
Kickoff
TDs
Punt
TDs
Total KickReturn TDs
Years
Brian Mitchell
WAS, PHI, NYG
4
9
13
14
Eric Metcalf
CLE, ATL, SD,
AZ, CAR, WAS, GB
2
10
12
13
Dante Hall*
KC
6
4
10
6
Ollie Matson
CHI, LA, DET, PHI
6
3
9
14
Mel Gray
NO, DET, HOU, PHI,
TEN
6
3
9
12
Deion Sanders* ATL, SF, DAL, WAS,
BAL
3
6
9
14
In less than half as many full seasons as the other players on the list, Hall has surpassed
all but two of them. Mitchell and Metcalf each had one kickoff-return TD in the playoffs, so
taking the postseason into consideration doesn’t change the differential. It should also be
noted that Mitchell and Metcalf reached their levels by logging considerable miles on the
odometer, and both continued to add to their totals very late in their careers. Mitchell was
still returning kicks for touchdowns in his 11th, 12th and 13th seasons, while Metcalf’s last
return TD came in his 12th year.
10/10/2005
Page 3 of 3
Of the game’s most productive return men, Deion Sanders is the only other one who’s still
playing, but at age 38, he hasn’t been fielding any kicks for Baltimore. Meanwhile, Hall
just turned 27, so he is still in his prime...and has plenty of time. The Human Joystick
occupies the pole position for rewriting the record books when it comes to returns for
touchdowns.
Coaches may love long, sustained drives, but Hall finds them unnecessary. Whenever he
gets his hands on a kick or punt, Chiefs fans can expect to be taken on a dazzling joyride.
Next stop: the end zone.
Find us at CHFF.net | Advertise with us | Get the CHFF e-delivered! | About us | Contact us | Privacy policy | Terms of use | Pigskin & Sausage Links
© Copyright 2005, Pigskin Media Inc. "The Cold, Hard Football Facts" and coldhardfootballfacts.com are trademarks of Pigskin Media Inc.
- Coldhardfootballfacts.com requires the Flash 6 plugin or greater -- best viewed in 1024 x 768 resolution - POWERED BY TWCM
10/10/2005
For Tynes, it’s about forgetting the misses
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Wed, Oct. 12, 2005
Kicker is confident
He is seven of nine for Chiefs this year
“I mean, there’s no one out there who’s better than me.”
Lawrence Tynes, Chiefs kicker
With his fiancée lingering near the gate for moral support, Lawrence Tynes slipped on a flame-retardant suit and went 170 mph. It seemed
right. In the three months since training camp, who has had a wilder ride than the Chiefs’ kicker?
First Tynes got a new holder. Then he got a rap sheet and a reputation for inconsistency. By August, after Tynes missed two field goals in
a preseason game, coach Dick Vermeil said his kicker was “in the tank.”
Now Tynes was waiting for NASCAR driver Johnny Sauter to fill his tank so they could go tooling around the track for a test drive. In the
meantime, Tynes dropped Adam Vinatieri’s name in the conversation.
“I’m very confident in what I can do,” Tynes said. “Maybe that’s why I never thought I was going to get released. I mean, there’s no one
out there who’s better than me. Unless you bring in (David) Akers or Vinatieri. In my opinion, those are the only two guys that I think
could come in and replace me.”
Tynes is confident. He has kicked three straight field goals and is seven of nine for the season. His .778 percentage is the same as
Vinatieri’s and better than Denver’s Jason Elam’s (.615). Tynes said the media created more drama over his early season struggles than
was there.
He received so much ink that last month in Denver, Elam told Tynes he had read about his problems before the Monday-night football
game. They shared one thing in common, and it probably played a part in their inconsistency. Tynes and Elam recently changed holders.
Tynes was breaking in rookie Dustin Colquitt, who had never been a holder. Colquitt, an All-American punter from Tennessee, had trouble
keeping the ball steady during training camp.
But they’ve worked through their problems with a little together time, and while most of the team went home during last week’s bye,
Tynes and Colquitt were in Kansas City practicing on their own.
“Whatever makes a field-goal kicker feel good, and I’m for it,” Vermeil said. “Kickers and holders usually become good friends, and in our
situation, it’s the punter and the kicker. They’re both fine young men, they both truly want to be successful pro athletes and work at their
craft. Neither is perfect. But what I like is how they work together to try to become perfect, to make it clockwork.”
Tynes calls Colquitt a “very, very talented kid” who is bound for the Pro Bowl. He tells Colquitt a bye week is more about rest and focus
than going out and having fun. He said kickers were like golfers. They had to keep their legs and their swings sharp.
Tynes was sharp enough last year to prompt Vermeil not to bring in any kickers to challenge him during training camp. He hit 17 of 23
