Speaker 1: This is the Chief's official podcast network, taking dannage on
Speaker 1: the day. When you get up, they can play one
Speaker 1: touchdown Kansas City the Chiefs. All right, in the thick
Speaker 1: of it, baby, all right, we welcome to this edition
Speaker 1: of Defending the Kingdom, of course, brought to you on
Speaker 1: our podcast network by the great folks at three sixty Vodka,
Speaker 1: the official vodka the Kansas City Chiefs hometown vodka. Great
Speaker 1: for the holidays, three sixty Vodka. Mitch Alters with you
Speaker 1: the Voice of the Chiefs, along with the ten year
Speaker 1: National Football League veteran Sean Barber aka Barbershop aka the
Speaker 1: Shop aka the Spider. All right, I'm gonna take you
Speaker 1: back to your early days in the National Football League.
Speaker 1: We've got a ton of people, thousands of people that
Speaker 1: listen to this podcast. There is one dedicated listener. He
Speaker 1: lives he grew up and you're almost your home area.
Speaker 1: Then he moved down Frederick, Maryland. But he graduated from
Speaker 1: high school in nineteen ninety nine. So he loved boy bands.
Speaker 1: He loved in sync. This week's show, Bye Bye Bye,
Speaker 1: and I know it was like your favorite song when
Speaker 1: you're with the Reds. Yeah, while we're talking to Backstreet Boys,
Speaker 1: in Sync, Boys to Men, New Kids on the Block,
Speaker 1: ninety eight degrees Old Town. You know, I had to
Speaker 1: throw it back. We found so many different boy bands.
Speaker 1: But coming into this week twelve bye week for the Chiefs,
Speaker 1: I think it was important for us that this look
Speaker 1: at the bye week and bye bye bye from so
Speaker 1: many different angles to help the fans realize what a
Speaker 1: bad week really means to NFL player and what does
Speaker 1: it mean to this specific team. Now, in the first
Speaker 1: quarter of this podcast, we're gonna take a glance back,
Speaker 1: and this has been a interesting eleven weeks of the
Speaker 1: regular season, but I'm gonna take it back to the offseason.
Speaker 1: I'll take it back to training camp because this team
Speaker 1: has had to deal with expectations, They've had to deal
Speaker 1: with injuries, and they've had to deal with the challenging schedule.
Speaker 1: At this point, let's talk about the expectations. I was
Speaker 1: warning the Chiefs Kingdom all throughout the summer and saying,
Speaker 1: no year in the NFL, do you start where you ended?
Speaker 1: Like the fans were ready to go, Let's go right
Speaker 1: back to the AFC Championship game and d Ford gets
Speaker 1: called for off sides and go there are no ski
Speaker 1: lifts in this league. You climb killaman Jaro every year.
Speaker 1: And what we've chief or seeing the Chiefs to do
Speaker 1: here is the equivalent of a rock climb. Yeah, each season,
Speaker 1: there is no continuation. You don't you don't start where
Speaker 1: you left off. You don't just say, all right, we
Speaker 1: had a great quarterback, We're bringing back all our offensive weapons,
Speaker 1: We're going to add a new defense, new defensive coordinator,
Speaker 1: and let's just you know, leave where we left off.
Speaker 1: We got to the FC Championship game, came up an
Speaker 1: off side short of going to the Super Bowl. So
Speaker 1: let's just uh, you know, kind of finish where we started. Now,
Speaker 1: you're right, we had to start back from the breaking
Speaker 1: it down to the fundamentals, the foundations um and defensively
Speaker 1: learning an entire new, uh kind of way of life,
Speaker 1: a whole new mantra of defensive football. No more that
Speaker 1: been no break defense. This is an aggressive style. Defense
Speaker 1: is coming at you. And we've been tweaking things as
Speaker 1: we go from week one to now week twelve. And
Speaker 1: are you seeing our defense kind of morph a little bit,
Speaker 1: do a little bit more pressure packages, doing it with
Speaker 1: some different people. And we had some guys step up.
Speaker 1: Some guys we haven't expected to step up, and now
Speaker 1: they're part of this defensive mix. I love the way
Speaker 1: that the win in Mexico City happened, now that it's
Speaker 1: a win, because the Chiefs had to grind through it.
