Important Time of the Year . . . Monday Cup O’Chiefs

It become one of those unusual moments in sports history that thanks to videotape, has been seen millions of times on the Internet. Troubled former NBA star Allen Iverson was speaking at a press conference back in 2006 at a time when he was feuding with the Sixers management and coaches.

He was benched for a game because he did not show up for a team practice. “We are talkin’ about practice,” Iverson said over and over again. “We’re not talking about a game, we are talking about practice … how silly is that.”

Practice comes in many different forms but it is the one thing all sports share, and its one thing most athletes share on an individual basis – they don’t like practice. They just want to play games. They don’t want to be talking about practice.

We are talking about practice today, particularly as it concerns the Kansas City Chiefs and their first OTA session that will go down Monday morning at the team’s facility. While it will be a practice far different than ones that will come in training camp and during the season, it’s the first chance for this edition of the Chiefs to come together and begin the process of building a team.

Iverson may have thought practice unnecessary and “silly” but it’s hugely important in a game where there are 22 players on the field for every play, with that group changing by 50 percent on some plays within a possession. …Read More!

Chiefs End of Week Notes – Bell Signs With Jets

Free agent S Yeremiah Bell was talking contract with four teams on Thursday.

On Friday, he’s down to one team and signed a one-year $1.4 million deal with the New York Jets.

The Chiefs, Eagles and Titans were the other suitors that did not make it to the pay window with the nine-year veteran.

Why did Bell pass on the Chiefs? That’s easy – they didn’t offer the most money. No slap at Bell, but a veteran of his experience is going to take the most money 99 percent of the time.

Why did the Chiefs not sign Bell? We can only surmise that GM Scott Pioli does not consider him a $1.4 million backup, which is essentially what he would be if Kendrick Lewis and Eric Berry are healthy. The problems come when starters like Lewis and Berry are injured and a player like Bell is needed, but they are never available because they signed with another team a long time before the injury. That’s what leads to four different players starting 15 games; that was last year’s scenario at strong safety after Berry went down on the first defensive play of the season. …Read More!

Answer Bob – Final Batch

More questions, more answers. Here’s the last batch. Thanks for your interest and thoughtful questions.

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ChiefsZed says – Hi Bob, I think Hemingway could be a great pick for the Chiefs. What do you think about lining him up as a second TE in some situations? Yes, he’s undersized for a TE, but is also said to be a good blocker. It could be a creative way to get more play-makers on the field. P.S. Yours is the only blog I’ve found that offers blunt commentary on the Chiefs. Keep it coming; I want to root for my Chiefs with my eyes wide open.

Bob says – Thanks ChiefsZed and I can assure you my eyes are wide open to what happens with this team and organization. As for Hemingway, I don’t see them using him as a second tight end when they’ve got Tony Moeaki (if healthy) and Kevin Boss on the roster. Both of those guys are better receivers and blockers than Hemingway. Where he can gain a roster spot is with his play on special teams and if he shows the willingness to block in the running game. His background at Michigan playing in three very different offensive schemes is going to help him adapt faster than some other rookies. Plus, he seems like he’s a good kid with a nice personality. …Read More!

Free Safety Fight? … Thursday Cup O’Chiefs

Neiko Thorpe (left) and Tysyn Hartman (right) will challenge Kendrick Lewis (middle) at free safety.

Starting next week, the Chiefs will be on the field for the first of the ten OTA practices they will hold before the middle of June.

It will be an opportunity for players to perform at closer to game conditions than anything that will happen between now and the start of training camp.

If there are battles for starting positions, it’s during the OTAs when it will first show itself. There will be small signs of upward mobility for players who aren’t running with the first team. Guys that have been in the starting lineup may find changes in the number of practice snaps he takes.

Slowly, the competition builds and then in training camp it becomes obvious.

As the Chiefs begin OTAs, there does not appear to be many spots in the starting lineup where it’s realistic to say there is a chance of a fight for the position. Possibly nose tackle depending on whether the coaching staff simply plants Dontari Poe as No. 1 and lets him play his way into experience. The fifth skill position spot on offense figures to be interchangeable between fullback, a second tight end and possibly a third wide receiver.

And there may be another starting spot up for grabs – free safety. …Read More!

Answer Bob – Batch No. 2

Our second collection of answers to your questions. Keep’em coming.

Michael D says – Bob, as always thanks for all the great work you do providing us your insight on the Chiefs. I guess I misunderstood or better yet more naive then I thought about the rookie pay scale. Please break it down for us so my brain can stop bugging me with, “Why is Poe not signed yet?” GO CHIEFS!!!!

Bob says – Michael, I understand the confusion. I would expect we’d see Poe signed any day now. The fact he was taken in the top half of the draft makes matters a bit more complicated than the second half of the 32 picks. But it’s all pretty much cut and dried as far as parameters of the money. There are different and creative ways to pay that money off and Poe’s agency CAA and in particular his agent Jimmy Sexton has been known to be tough negotiators, in no hurry to make a deal on somebody else’s timetable. Sexton’s not returning messages and the Chiefs don’t talk about these things, so we are left to ponder. As long as Poe is with the team, working the off-season program and taking part in OTAs and the team mini-camp in June, then it doesn’t really matter. …Read More!

RIP – Bill Walsh

He was football’s first successful Bill Walsh, the best Bill Walsh that was ever part of the Kansas City Chiefs.

William Ernest Walsh rose through the coaching ranks and eventually built one of the great NFL dynasties in the modern era with the San Francisco 49ers of the 1980-90s. But long before he established himself as one of the league’s coaching greats, William Henry Walsh had already made a name for Bill Walsh in football. He was a college All-American center at Notre Dame, an NFL veteran of six seasons and an NFL assistant coach who became one of the best position coaches in the game’s history.