field goals and 58 of 60 extra points. Then came the rocky summer, which included an arrest for allegedly being involved in a bar fight
during training camp, and last month, the Chiefs brought in Todd France for a workout.
Vermeil decided to stick with his kicker.
Page 2 of 2
“I think Lawrence is maturing into a pretty good kicker,” he said. “Today, everybody’s standard is 100 percent. If you miss one, they say,
‘The guy can’t kick.’ Vinatieri is pretty close, but he misses once in a while.”
Tynes said one of the keys to sticking around in the NFL was forgetting about the misses. And having a little attitude. Tynes starts some of
his sentences with, “In my humble opinion … ” Sometimes, it’s not entirely humble. He took the test drive with Sauter last week, then
taught the driver how to kick a football.
Tynes, who grew up in the South, has always had an appreciation for NASCAR drivers and their penchant for adventure.
Being a kicker in the NFL is sort of like living dangerously, too. The Chiefs are 2-2, and Tynes knows sometime he’ll probably be called to
deliver a kick in the final seconds.
“That’s why we play the position,” he said. “Some people think we’re crazy. But if you don’t want it to come down to you on a Sunday,
then you shouldn’t play in this league.”
And you certainly shouldn’t go 170 mph.
Kansas City Chiefs - GRETZ: One Man's Offensive Opinions
GRETZ: ONE MAN'S OFFENSIVE
OPINIONS
Page 1 of 3
edit | staff
OCT 12, 2005, 8:19:52 AM BY BOB GRETZ - FAQ
During the bye week, the Chiefs offensive coaching staff broke down every aspect of
the team’s attack. Al Saunders and his guys put the juggernaut up on the rack and
looked at everything.
That needed to be done. The Chiefs offense hasn’t been firing on all its cylinders
through the first quarter of the 2005 season. Yes, the production numbers show it’s
not that much different than last year after four games. But then that isn’t much of a
measuring stick, given the fact the Chiefs were 1-3 last year.
Let’s be honest: the bar has been set pretty high for this offense based on its
production over the last few years. The start of this season hasn’t been up to snuff.
They are fourth in the league in average rushing yards per game (135.3 yards) and
11th in average total offensive yards per game (345.3 yards.)
But they are tied for 15th in offensive touchdowns (9), tied for 17th in TD production
inside the 20-yard line (seven TDs in 14 trips), tied for 20th in first downs (77), 19th
in average gain on first down (4.89 yards per play) and 24th in third down
conversion (35.3 percent.) Trent Green is the 21st rated passer in the league (77.6),
Priest Holmes is 18th in rushing yards (305 yards) and 32nd in yards from
scrimmage (381 yards.) Tony Gonzalez doesn’t rank among the top 50 receivers in
the league in catches and yards. Those are not numbers we’ve come to expect from
this group.
The sunshine in this picture is past performance. Saunders has proven himself
creative as a game planner and the players are too talented to expect the numbers
to remain in the mediocre range. Yes, they’ve got some tough defenses to face in the
immediate future in Washington (5th in fewest yards allowed) and Miami (fourth.)
But the Chiefs have dented good defenses for scores and yards before (remember
Atlanta last year.)
A big part of the offense hasn’t been there: left tackle Willie Roaf. His absence
cannot be discounted and just waved away. The biggest offensive problem the Chiefs
had in losing to Denver and Philadelphia is keeping people off Green. He was sacked
five times and driven to the ground at least another dozen times in those games.
http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2005/10/12/gretz_one_mans_offensive_opinions/
10/12/2005
Page 2 of 3
Roaf would not have solved all those problems, but his absence was a problem. With
a new face at left tackle and a new face at right tackle, Saunders was forced to alter
game planning and play calling and save the first quarter against Philadelphia, the
Chiefs never got into a rhythm in those two games.
Roaf is back and that’s the first step in helping the Chiefs offense. I have three more
suggestions. Remember, I’m not an offensive coordinator; I just play one on the
radio. There’s nothing earth shattering here and I’ll bet all three of these items have
been discussed at length by the offensive staff.
But besides making sure Roaf has a ride to practice every day, this is what I would
do:
z
Get Gonzalez the ball.
Brilliant strategy, right? I told you there’s nothing earth shattering here, but
Gonzalez needs to get the ball more than four times a game. He has 16 catches so
far this season, for an average of just 8.1 yards per catch. That’s four yards under
his career average.
He’s being under-utilized. He needs to have four catches in a half.
