The Kansas City Chiefs are hard at work, already preparing their players for the 2020 NFL season. They began Phase I of their virtual offseason program on April 20. Now, they’re working on intensifying things, using the technology and opportunity at their disposal.
The COVID-19 pandemic has vastly altered how NFL spring football training regimens are structured. The NFL and NFLPA agreed to a voluntary virtual offseason program, to help offset the loss of traditional rookie minicamps and voluntary veteran minicamps.
“. . .We’ve attacked this thing the best way we possibly can with virtual technology,” Chiefs HC Andy Reid said during his May 1 conference call. “We’re still doing our installs, we’re doing our scheme evals, we have two-hour meetings with the players Monday through Thursday and we’re going to start with the rookies today. It’s kind of a three-day virtual rookie minicamp. So, we’re staying on top of it and we’re using all the technology we possibly can to help communicate things to guys, and thank goodness the technology is pretty good.”
The biggest problem that veteran players like Tyrann Mathieu noted is that coaches who are typically very hands-on, like defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, are having to learn how to adjust. They have to learn to become adjust their coaching style to become equally effective in a virtual environment. For Reid, it’s all about maintaining good communication and ensuring players know their responsibilities, especially when it comes to the rookies.
“We’ll have a team meeting today and I’ll talk to them just a little bit about the format, welcome them to the Chiefs,” Reid said. “Then a variety of people will talk to them and get them coached up on different areas – whether that’s (Vice President of Communications) Ted (Crews) with the media side of it or (Vice President of Sports Medicine and Performance) Rick (Burkholder) with the training side of it, the health and well-being part – so my support staff will talk to them. Then they’ll get with their coaches and get ready to go. What does that include? The introduction to the offense, the defense, special teams, all three phases will be highlighted in it. We’ll go from 12 to 2 p.m. CT with the offensive and defensive coaches working with their players and Dave Toub will take it from 2:15 to 3 p.m. with them and talk about special teams. So, we’ve got it pretty well organized, the coaches have everything set up to where they have a nice progression for the guys to learn from, whatever phase it is – offense, defense or special teams. It should be a nice introduction for them.”
The big goal for Reid and the coaching staff is to get as much of the minutiae and classroom work finished now as they possibly can. That way, when they are able to finally get out on the practice field, the players are prepared and ready to go.
“What we’re going to do after is the following week, we’ll be back with the veteran players for one week,” Reid said. “And then we’ll have a follow-up week, the week of the 15th, we’ll have another week where we just have the rookies and we’re able to continue on with them. They can’t come in until the 11th, so we’ll have them for that week there, and we’ll do that virtually also. So, we’ll be able to spend some time with them and try to narrow that thing down so that when they actually get on the field, they’re not thinking quite as much as they would have been if we weren’t hammering it in right now, so they can play a little bit better and show off their talents.”
This training is certainly all an adjustment for Reid, the coaching staff and the players. But they’re not going to let the differences caused by the pandemic hold them back from their ultimate goal of becoming repeat Super Bowl champions. They’re going to play with the hand of cards they’ve been dealt and make the best out of it.
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