Last year, I think by far the biggest surprise for the Chiefs players during the offseason and into training camp was the amount of running. Todd Haley was intent on making his team enter the season in-shape -- a past criticism of Herm Edwards -- and he chose lots and lots and lots of running to do that.
You wanna participate in training camp? Pass a run-heavy conditioning test. You wanna fumble the ball at practice? Run 200 yards.
Chiefs WR Jerheme Urban, who was with Haley in Arizona, tells us that running -- and lots of it -- is to be expected at a Haley-run training camp.
"We're going to run a ton," Urban said. "There will be a lot of contact. But a lot of the time after you do two-a-days, he'll cancel meetings and give you a night off. He'll let you take care of your body.
Last year, if you'll recall, the Chiefs had a ton of practices in full pads. Day after day, it seemed, he rolled out the team in full pads. That was something we weren't really used to in Kansas City and, frankly, we couldn't tell if it worked or not in 2009.
Urban, by the way, was one of the players that struggled upon first arriving in Kansas City this offseason. It's tough for a receiver to move from one quarterback to the other -- Kurt Warner to Matt Cassel in this instance -- but reports suggested that Urban began to pick things up as the offseason went along.
"I'm pretty pleased with the way things went, especially the second half," Urban said. "Early on I was trying to do everything too perfect. I had to adjust to the new verbiage and concepts."