Speaker 1: To your point, it was just it was kind of
Speaker 1: a microcosm of the season to this point. There wasn't
Speaker 1: it ain't pretty about it. It It wasn't fantasy football. It
Speaker 1: was reality football. In the defense jelling to get four
Speaker 1: interceptions against Philip Rivers. All right. Another part of this season, Barbershop,
Speaker 1: has been the injuries. You can't ignore it. I went
Speaker 1: back and looked of the thirteen of the twenty two
Speaker 1: starters that started the Jacksonville game. Thirteen of those twenty
Speaker 1: two have missed time already this season. It equals to
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty quarters of man hours missed. That
Speaker 1: means almost two entire games of not having any starters.
Speaker 1: It's what that equals. And yet this team is seven
Speaker 1: and four. Yeah, seven and four is still a top
Speaker 1: the AFC West. And that's the goals you set. You
Speaker 1: can't really determine what your wreck is gonna be. You
Speaker 1: can't determine who's gonna be healthy, who's not? Um, you
Speaker 1: just say, hey, when we get midway through the season,
Speaker 1: halfway through season, if we get to week ten, eleven, twelve,
Speaker 1: and we're we're somehow we make it to being first
Speaker 1: in our in our division, what is that moving forward?
Speaker 1: And I think we look at the other teams under
Speaker 1: the vision Um. Everybody thought the Charge was gonna be
Speaker 1: the the air apparent. Uh, they Denver, you know, the
Speaker 1: defensive Denver with Vic Fangio coming in was gonna be
Speaker 1: something to be dealt with. And we always thought that
Speaker 1: the Raiders is gonna be a team that maybe a
Speaker 1: year or two away. Um with with Grooden and may
Speaker 1: All getting in there, it's gonna take him a year
Speaker 1: two to work through the draft and started to get
Speaker 1: those new faces in there and get familiar what he
Speaker 1: wants done. But it hasn't been at all that the
Speaker 1: Raiders are nipping on our heels. Um going into week
Speaker 1: twelve with us being at first place, and it's been
Speaker 1: the Raidar the Broncos and the Charges that both have
Speaker 1: kind of fallen to the basement of the se West. Well,
Speaker 1: this should be Nick of Frederick Maryland's favorite podcast its
Speaker 1: Defending the Kingdom episode Bye Bye Bye. Yes, we give
Speaker 1: a shout out to end Sync for their hit in
Speaker 1: the year two thousand. So the second quarter of this
Speaker 1: podcast now deals with just using the bye week. And
Speaker 1: before I get to that, I do need to mention
Speaker 1: this has been a tough schedule when you look the
Speaker 1: Chiefs are seven and four, but there's seven of those
Speaker 1: teams that are playoff contenders. And you look at the
Speaker 1: win over Baltimore looks really good right now, and the
Speaker 1: win over Minnesota looks really good right now. And this
Speaker 1: Chiefs team has won five games away from Arrowhead Stadium. Yeah,
Speaker 1: five games often you know, away from the from the stadium,
Speaker 1: a way from your fan base. Um steal. I know,
Speaker 1: I know in the heart of our our team, we
Speaker 1: want to be better at home. We want our we
Speaker 1: want to create a home field dominance. But that's not
Speaker 1: to take away the necessity of actually winning your division
Speaker 1: game games, one of your conference games, and being able
Speaker 1: to go on the road and play good football anywhere,
Speaker 1: no matter what the scenario, no matter what day of
Speaker 1: the week, whether it's Thursday night, Sunday, Monday football. You
Speaker 1: want to be able to continue to grow as a
Speaker 1: program continue to grow as an organization, and I think
Speaker 1: that's the one thing that we can hang our hats
Speaker 1: on here in Kansas City. I think our team is
Speaker 1: getting better and better each week. It's not always we
Speaker 1: haven't always received a win from the effort and the
Speaker 1: amount of determination our players to put on the field,
Speaker 1: But I think they feel like they're growing with the
Speaker 1: trust and the communication between the coaches and the players,
Speaker 1: and I think they like right where they are right
Speaker 1: now heading into this by being able to recoup a
Speaker 1: little bit and then looking into the second half of
Speaker 1: the season, I think they've built muscle fibers. What I
Speaker 1: think they built, I think that this is there's some
Speaker 1: toughn this team that they've had to show to survive
Speaker 1: to this point. All right, now, let's get to the
Speaker 1: second quarter, and that is using the bye week properly
Speaker 1: or needing the bye week. Let's go second quarter needing
Speaker 1: the bye week, and that is let's just start physically.
Speaker 1: I mentioned the injuries. There have been a plethora of them.
Speaker 1: There were some coming out of the game in Mexico City.