z
Get Tony Richardson on the field.
The Chiefs have a lot of weapons in their offensive tool box that Saunders is trying to
work into the flow. There’s the combination of Holmes & Larry Johnson and how they
mix. There’s trying to fit in Dante Hall on the outside for his explosiveness and then
Kris Wilson at tight end.
Seemingly forgotten has been Richardson. Early in the season he was battling a
couple of injuries, but Richardson said this week he’s as healthy as any soon to be
34-year old who has been banging heads in the league for 11 years. For evidence,
just ask Champ Bailey. The Broncos defensive back still hasn’t gotten back on the
field after Richardson ran him over during that Monday night game in Denver when
supposedly the Chiefs weren’t playing very hard.
This season, the Chiefs have gone more and more to the two tight ends, with
Gonzalez on the field paired with either Jason Dunn or Wilson. That leaves
Richardson out of the mix.
At this point in his career, Richardson is a blocker first and foremost. Having him in
10/12/2005
Page 3 of 3
there on passing situations would provide help for Green no matter where the
penetration might be coming from. That’s something an extra tight end can’t do,
since he’s tied up at the line of scrimmage, with only one man. If there’s nobody to
block, Richardson can leak out and catch a pass if there are no other options.
Plus, there’s no debating what kind of lead blocker he is for runs on the perimeter.
z
Throw the ball more to Holmes & Johnson.
I think the Chiefs offense works best when the running back is catching passes out of
the backfield. Whether screen passes or just Green’s dump offs, these plays have
been a big part of the offense over the last four years.
Early last season, the Chiefs went away from throwing the ball to Holmes; in the first
four games of 2004, he caught just five passes. In the first four games of the 2003
season, Holmes had 17 catches, including a pair of 31-yard gains. In the first four
games of the 2002 season, he had 22 catches. In the first four games of the 2001
season, his first with the team, he had 16 catches.
After four games, Holmes has 12 catches. Johnson has one. That’s not enough. Roaf,
more Gonzalez, more Richardson and more throws to the running back will energize
the Chiefs offense.
The opinions offered in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the Kansas
City Chiefs.
A former beat reporter who covered the Pittsburgh Steelers during their glory years,
Gretz covered the Chiefs for the Kansas City Star for nine years before heading up
KCFX-FM's sports department. He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's
Board of Selectors. His column appears three times a week during the season.
Copyright © 2005 Kansas City Chiefs.
Send this page to a friend!
10/12/2005
Chiefs’ joyride sputters
Page 1 of 2
Posted on Fri, Oct. 14, 2005
Offense seeks boost from Roaf
By ADAM TEICHER
For those who consider themselves mere mortals, the early-season trends would hardly be reason for concern.
For the Chiefs, who expect to be so much more, the offensive numbers are mildly alarming. They are 18th in passing, 13th in scoring, 11th
in yardage, middle class in most every respect.
The Chiefs knew their offensive joyride had to end sometime. You might quickly conclude that their four-game pedestrian output is the
first sign of such a decline, but that may be premature.
“It’s way too early to say there are chinks in that armor,” ESPN analyst Mark Schlereth said. “All you can really go on is that first game of
the season when they manhandled the Jets. That’s more of an indication of this offense because that’s when Willie Roaf played. A lot of
what’s happening out there is due to the fact they’ve had a busted-up offensive line. That would happen to any team, and you have to
take that into account.”
Sunday’s game against Washington at Arrowhead Stadium might be the best gauge yet of the Kansas City offense. Washington will bring
the NFL’s fifth-rated defense, the highest the Chiefs have seen this season.
But Roaf, the Chiefs’ All-Pro left tackle, will play for the first time since the first quarter of the season opener. The Chiefs have blamed his
absence for everything from their offensive malaise to the high price of gas.
So getting him back will provide a confidence boost, if nothing else.
“He adds confidence to everybody in that group,” coach Dick Vermeil said. “He adds confidence in game-planning. We’re going to try to
benefit from his return.
“Because of concerns we had with pass protection, we didn’t go downfield much with the ball. We didn’t work the tight end down the field
as much as we normally do because that takes time. It makes a big difference. It makes a big difference in the confidence of the signalcaller.”
