Conversation with Gunther

From River Falls, Wisconsin

The first time I spent any time talking with Gunther Cunningham was here in the northwoods.  The Chiefs were riding the bus over to Mankato, MN for a practice session against the Minnesota Vikings.  It was training camp 1995, Gunther’s first with the Chiefs.  Sitting in the back of a bus, with the cornfields of central Minnesota flying past, he explained his defensive philosophy.  It was a passionate, learned conversation about football.

Little did I know it would be the first of literally hundreds of similar conversations we would have over the next 13 years.

The thing I came to understand that day in the summer of 1995 was that Cunningham was a passionate guy, who also happened to be pretty smart.  Since then, I’ve seen a lot of people under-estimate the intelligence of this German.  He doesn’t just have a football doctorate in defense; he’s always a step ahead of the curve in how to deal with players, how to teach, how to dissect tape, how to use computers, and on, and on.

Gunther is the most new “old school” guy I’ve ever been around.  I learn something new every time we talk.

Sunday afternoon’s practice was completed at UW-River Falls when I asked Gun if he had a minute.  A half-hour later, he was still talking about his linebackers and about his defense.  Here are some of the highlights.

BG: So, two plus weeks into camp, where do your linebackers stand right now?

GUN: We’ll put three out there. The three that are working together right now – Derrick Johnson, Pat Thomas and Demorrio Williams – all three of them are at least 4.5 (seconds  in the 40-yard dash) if not faster. They’ve gained a lot of experience in the last week.  Donnie (Edwards) has been out for a week and Pat made his move in the middle.   He’s very athletic.  I was very impressed with all three in Chicago.  They played 20 to 22 plays and they all had four or five tackles, Derrick broke up a pass.  Since then, they’ve gotten better in practice.  Demorrio has probably made the biggest jump since the Bears game.  He’s really improved.  He’s starting to understand.  We’ve used him as a pass rusher and Pat as a pass rusher and Derrick as a pass rusher.  We are experimenting with an old defense we used to play with three linebackers on the field with three down guys and they all have show they can do that (rush the passer.)

I’m pretty happy with those three guys.  The disappointing thing is Donnie Edwards being hurt.  I’m looking for some young guys.  Wes Dacus has shown some improvement and LeRue Rumph had a pretty good camp early on and he’s fallen off for whatever reason.  But we need to make sure we can find those young guys and make sure they step up if we need them.  I think we can put four guys on the field that will play pretty fast and pretty intense and hopefully better than what we’ve been able to do for the last couple of years.

(Since coming back to the Chiefs in 2004, these have been Cunningham’s starting linebackers:  Johnson, Edwards, Scott Fujita, Monty Beisel, Kawika Mitchell, Shawn Barber, Kendrell Bell and Napoleon Harris.)

Donnie’s hamstrings have become almost a chronic problem, given that he had them last year and now again in camp.  How concerned are you about that?

It’s an issue, no doubt. First of all there is no player in this league who can go out and play without practicing. One of our formats here is that if you don’t practice, you don’t play.  So that’s going to be an issue with veteran players.  Hopefully he will get well and he can participate over the last two weeks of the pre-season and we can make some decisions on the ways we want to go.

The best thing the organization did in the off-season was sign Demorrio Williams. He struggled early on with the terminology, the verbiage and learning a new scheme.  But in the last couple practices and the Bears game, I was surprised how well he played.  He wasn’t given the opportunity in Atlanta to do some of the things that we do here.  I’m really pleased with where he is.  I’m pleased with the other two guys.

I think Derrick (Johnson) needs to get stronger.  He needs to do some weight room work because he wears down.  He practices so darn hard that he becomes a little lethargic the next day.  I’ve talked to him about it.

Any chance long term that Derrick Johnson becomes a middle linebacker?

No.  That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.  That’s not his game; he’s an outside linebacker.  Although what isn’t ridiculous if the fans notice and don’t know the intricacies of our scheme, he will line up in the middle at times.  All of our linebackers are interchangeable parts.  To call him a middle linebacker is wrong, but is he going to play in there? Yes, he’s going to play in there.  We’ll let everybody else figure out what to call him.

That’s the key to this whole thing.  Offensive teams count numbers, and they try to identify who the mike linebacker is.  If you look at those three guys, they all look alike.  There have been times in practice where I’ve called out ‘Nice play D.J.’ only to look closer and see it was Pat Thomas who made the play.”

You are looking for athleticism, speed and the third thing: do what you’re told.

Most important is do what you’re told. That’s paramount. That’s how the whole thing comes together.  The more that happens, the more excited I get.  The more I can see these guys do within our scheme, the more I can pull out of the past and put back in the scheme. With these linebackers, there are a lot of things we can do that I have had under wraps for the last few years.

Tell me about some of these young guys that you have, Wes Dacus, LeRue Rumph, now Oliver Hoyte is over there with you. Are there any prospects there?  Let’s start with Hoyte.  Does he have enough time after making the move from fullback?

The one thing he does have is that the players all love him.  He’s a big hitter.  You know what he is? He’s a carbon copy of Tracy Simien (Chiefs linebacker 1991-97).  We’ve had a couple practices where he has drilled a few offensive linemen, so he brings a lot of maturity to the group.  He’s a top-flight special teams player.  The one thing we have there is he could always go back to fullback if there’s a problem there if we had any kind of injury. If he’s the six or seventh part of the linebackers crew, then you’ve got something special there.

Of those young guys Dacus is the guy you like the most?

Yes, and Le Rue Rumph has had a good camp too, but in the last four or five days, he’s had a tough time.  He probably can’t handle me, that is probably his biggest problem. I tried to love him up a little bit and that didn’t work.  I went after him and that didn’t work. So I don’t know what I’m going to do with him.  He’s got some good skills and he’s got good character.

Wes Dacus started a little slow here, but in the last week and a half, he’s really stepped up.  I saw him play as a sophomore at Arkansas and I always kind of liked him.  We had a one one-on-one coverage drill the other day and Tony Gonzalez was standing behind me and he said ‘Damn’ when he watched Dacus. He said ‘Gun, he moves like a corner.’ He really has those kinds of skills.  He can drop his hips and he’s really fast. He’s smart and tough.

This game is more than it used to be.  It’s a mind game now, so many formations, so many adjustments. In defense of those young guys, we have all our coverage package in, and I’ve never had that whole thing in at this time of the year.