Speaker 1: But as a player you played in the league for
Speaker 1: a decade, using the bye week physically let's just take
Speaker 1: it right from there, because there's gonna be some people
Speaker 1: still working. The athletic trainers, some of the medical staff,
Speaker 1: some of the guys have to stick around. They won't
Speaker 1: be able to travel because they're rehabbing but physically using
Speaker 1: or needing the bye week. Yeah, you talk about guys
Speaker 1: needing the bye week, and you've already broke it down.
Speaker 1: How many quarters we've we've had starters miss But that
Speaker 1: doesn't even account for all the knicks, right, all the
Speaker 1: little twist ankles, high ankle sprains, the quads, the domino tears,
Speaker 1: and the shoulder issues, and you know, all these little
Speaker 1: issues the people have been getting regular treatment on all
Speaker 1: throughout the season. Now those guys will be able to
Speaker 1: kind of get down with their trainers and the weight
Speaker 1: room guys and and UH and the staff and really
Speaker 1: kind of hone in on some of these little reoccurring
Speaker 1: knicks and bruises that have been coming up weekend and
Speaker 1: week out and try to really alleviate some of those
Speaker 1: aches and pains. So when we get out of this
Speaker 1: bye week and we have that next next home game
Speaker 1: bursus the Raiders, we're able to be as close to
Speaker 1: a one hundred percent as close to healthy as possible
Speaker 1: for our organization. Second in needing the bye week, and
Speaker 1: that's mental. Now, when you play for Andy Reid, I'll
Speaker 1: get him a lot of credit, but you mentally mentally
Speaker 1: better being tuned through OTAs through offseason program when you
Speaker 1: hit camp. I mean they put in like eleven weeks
Speaker 1: worth of plays when they're in training camp, through over
Speaker 1: four hundred plays in this offense right now, that's just
Speaker 1: the offense and the defense you mentioned has been learning
Speaker 1: and you know, progressing as the weeks go on. But
Speaker 1: from a mental standpoint to just back off, to kind
Speaker 1: of shut things down for a second, how important is
Speaker 1: it mentally to do that? Y'all? You know, you sacrifice
Speaker 1: so much time away from your friends and family to
Speaker 1: play this game. They say it starts early in the
Speaker 1: off season. Then you get ramp up through training camp
Speaker 1: when you're away almost a month straight. And then once
Speaker 1: the season start, you still aren't at home. You're always
Speaker 1: had the organization always up here to facility, practicing, preparing
Speaker 1: for the game. Whether you're traveling or at home. It's
Speaker 1: football season. And so then you get to a point
Speaker 1: where you get to the bye week, now for the
Speaker 1: next ten days, you're able to just solely make your
Speaker 1: family priority one. You can catch up with your kids,
Speaker 1: catch up with your your wife. Luckily, you know this
Speaker 1: Bay week is hitting around Thanksgiving. You see some guys
Speaker 1: mentally check out from the football. You know, probably not
Speaker 1: even watch a game all weekend long, just to really
Speaker 1: push that reset button. And then when you come back
Speaker 1: after the bye week, it adds some purpose and passion
Speaker 1: to the way you go about your your work. Second
Speaker 1: quarter of this Defending the Kingdom Bye Bye Bye podcast
Speaker 1: is needing to buy and that is emotional. Again, the
Speaker 1: expectations are coming into the season, but this is an
Speaker 1: emotional game that there's a lot of external factors what
Speaker 1: are people saying on social media? And an emotional game
Speaker 1: where I gotta get up for this guy or this set.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just an emotional drain as much as physical,
Speaker 1: and I think it's not unique the National Football League.
Speaker 1: I just think in many ways then the other sports,
Speaker 1: it gets more intense. And that's why just backing off
Speaker 1: from an emotional standpoint, how big is that? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: you go up and down that roller coaster right each
Speaker 1: quarter of every game, You're you have the league. You're
Speaker 1: coming back from behind. It's a turnover. You get a turnover.
