The Kansas City Chiefs brass has invaded Orlando, Florida, the site of the East-West Shrine Game featuring some of the top collegiate talent in the land. Chad Reuter of CBSSports.com starts his recap article of the first practice mentioning Bill Parcells being joined by Chiefs GM Scott Pioli, head coach Todd Haley and Packers GM Ted Thompson.
What would you pay to be a fly on the wall between those four?
All 32 NFL teams were represented at the practice that featured another Chief - Romeo Crennel - as one of the head coaches.
Today was the first practice. Imagine these kids practicing (without pads) in front of the NFL's power players. Nervous? I bet.
"Whenever you work with a group of players who have never played together it’s tough to get too many things done on the first day," Crennel said to reporters following practice. "The key is to keep things simple so that they can learn quickly. We don’t have much time before Saturday."
Like we've said before, Crennel coaching in this game is an advantage for the Chiefs. He's going to get a front row view at certain players. He'll be able to see some of their tendencies - both good and bad - as well as their personality and how they click with their teammates.
Scott Pioli watches a lot of tape of the Chiefs practices because he wants to know how players react to instruction and how they fit in with their teammates because that's an important reality in the NFL that you can't necessarily see from your coach on Saturdays.
Oh, yeah. This other guy is coaching the West team. You may have heard of him. Marty Schottenheimer?