(That’s Hank Stram, Lamar Hunt and Bill Walsh in the picture on the right, several years after the franchise moved Kansas City.)

Walsh passed away on Sunday at his home in Atlanta. He was 84 years old. …Read More!

Chiefs Busy Signing, Adding Players

There were six new contracts that the Chiefs sent to the league office early Wednesday morning.

They signed two of their four previously unsigned draft choices: 2nd-round pick OL Jeff Allen and 5th-round pick DB DeQuan Menzie. No financials on the four-year deals yet. That leaves 1st-rounder NT Dontari Poe and 3rd-round T Donald Stephenson as the only unsigned members of the 2012 draft class.

Also signed were four new members of the roster, giving the Chiefs 87 out of 90 slots filled at this point. Those new players are:

• DB Dominique Ellis out of South Carolina State and NC State where he played in 48 games over his college career. The 5-11, 195-pound native of Georgia, He finished with a combined 139 tackles and 10 interceptions.
• OL Rich Ranglin out of the Arena Football, where he was the league’s offensive lineman of the year in 2011. Ranglin played for three different Arena League teams over three seasons. At 6-3, 315 pounds, he played his college football at Central Connecticut State, the alma mater of GM Scott Pioli.
• TE Martin Rucker who spent the last four years in the NFL playing for four different teams, after his college career at Missouri. The St. Joseph native was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the fourth round of the 2008 NFL Draft when Romeo Crennel was head coach.
• LB Leon Williams is another former Browns draft choice, also a fourth-round pick but in the 2006 NFL Draft. He spent three seasons in Cleveland then the 2010 season with the Dallas Cowboys and was out of the NFL last season. The 6-3, 248-pounder played linebacker at the University of Miami.

Answer Bob – The First Batch

We’ve picked the first fruit off the Ask Bob tree and here’s the harvest.

milkman says: Bob- although it may have been a necessary evil, is it just me or do the new CBA restrictions have the potential of an inferior product being put on the field compared to years past? (At least the first part of the regular season anyway). With all the limitations on practices it just seems like it will take longer for all coaching staffs to get their points across. And do you think this was negotiated by the players because of coaches who went to extremes? (The old Dick Vermeil and Tom Coughlin for example). Add to that it is harder for us diehards to get skinny on our favorite teams cause there’s nothing to report. Thanks again for this site.

Bob says: milkman – you are a man after my own heart. I think the new rules and regulations on off-season work, and even in-season practices, has gone way too far and has the potential to hurt the game. Luckily, the teams are all on the same page, although you can bet there are teams that are going to stretch the limits of the new rules on the amount of time players can practice. The players negotiated for the practice limitations because no player likes to practice; it’s one of the few items that entire rank ‘n file can stand up for. And, it wasn’t so much any tough coaches like Vermeil and Coughlin, or Jimmy Johnson or Bill Parcells, or Bill Cowher – notice something all those tough guys that demanded tough practices share in common. In all my years of covering pro football – this year will be 36 seasons – I’ve only known of one player that enjoyed practice – Dale Carter. That was just another example of how “different” Carter was, but he actually enjoyed being on the practice field and would not hear it, when it was suggested that he might want to sit out to protect an injury. …Read More!

Twitter on Tuesday = Chiefs news

Twitter is a fact of life today. For those under the age of 30, if they are not tweeting then they are out of the loop. That’s certainly true among football players, both college and pro, because they love to tell everyone what’s happening in their life even down to this tweet filed by former Chiefs DB Maurice Leggett Tuesday night:

“bout to shower.”

But news comes out of Twitter quite a bit these days. There was some involving the Chiefs on Tuesday:

• Late Tuesday evening, ESPN‘s Adam Schefter tweeted that former Miami safety Yeremiah Bell (that’s him #37 dueling with WR Dwayne Bowe above) would be visiting with the Chiefs on Wednesday. Bell is an unrestricted free agent, 34 years old, who has spent the last 11 seasons with the Dolphins. He has 560 total tackles in 110 games with 75 starts. Bell also has 11 sacks, 6 interceptions and 9 forced fumbles. He made the 2009 Pro Bowl.
• St. Joseph native and former Mizzou TE Martin Rucker tweeted “I’m a Kansas City Chief” indicating that after he took part in two days of the rookie mini-camp last week, he signed a contract with the team. No official confirmation from the Chiefs.
• Fourth-round draft choice Devon Wylie decided that wearing the No. 83 was too much weight for him and comparisons to Wes Welker. So he tweeted that he’s changed numbers and is now wearing No. 19: “My number got changed to 19 today … Love teen#’s!”
• St. Louis sportswriter and radio host Howard Balzer tweeted Tuesday night that the Chiefs had agreed to terms with second-round draft choice Jeff Allen out of Illinois.
• The St. Louis Post-Dispatch tweeted in the afternoon that the Rams had signed former Chiefs right tackle Barry Richardson as an unrestricted free agent.

Chiefs Plan To Celebrate Golden Anniversary

The 2012 season will be the 50th for the Chiefs in Kansas City and the franchise has put together a list of activities to honor its past and present with their fans.

Team chairman Clark Hunt unveiled the team’s plans on Tuesday during a press conference at Union Station. It’s an eight-prong initiative to celebrate the move of the franchise to Kansas City for the 1963 American Football League season.

PERSONALIZED JERSEY

Season ticket account holders are already in the process of receiving their own Chiefs game-day jersey, personalized with name and number. The jersey also comes with a special season ticket patch (STH) along with the Lamar Hunt special AFL patch. …Read More!