Speaker 1: So I mean, you stay on that emotional roller coaster
Speaker 1: weekend and week out, and then you get to a
Speaker 1: bye week and you know you're not going to you
Speaker 1: have nothing to worry about. You are what you are,
Speaker 1: the same record you have going into bye week. You
Speaker 1: are coming out luckily for us, no matter what happens,
Speaker 1: we'll still be number one in our division. Um. We
Speaker 1: entered the bye week first place, will come out of
Speaker 1: it at first place. Um, And we can kind of
Speaker 1: watch and let all the smoke clear around the conference
Speaker 1: and see who else is gonna be the contenders. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and the whole and as the season goes long, man,
Speaker 1: you're you're emotional. You're almost an emotional wreck. You're up
Speaker 1: and down from day in day out. And then you
Speaker 1: also got things outside of football. They on in your family. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the health of your parents, and you know
Speaker 1: kids missing school field trips and and problems with the
Speaker 1: teachers and all these other things going on in your
Speaker 1: in your life that you have to kind of check
Speaker 1: those things at the door, but they still take a
Speaker 1: toll on your emotional wellness. And so this is the
Speaker 1: time for you to kind of uh spend some time
Speaker 1: getting all those things in a proper place so that
Speaker 1: in the final uh six weeks of the season and
Speaker 1: in the postseason, you can totally concentrate and focus on
Speaker 1: being the best football player and adding to this team
Speaker 1: to give us the best chance to win. That's gonna
Speaker 1: segue me into the third quarter of our Bye Bye
Speaker 1: Bye Defending the Kingdom podcast. But before I do that,
Speaker 1: when I heard you lay that out, I was also
Speaker 1: thinking of the coaching staff. Oh, definitely, okay, because we
Speaker 1: know about the players in the in the physical, mental,
Speaker 1: and emotional drain of a season, particularly when you have
Speaker 1: the bye week on the last team to have a
Speaker 1: bye again, second year in a row for the Chiefs
Speaker 1: to do that. But these coaches, I'm not gonna tell
Speaker 1: you which coach it is. This is about five weeks ago,
Speaker 1: but I was getting ready to see him saying, hey, man,
Speaker 1: how you doing. He just looks up and he goes.
Speaker 1: It wasn't say hey, match, how's it going, Hey, how's
Speaker 1: your day? How's your wife? It was when's our bye week?
Speaker 1: I said, coach, it's a thousand years away. It is
Speaker 1: one thousand years away and then he just put his
Speaker 1: head back down and like kept working. But for the
Speaker 1: coaching staff Sean to me, it's vital that they do
Speaker 1: some of these same kind of things mentally and emotionally
Speaker 1: of checking out a little bit, yeah, because I mean
Speaker 1: it's all about having that path. You wanted, that passion
Speaker 1: for the game to be at a at an all
Speaker 1: time how every time he touched the field, And it's
Speaker 1: impossible to think anybody can come in at a level
Speaker 1: hundred hundred miles and hours every day, week in and
Speaker 1: week out, just checking in, checking in, going to battle,
Speaker 1: riding that roller coaster during the game, and being able
Speaker 1: to turn the page to next week and the next week.
Speaker 1: At some point physically and emotionally you kind of break
Speaker 1: down a little bit and you realize, Hey, I gotta
Speaker 1: I gotta get away just so I can. You know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of an addition from subtraction. I need to
Speaker 1: track myself from the scenario, kind of clear my mind
Speaker 1: so that I can come back with all that power
Speaker 1: and that passion and give the team what they deserve
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of what I got on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: trying to get better, trying to fine tune our game
Speaker 1: as a coach, fine tune the game plan and so
Speaker 1: that you can be so so uh just this all in.
Speaker 1: You know, to win a championship, everybody has to be
Speaker 1: all in. And I think the bye week is a
Speaker 1: chance for guys to kind of check the list, check
Speaker 1: the boxes, go back, recheck it, rework what we've done,
Speaker 1: see what is working, was not, and then really really
Speaker 1: be ready to say, hey, it's all it's all a
Speaker 1: nothing right here, all systems go, let's go with it again.
Speaker 1: The coaches need to buy as much as the players.
Speaker 1: Really all right, halftime, you know, on our Defending the
Speaker 1: Kingdom podcast, in an NFL halftime, unless it's Mexico City
Speaker 1: that it's only twelve minutes like this upcoming game after
Speaker 1: the buy against Oakland twelve minute a halftime, Orange, do
Speaker 1: your bodily functions, get ready to go again on our
Speaker 1: Defending the Kingdom podcast, it's one second. There you go.
