Mark it down: Chiefs buck trend, show yen to lose pounds
The Kansas City Chiefs just might be the biggest losers in the NFL.
And that’s good news.
To be specific, the Chiefs have lost a combined 340 pounds this year -- and not, say, by cutting some rotund defensive tackle. They lost the weight through hard work, something apparently in short supply when the team went 2-14 last season.
“We were out of shape and not really strong,” said new Coach Todd Haley, who has put a premium on his players dropping some pounds. “I talked to our strength coach at Arizona [where Haley was offensive coordinator last season] and he said if you’re a highly efficient team that’s working, you lose about 120 to 150 pounds in the off-season.”
The Chiefs face more than their share of hurdles. With a defense that produced an NFL-record-low 10 sacks last season, and an offense in transition -- and missing All-Pro tight end Tony Gonzalez -- Kansas City would do well to win six games this season.
But the way Haley sees it, getting in shape was priority No. 1. To that end, he instituted mandatory weigh-ins at the beginning and end of each week, making players who were too heavy on Fridays do extra running. He sat in the weight room every day and watched the workouts, and had his coaches monitor things when he couldn’t. (It will be interesting to see how players ultimately react to that, seeing as they often judge coaches by whether they “treat us like men.”)
Regardless, Haley identified the problem and set out to fix it. In the process, he shed some serious pounds himself, going from 217 to 192.
“The players understood that to be around, we weren’t going to have a fat team,” he said in a telephone interview. “And if you were fat, we’d probably just move on at some point as soon as we could.”
The approach wasn’t always subtle. Take the case of tackle Branden Albert, who was selected 15th in the 2008 draft. He went from chiseled to chunky last season, winding up at least 30 pounds heavier than when the Chiefs drafted him from Virginia.
Chiefs General Manager Scott Pioli found Albert’s picture from the scouting combine, when the player was a relatively svelte 309 pounds, and taped it to his locker. The inspirational needling did the trick.
“The guy was 303 yesterday,” Haley said. “He’s on an eating plan and carries his meal around in a Tupperware. He’s lifting, and he’s so much stronger. He’s almost got abs coming through.”
Albert, who Haley said “looked like a mess” when he started the program, passed all his rigorous conditioning tests last week.
“It’s just a huge transformation,” Haley said. “He’s put himself into a position to compete and potentially be great.”
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Anger management
Haley isn’t always a hothead. But he plays one on TV.
One of the enduring images from the NFC championship game was of Haley calling a string of excellent plays against Philadelphia while angrily arguing with receiver Anquan Boldin, who pulled off his helmet and was briefly restrained by teammates.
“That changed everything for me,” Haley said. “I couldn’t go anywhere in Phoenix after that. I used to be able to hide against the wall, but then everybody knew me all of a sudden.”
He doesn’t mind players thinking he could blow a gasket at any moment, whether it’s true or not.
“You’d much rather have that than to be glad-handing and patting somebody on the butt; you don’t want that as your reputation,” he said. “I’m going to be about pushing you hard and not pulling any punches.”
And, hey, Haley made the right calls -- against a Philadelphia defense designed by the outstanding Jim Johnson, no less -- and the Cardinals wound up winning.
“Here I’m trying to call plays to win a championship and I’ve got somebody yapping behind me,” Haley recalled. “It took us to the Super Bowl, and then all of a sudden it became the perception of, ‘What’s this player doing? Is he an idiot? This coach is trying to call plays.’ ”
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Watch for this
Now that Comcast and the NFL Network have come to an agreement, other cable operators presumably will follow suit. Watch for the league to reach out to Time Warner within the next couple of weeks.
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And this too
Something you might have missed about the NFL’s four-year, $4-billion deal with DirecTV: For the first time, the league licensed the right to stream entire game broadcasts online. That will happen no later than 2012 and figures to be a boon for people who want Sunday Ticket but can’t get the satellite signal. Hello, New York apartment dwellers.
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Call him Bogey
In the week before the U.S. Open, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger shot an 81 at Bethpage Black, with birdies on two of the tougher holes, Nos. 10 and 15. Hey, Big Ben should hold off changing his middle name to Crenshaw, but that’s not bad.
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Tweets of the week
(@tomweir_usa2day) “Just asking: Can some legal expert explain why Michael Vick (dogs) got 2 years and Donte’ Stallworth (human being) got 30 days?”
(@steverushin) “Depending on viewpoint, Brett Lorenzo Favre is an anagram of ‘Frozen-Over Battler’ or ‘Rot, Brazen Leftover.’ Which is it, Viking fans?”
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