ChiefsPlanet - KC Star: Green Ready to Roll

Good article:

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...printstory.jsp

Green ready to roll
Chiefs QB eager to get back on the playing field Sunday, 10 weeks after suffering a head injury.
By ELIZABETH MERRILL
The Kansas City Star

There is comfort in the fact that Julie Green and the family will be there for the first game. In 2000, after the first few hits, Trent Green’s wife found herself mumbling. “Get up, get up …”

That was after a knee injury ruined the 1999 season.

Head injuries are different. But Green has waited long enough, 10 weeks on Sunday.

He knows, however, that somewhere in the stands, a pocket of people will wince and hold their breath until after that first hit.

“You can’t play the position with fear,” Green said. “And I don’t anticipate doing that.”

On Thursday, roughly 24 hours after Green reclaimed his starting job, life finally returned to normal at One Arrowhead Drive. No more MRIs, quarterback controversies or life-pondering questions. Green dropped back, fired a perfect pass, and somebody in the indoor practice facility clapped.

He’ll start Sunday against the Raiders, his first live snaps since being knocked unconscious in the season opener Sept. 10, and there’s a little bit of anxiety everywhere. Chiefs coach Herm Edwards compared it to a kid getting the training wheels taken off a bike.

“You know what’s going to happen,” Edwards said. “You sit there as a parent and go, ‘He’s probably going to fall.’ You’re kind of waiting, and the tire starts wiggling and you’re holding your breath and going, ‘Oh boy.’ And they crash, and you’ve got to let them crash.

“The key is, are they going to get up and get back on? Well … my dad made me get back on. By the end of the day, I was riding on one wheel. It’s time to take the training wheels off. Time to go play.”

Green said Thursday that he’s been ready to go for at least two weeks but waited until the doctors’ clearance late Tuesday. He isn’t worried about timing, rhythm or the school of thought that it might be wiser to wean him back in a nonstarting role.

The Chiefs are a much different team from the one that shuddered 10 weeks ago when their Pro Bowl quarterback was hauled away in an ambulance. They’ve won five of their last seven under backup Damon Huard and find themselves in the playoff hunt.

Green said he was genuinely happy for Huard, who’s a friend. But he also wasn’t jazzed about splitting playing time or alternating quarters with anyone. He wanted to run out of the tunnel as a starter, just as he did for 81 straight games before the concussion.

He wants that first hit.

When a quarterback controversy surfaced and fans started pulling for the underdog Huard, it brought back shades of St. Louis. Green was the Rams’ starter before he tore up his knee in the third preseason game of 1999. Kurt Warner stepped in, led them to a Super Bowl, and Green became an afterthought.

“There’s always concern, especially since it’s happened to me before,” Green said. “But I have confidence in what I can do. I had confidence in myself in ’99 that when I came back and had the opportunity to play, I’d play well. It was nothing against Kurt, and he played great and was obviously the league MVP.

“But it didn’t make me think any less of myself. I think that’s something that you have to have. It’s not a cockiness, it’s a confidence. I didn’t think any less of myself then, and I don’t think any less of myself now. I was just really happy for Damon.”

That knee injury, plus the years of waiting to become a starter, are what keep Green fearless today, with Warren Sapp waiting and the first hit looming. Edwards calls it opening day for Green.

Green calls it a return to normal.

“He’ll be excited,” Edwards said. “He’s a pretty calm guy, but he’ll still have butterflies. He’s probably waiting for that (hit). He might run out there and go hit somebody himself just to get it over with.”