Speaker 1: Now we go to the third quarter, and the third
Speaker 1: quarter is going to be looking ahead here a little bit,
Speaker 1: actually the whole second half of this podcast, but are
Speaker 1: bye bye bye Defending the Kingdom, we talked kind of
Speaker 1: looked back of what's happened in the last eleven weeks
Speaker 1: of the regular season, even beyond that, to training camp
Speaker 1: and the offseason program to now and looking ahead. But
Speaker 1: I will say, and this is not looking back as
Speaker 1: as much looking ahead, how big was it to win
Speaker 1: that game in Mexico City, Because I've been around teams
Speaker 1: that lose before buys late in the year, and it
Speaker 1: almost counts like two losses. This one felt like two wins. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was almost complaining about how it seemed like every
Speaker 1: team we were playing, we would play them right before
Speaker 1: by four times. So so five times it's happened the
Speaker 1: team has a bye after they played the Chiefs five times,
Speaker 1: And so we were preparing for a team that knew
Speaker 1: that they didn't have a next game and they could
Speaker 1: they could go out and just give it. They're all
Speaker 1: fight for four quarters and actually finish that game knowing
Speaker 1: that they can like just empty out to tank against
Speaker 1: the Chiefs. And we faced that a lot. We face
Speaker 1: some teams that in the fourth quarter they seem like
Speaker 1: they were just going a little bit harder than we was.
Speaker 1: And sometimes we won, sometimes we lost. But you get
Speaker 1: into that mentality where you're fighting, you're fighting you're fighting,
Speaker 1: and you can see that light at the end of
Speaker 1: the tunnel that bad week is coming, is coming. And
Speaker 1: then you get one game away from that bad week
Speaker 1: and you're able to push the pedal to the meto
Speaker 1: knowing you're gonna get ten fourteen days off until your
Speaker 1: next game. I mean, that's a great feeling for an athlete.
Speaker 1: But now you got to use it in the right way.
Speaker 1: So you gotta really rest, recuperate, recovery, all the rs
Speaker 1: that the training staff talked about, um, just to reset
Speaker 1: your mind, your body, your soul to be able to
Speaker 1: come back in and in a purposeful way knowing that
Speaker 1: it's time to like, hey, it's it's no more weeks
Speaker 1: off from here on out. It's it's here until Florida
Speaker 1: is here into the Super Bowl. We gotta ready to
Speaker 1: be ready to grind it out, pound it out. And
Speaker 1: with Gays recovering from injury, bumps and bruises, they gotta
Speaker 1: be ready to go and give it their own. And
Speaker 1: nothing but huge games remaining on the schedule after the
Speaker 1: bye week. And it's interesting you brought it up, but
Speaker 1: five teams of the eleven have had bye weeks the
Speaker 1: week after they played the Chiefs. Only one team has
Speaker 1: won a game the week after they played the Chiefs,
Speaker 1: and that was the Minnesota Vikings beating the Dallas Cowboys.
Speaker 1: Six have lost, five have had buys. But I did
Speaker 1: sense it even from our team in the Mexico City
Speaker 1: trip of loading all of the of the gunpwer into
Speaker 1: one firecracker because they knew, I mean, it's a grueling trip.
Speaker 1: They knew they were gonna get this buy. You look
Speaker 1: at Frank Clark not saying that, but I mean they knew, hey,
Speaker 1: let's let her fly because we get we get to
Speaker 1: take a breath after this guy. Yeah, he saw him
Speaker 1: talking junk and riding the surfboard way, giving giving rivers
Speaker 1: the crab baby ass and stuff like that. You saw
Speaker 1: a little bit different air, Frank. I mean, and he
Speaker 1: was one of the guys. And I think I heard
Speaker 1: Finn and talk about it. He said, man out front
Speaker 1: seven in that second half of the game, they looked
Speaker 1: at us and say, man like, don't worry about nothing.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be on him every dawn, Like we're gonna
Speaker 1: be smothering this guy. So y'all be ready to pick
Speaker 1: it off when he puts it up there and and
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happened. UM. Our guys, just you saw
Speaker 1: him turning up a level, UM emptying the tank out
Speaker 1: there on that field down in Mexico City. And our
Speaker 1: secondary was rewarded with some easy picking, not easy picks,
Speaker 1: but with some with some um, with some pickoffs and
Speaker 1: some some interceptions. But now you know it's time to
Speaker 1: just continue to recover and couper rate. Um. You look
Speaker 1: at the what's with you know? Man? We always talk
Speaker 1: about who's next on our schedule, and it seems like
Speaker 1: we're always facing a winning team. We're facing a top team,
Speaker 1: a team that's fighting for a playoff hope, a team
Speaker 1: that has us has our game circled on the schedules there. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're super Bowl of the season for whatever the reason.
Speaker 1: We get everybody's best shot. And that's a testament of
Speaker 1: how good this team Kansas City Chiefs have been over
Speaker 1: the last few years with Andy Reid. Um. If you
Speaker 1: want to test your UH to your team to see
Speaker 1: how good they really are, UH, play Kansas City. You'll
Speaker 1: you'll you'll be You'll be testing in the past game
Speaker 1: run game, your run defense and pass defense, your special teams,
Speaker 1: and every phase of the game. You'll be tested and
Speaker 1: you'll know if you're a playoff team and that once
Speaker 1: you face Casside seats. Yeah, we've also got some dedicated
Speaker 1: podcast listeners to this Defending the Kingdom podcast from California.
