As I told you yesterday, I was able to bug ask Chiefs safety Jon McGraw a few questions on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. this week about training camp, the Chiefs new safeties and the vibe around Arrowhead.
I asked McGraw, very eloquently, "Bottomline, does training camp just suck?"
"There's always the grind and the soreness, the pain and all that stuff with training camp," he told me.
"I think overriding that right now is a whole lot of optimism. I think guys just want to get the work in so we can get to where we wanna go. It's going to be a grind. He's going to work us. We know that. But we know what to expect. It's not like we don't know, we know what's expected of us. If we can get comfortable with that, I think everyone's going to rise to the challenge."
One thing I've realized since covering the NFL is that many times players hear about their team from the media and read the same reports we do. Since the vast majority of media reports on the Chiefs are positive in regards to the offseason moves, it makes sense that most of the players would feel that same positive vibe.
The next step for the players is training camp, last year's version of which was a shock to quite a few players because Todd Haley ran things a little differently than Herm Edwards. Conditioning was a major focus last year but, assuming the Chiefs come to camp in shape (McGraw said he is), it shouldn't be the focus.
"Everyone's real excited to get things going," he said. "We've had a nice little break here after OTAs but I think everyone's real excited about the direction this team is headed in."