The Chiefs are counting on Roaf to do more than lift morale. They will lean on him to improve faulty pass protection that left quarterback
Trent Green battered and bruised after the last two games.
“He allows you to block one defender without assistance,” offensive coordinator Al Saunders said.
“He can handle Dwight Freeney (of Indianapolis) and guys like that, some of the great pass rushers. With Willie back, we can help out the
other offensive tackle if we choose to do that.”
Roaf’s absence had a ripple effect on many facets of the offense. Green faced greater pressure, so the Chiefs protected him with extra
blockers.
That goes against everything Saunders believes in, but he felt a need to do it to reduce the beating his quarterback was taking.
“For the last three years, that’s been a major part of our ability to be flexible in the passing game,” Saunders said. “You’d like to have five
receivers out on every pass you call. Every time you keep in one more eligible receiver, you lessen the ability to take advantage of the
defense. That puts more pressure on your individual receivers to be better than the defensive players that are covering them. The
numbers aren’t in our favor. They’re in the defense’s favor.”
Tight end Tony Gonzalez has been affected more than anyone else. Gonzalez has been used as a pass blocker more frequently and often
Page 2 of 2
ran shorter, quicker routes without Roaf. He has 16 catches, an acceptable number. But he has no touchdowns and a ridiculously low 8.1yard-per-catch average.
“Not having Willie Roaf was affecting them in a lot of areas,” Schlereth said. “It affects their ability to run the ball and control the clock
when they need to. It affects their pass protection. They’ve had to change their protection because he’s been out. Tony Gonzalez has to
stay in and block more.
“They’ll make offensive strides this week. You’ll see Tony Gonzalez become Tony Gonzalez again. You’ll see him control the middle of the
field and open things up for them on the outside.”
Listen to such talk and it’s easy to conclude that Roaf, and not Green or Priest Holmes, is the Chiefs’ most valuable player. Roaf chuckled
at this notion but could see from his sideline view that something wasn’t right with the offense.
“It hasn’t looked the same,” he said. “It hasn’t been the same. I don’t think it’s all because I haven’t been there. Maybe some of it. We
went out to Oakland and played a big game without me and beat them out there, and that’s tough to do.
“Take Willie Roaf out of the equation. You’ve still got Trent Green and you’ve still got Tony Gonzalez, you’ve still got Priest Holmes, you’ve
still got Larry Johnson, you’ve still got two Pro Bowlers on the offensive line, you’ve still got Eddie Kennison. You’ve still got a football
team. We can be effective when Willie Roaf is out.”
For short bursts, they were. The Chiefs scored on their first three possessions two weeks ago against Philadelphia.
They didn’t get another offensive touchdown until the final moments after the Eagles had built an insurmountable lead.
“We haven’t been able to establish a No. 2 receiver,” Roaf said. “They talk about Johnnie Morton and he didn’t do whatever. Well, he came
to play every week, and he played hard. We haven’t been able to find a guy to do that, and that’s hurting us. Eddie Kennison is having
another outstanding year, but we need somebody else to step up and be consistent.”
That job is Samie Parker’s. In his first year as a starter, Parker got off to a quick start but has done little but drop passes since.
Dropped passes. Spotty pass protection. Inconsistent play from Green. An inability to shake Gonzalez loose.
They’re all problems but even taken together probably aren’t symptoms of a downhill slide.
“You start to wonder about that when guys can’t separate from coverage, if Gonzalez can’t get away from a safety anymore or can’t make
the big catch over the middle,” Schlereth said.
“You start to wonder if Eddie Kennison can’t break one-on-one coverage or if Priest Holmes doesn’t have that extra burst, if Trent Green is
slow in his drops and slow in his reactions. If you see those things, then I think you can say, ‘This doesn’t look good.’ I don’t see those
things right now.”
To reach Adam Teicher, Chiefs reporter for The Star, call (816) 234- 4875 or send e-mail to [email protected]

2005 kansas city chiefs seasonal highlight clips

Transcription

Similar documents

project profile - Bowden Contracting Co.

Thursday, April 24 @ 7:30pm AMC BarryWoods 24

coo panel discussion - Chiefs of Ontario Education Portal

12-Time Pro Bowler (1995-06)

the chief `s Fouled anchor

2016JRRocks Camp

NFL Champions Football Trivia

rhs alumni - riverhead.net

ZONA ROSA - Olshan Properties

Zona Rosa Milestones of the Development