Speaker 1: They hate the boy band. Sorry, you got to deal
Speaker 1: with this. One's for the dude in Frederick, Maryland because
Speaker 1: this is our bye bye bye addition and sinks head
Speaker 1: of two thousand of Defending the Kingdom. We've talked about
Speaker 1: now what's happened up to this point. Navigation, dealing with expectations,
Speaker 1: dealing with injuries, second quarter, needing the bye, and here
Speaker 1: to kind of close out this third quarter looking ahead
Speaker 1: in that is, you've already alluded to this sum But
Speaker 1: do you escape by traveling. I've seen guys do this
Speaker 1: all different ways. They travel. They plan for a trip
Speaker 1: to just totally check out others, visit extended family. This
Speaker 1: is the time they get to see parents, grandparents, uncle's aunts,
Speaker 1: or to be just with their family and hunkered down.
Speaker 1: But using this time, what did you do as a
Speaker 1: player in ten years or did you do all of that?
Speaker 1: I'd say, you know, it kind of is funny because
Speaker 1: like going back to when I was at University of Richmond,
Speaker 1: right I went to schooled it was five minutes away
Speaker 1: from my house, but I felt I felt like it
Speaker 1: was five hundred miles because I never went back home.
Speaker 1: I always kind of kept my phones off, and and
Speaker 1: when I was on campus during the football season, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to be so focused on just getting my job,
Speaker 1: like finding every little nuance to try to win that game.
Speaker 1: And I was able to really like realize the difference
Speaker 1: between being alone and being lonely, Like like it's just
Speaker 1: a mindset, right, you can be around a hundred people,
Speaker 1: uh in a room and still be able to gather
Speaker 1: your thoughts and and and be able to concentrate and
Speaker 1: be so focused on on your your own intentions. Or
Speaker 1: you can be by yourself and and feel like all alone,
Speaker 1: Like like I feel like you're totally uh just a
Speaker 1: void of any other distractions and stuff. And so I
Speaker 1: think some guys need to get out of Kansas City,
Speaker 1: get back home to where you're from. Uh you see
Speaker 1: your folks, see your see your friends, to be able
Speaker 1: to get that little bit of extra FaceTime, that that
Speaker 1: eye contact. Hey man, y'all doing a great job, Like,
Speaker 1: let's finish the d well. Some guys just need to
Speaker 1: stay right where they are here, stay in the house,
Speaker 1: cut off social media, don't watch the news, don't listen
Speaker 1: to the radio. Take seven days of just uh like
Speaker 1: just loving yourself, just just loving what you're doing, being
Speaker 1: so appreciative about your your the blessing of being on
Speaker 1: the NFL team and being able to play at the
Speaker 1: highest level, so that that person can come um once
Speaker 1: the best week is over and rededicate and recommit themselves
Speaker 1: to our goal as an organization. Uh, it's for everybody
Speaker 1: on this team just to play at their best. And
Speaker 1: the answer it's a lot of things, and I've seen it.
Speaker 1: The best things I've seen though, from players or coaches
Speaker 1: or the two of us. I mean, we've been in
Speaker 1: this league a long time, is to somehow, what just
Speaker 1: reboot the computer? What reboots your soul, your mind, and
Speaker 1: your heart. Is that a place to go? Is that solitude?
Speaker 1: Is that an exotic location? Whatever reboots the computer? Do that,
Speaker 1: and that leads us into the fourth quarter. This Defending
Speaker 1: the Kingdom podcast are bye bye bye editions that do
Speaker 1: have their bye week, and that is propulsion now into
Speaker 1: the future. It's going to be right here as soon
Speaker 1: as the bye Here are the Raiders. They are the
Speaker 1: flavor of the month. We'll also be cheering for the Jets, Jets, Jets,
Speaker 1: Jets this week. We have the Chiefs Kingdom show earlier
Speaker 1: this week and Weird Wolf was there. I made him
Speaker 1: be fireman ed, you know, the dude. He's got the
Speaker 1: fire hat and he's Jets Jets, Jets, Jets. So we'll
Speaker 1: all cheer for the Jets during this bye week. But
Speaker 1: now we talk into propulsion to use the bye week,
Speaker 1: and I've seen teams misuse him. Okay, I've seen teams
Speaker 1: coaches trying to try to stay locked in and then
Speaker 1: you start blowing fuses a couple of weeks after the
Speaker 1: bye particular them, it's this late. Andy Reid is a
Speaker 1: master at it. Seventeen and three and twenty years as
Speaker 1: a head coach Barbershop. He is seventeen and three after
Speaker 1: bye weeks, coaches call him going, dude, what do you do?
