Inside The First Meeting of Camp

From River Falls, Wisconsin 

The Chiefs arrived on the UW-River Falls campus late Thursday afternoon.  They picked up their room keys, handled personnel items, had their first meal of training camp and promptly at 7:15 p.m. had their first team meeting of the season. 

The head coach allowed us to sit in. 

There were several messages Herm Edwards wanted to deliver to this team.

Here’s my column on kcchiefs.com about the most important element Edwards wanted his players to carry out of the meeting. 

Here are a few more observations and thoughts on the meeting that lasted approximately 30 minutes. 

When Edwards walked into the theater in the University Center at 7:12 p.m., he was the last man in the room.  Every player, coach and support staffer was already in place.  When he stepped on the small stage at the front of the room, his audience immediately grew quiet.  This bunch was ready to get started. 

Chiefs GM Carl Peterson spoke first.  In his brief remarks he reminded the players that while they were visitors in River Falls they were representing the Hunt family and the Chiefs organization.   Next was head trainer David Price, who reminded the players of treatment and training room policies. 

Then it was the head coach’s turn.  He handled some housekeeping items (no bikes in the dorm.)  He spent several minutes showing his team a list of NFL players who had run into trouble over the last month.  Edwards reminded them of their responsibilities and told them the Commissioner was wielding a heavy stick when it came to bad off-field behavior. 

Through it all, there were no players falling asleep, no conversation in the audience.  Assistant coaches sat at the back of the room.  Players were to the front.  Support staff stood against the back wall.  Using an overhead projector, Edwards began the 2008 season by talking about the 2007 season and the major reasons the team suffered through its 4-12 record.  He felt it was important that the returning players understood very clearly where they failed.  He also felt it was very important that the new players understood the reasons last season happened and why they would not be repeated again this year. 

One of the things that Edwards always talks about with his players is mental toughness.  In several different ways verbally and visually, he drove his point home to this year’s group.  The most obvious was the team’s poor second half play.  Here’s a visual that he placed  on the overhead to prove his point.

His most memorable quote summarized the problems of last year and the goal for this training camp: 

“We start changing that now, right here, in training camp. It’s not something you suddenly pull out in the fourth quarter of a game in November.  It means taking personal responsibility right now, with every practice and every meeting.  It’s not about physical talent in this league, it’s about what’s up here (he pointed to his head.)  It’s about knowing the situation, knowing that it’s time to make a play to win the game and knowing how to make that play happen. 

“You can’t just show up.  You have to do more.  We will do more, because I can tell you this, I’m not putting up with a season like last year again.  I’m all out of ‘tried hard’ speeches.  I don’t want to do any more of those.” 

With that, he sent the coaches and players out the door and into offensive and defensive meetings.  

The 2008 season had begun.