Speaker 1: Because seventeen and three is not an anomaly. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: got to get the kids. And I say kids, you
Speaker 1: gotta get the young men used to being able to
Speaker 1: turn on and turn off the switch. And I think
Speaker 1: that Andy does a great job even during training camp
Speaker 1: when there are some circumstances that you can't control, whether
Speaker 1: it's whether or whether it's field conditions, where you need
Speaker 1: to just tell the team, hey, we're gonna shut it down.
Speaker 1: It's unplanned, but we're gonna shut it down. Maybe you
Speaker 1: can give you an extra day off and then guess what,
Speaker 1: We're gonna cut it back on in two days. And
Speaker 1: he expects the guys to handle like men because he
Speaker 1: needs them to understand and be able to do what
Speaker 1: you just said, be able to cut the engine off
Speaker 1: and then in forty eight hours seventy two hours reboot
Speaker 1: that engine started back up and be ready to go
Speaker 1: full speed and not miss a beat. You gotta do
Speaker 1: that during the practice. You gotta do that weekend and
Speaker 1: week out. We did it one time after the Thursday
Speaker 1: night game. Some teams come after Thursday night game and
Speaker 1: they practice over the weekend. But but now that Andy
Speaker 1: gave him the days off and say I'll see y'all
Speaker 1: on Tuesday like a normal off off week, and he
Speaker 1: was able to kind of get that that bye week
Speaker 1: feel and in a condensed version before we actually got
Speaker 1: to the bye week. So guys, able to do exactly
Speaker 1: what their coach, Hey, get away and football. Don't think
Speaker 1: about it. Hey, you know if you'd be having to
Speaker 1: get up cut on that Raiders Jets game, get a
Speaker 1: little intail if you want to like get you know,
Speaker 1: get a little preview of whom we about to see,
Speaker 1: um before we actually put our game plan, and definitely
Speaker 1: do that. But besides that, man, like you said, Man,
Speaker 1: this just come in renewed rejoice. UM, this coming very
Speaker 1: appreciative and um and so blessed the fact that you're
Speaker 1: able to play this game and be a part of
Speaker 1: such a great organization. I think that's that's the one
Speaker 1: of the keys Andy. He makes guys really appreciate, um,
Speaker 1: their their opportunity to be a part of this organization.
Speaker 1: So it's not hard to get those guys to buy
Speaker 1: in and buy in and ready to turn that engine
Speaker 1: back on. And when he tells them, hey, it's time
Speaker 1: to put the pedal to the metal, they all respond Yeah.
Speaker 1: A couple of points. You triggered some thoughts with me too.
Speaker 1: I've noticed because you're you're on such deadline pressure, uh,
Speaker 1: whether you're a player or coach or trainer or equipment person,
Speaker 1: and the and the stuff that we do Monday night
Speaker 1: means you're gonna get something done for Tuesday. And you
Speaker 1: can get short with UH with counterparts, you can get
Speaker 1: mad at people, but then when you back off of it,
Speaker 1: you realize the blessing that it is. Andy always talks
Speaker 1: about you're only one of thirty two people to do
Speaker 1: what you do in the world, and that's you lose
Speaker 1: track of that. I'm sorry because you're just on it.
Speaker 1: This has to get done winsday to get done, Thursday,
Speaker 1: to get done Friday. And when you back off, take
Speaker 1: a long drive or go someplace you're going you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm blessed. Yeah, And that's a big part of it.
Speaker 1: The second thing is you know your phone's not working
Speaker 1: or it's jacked up. I got a man, my problems
Speaker 1: with my computer. Man, my laptop's jacked up, or my
Speaker 1: big screen it's out of sink. What's going on? What
Speaker 1: do they tell you? What's the first thing they tell you?
Speaker 1: Unplug it, put it back right, that's right, reset it,
Speaker 1: reset it, just turn it off, plug it back in,
Speaker 1: turn it back on. Then you're hoping, is it gonna
Speaker 1: work when you get it back on. Finally, to close
Speaker 1: at this edition or bye bye bye in sync edition
Speaker 1: of this Defending the Kingdom podcast brought to you by
Speaker 1: three sixty five. Did you have a hard time clicking
Speaker 1: it back on? I mean, we're all sitting there going
Speaker 1: we all need to shut down. Did you have a
Speaker 1: heart time going? Let's fly? Because there is here comes
Speaker 1: Oakland or Arrowhead National game been flashed to the late
Speaker 1: game on Sunday, to the three o'clock three twenty game,
Speaker 1: whatever that's gonna be. But you gotta three ready to go.
Speaker 1: They shouldn't jog him. When you come back, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to sprint. And I'm gonna tell you this. I
Speaker 1: had a old school mentality, you know, as I was
Speaker 1: going through college. In high school football, the guy looked
Speaker 1: to and guy who I tried to emulate myself as
Speaker 1: far as conditioning and being in shape was Jerry Rice.
Speaker 1: Jerry Rice told me that ever since he got to
Speaker 1: the league, he never took more than two weeks off.
Speaker 1: Even once the season was over and he was batted
Speaker 1: up and bruised up, he took exactly two weeks off
Speaker 1: and then he got right back into his protocol of
Speaker 1: working out. He never wanted to get out of shape.
Speaker 1: He always felt like he was building on something and
Speaker 1: he didn't want to lose his foundation, and so I
Speaker 1: kind of took that as my mantras. So I mean,
Speaker 1: throughout my career, even though we had days off, weeks off,
Speaker 1: by weeks time to let yourself, I always still got
Speaker 1: myself back to the organization to get some extra treatment,
Speaker 1: a little bit extra film, just finding ways nuances to
Speaker 1: make sure I was keeping my edge mentally because I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to run the risk of shutting down
Speaker 1: that engine and it never be and it never shuts
Speaker 1: back on the same way. So I would tune it
Speaker 1: down a little bit, uh, conserve a little gas, fill
Speaker 1: up the gas tank, maybe put a little high premium
Speaker 1: in this time. But I was always ready to punch
Speaker 1: that gas tank at a moment's notice. So you could
Speaker 1: you could tell me we got ten days off, two
Speaker 1: weeks off, and then you can come back the next
Speaker 1: morning and say, man, let's go practice, and I'd be
Speaker 1: just as excited about it, like I just never let
Speaker 1: that mental edge go. Um. And that's probably why it
Speaker 1: allows a guy from a one one double a school
Speaker 1: at University Richmond to survive. And I call a survival
Speaker 1: because I had to survive ten years in the NFL,
Speaker 1: through all the bumps and bruises, the injuries, the two
Speaker 1: knee ACL surgeries, the neck injections. Uh, all of those
Speaker 1: things were just uh, you know, part of the journey.
Speaker 1: And I was so blessed and so thankful for every
Speaker 1: opportunity I had to get out there on the field
Speaker 1: and compete. Well, they ain't have it. Everybody gets to
Speaker 1: shut down for a while, but we're ready to. When
Speaker 1: you're rebooted, it's gonna be up and running. This is
Speaker 1: our Defending the Kingdom edition. Bye bye bye. Thanks to
Speaker 1: in Sync for coming out with that in two thousand. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know that as a boy bands, you either love
Speaker 1: him or you hate him. You ever notice that people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, yeah, I remember that music because it
Speaker 1: sticks in your head. You can't can't lose track of it.
Speaker 1: And then there's others go, man, I can't listen to that,
Speaker 1: but uh it is bye bye bye, and so Barbershop
Speaker 1: here we go. Because once we get back and rolling,
Speaker 1: here come the Raiders. Yeah, we gotta be ready to roll. Man,
Speaker 1: We're gonna turn this thing on heavy and early and often.
Speaker 1: Um but yeah, We're gonna we're gonna ask that the
Speaker 1: Chiefs Nation, the Chiefs Kingdom and see if Red just
Speaker 1: for one day on Sunday, we can we can let
Speaker 1: out maybe at noon a nice j E T s
Speaker 1: ches jest Jess here, just let them know, Hey, the
Speaker 1: Kingdom loves you from the Midwest. Uh just for just
Speaker 1: for one game. Yeah, we won't like you next year
Speaker 1: because we play here next year. But uh yes, shout
Speaker 1: out not only the in Sync but the Fireman Edge
Speaker 1: swing baby. All right, he's barbershop Sean Barbara, I'm a
Speaker 1: Chulter's voice, the Chiefs, Chiefs Kingdom. Take an eggshil, take
Speaker 1: a breath. It's the bye week. We'll be with you
Speaker 1: when we all come back. Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 1: Chief's official podcast network to touch Down, Loch it down,
Speaker 1: and the celebration begins to their head