Eh, these two need to be addressed regardless.

They feel discouraged from reporting their injuries

They fear retribution for speaking up for better care

Even if its just taking him aside and getting his side of the story. Burkholder probably has at least a pretty good idea of who wrote those comments in.

Frankly, I do not give a shit about this. What they are doing is working. It's between the players and management. They are a union and can bargain for certain standards in their next collective bargaining agreement.

Agree with others, I'm sure he's an asshole sbout pushing them in the training room. Also sure he is a conceited alpha male that would clash with other alpha's. But anything less than a strong personality would get ran over by the players. Maybe he wants it to be set up as he's the bad guy and the others are their friends and the good guys?

THIS! Thats not cool no matter the reason.

I may be reading way to much into this.

But it comes off a bit......I dunno....we wanna be more like the NBA kinda thing? We want more power, more decision making etc.

The NFL is a Front Office league. It's not really a players league. The Qbs have some power, but for the most part, it's dominated by the FO's. And it absolutely dominates the other sports in every metric. The NBA is dying, no one gives a shit about MLB and everything else is secondary.

The NFL is king for a reason.

Like you said, there are some fairly simple ways to address it. It's not really that big of a deal and I'm sure the Chiefs will act upon this info regardless.

You do realize that it's possible only one person said this, and the NFLPA ran with it. That's what they do. Unless I missed where they showed what percentage of players responded, this is a joke. Feels like someone is planning the next CBA.

The NFLPA said they received 1,300 player responses. If you divide that by the 32 teams, then on average you would have 40 players per team responding.

It isn't likely they are running with 1 players response to any of the questions.

The fact that KC players rated their training staff (one guy in particular) as the lowest in the ENTIRE league isn't something the fans should be defensive about and making excuses over. Especially when it involves medical care and feeling retribution for reporting injuries. This opens them up to possible malpractice/negligence claims in the future similar to Malagros/Eagles.

With player safety always being scrutinized by the media, no owner wants to read that his/her team isn't handling player safety in an appropriate manner.

Do you want a good report card from the NFLPA or win a Super Bowl. Just remember that the NFLPA made former CHIEF Eric Winston their President for six seasons. ROFL

...what kind of "retribution" are we talking about? Not buying it.

I find it odd that Schuster and Mahomes both credited the training staff for helping them in the playoffs, yet it's one of the worst in the league? Compared to what?

This all feels subjective.

It’s college. Look at all of the insane facilities and staff those players have? Alabama gets over $200 million from donors each year. They get spoiled big time.

CFB is just better in that regard. Guess it’s not enough to get paid 750k+ at the low end in the pro game

Of course it’s subjective. It’s a player survey. Worst in the league compared to player responses from the other 31 teams. Per the report, the problem is only with Burkholder. The report said the rest of the staff is well liked.

It's possible that pro athletes (and football players in particular) aren't always the brightest bulbs on the tree.

Mods get an F for granting thread starting privileges to Case of Dildos.

I'll let the other teams worry about grading and grades. The only grade that matters is what you get on your Lombardi final, and my favorite team (The KC Chiefs) got an A (100%).

Having worked in management and staffing, I'll say that people are entitled af and have some ridiculous expectations at times.

You want guys on the team to feel comfortable going to trainers with injuries and feel like there is a safe, warm place for their wives and children at the games, but as long as there's no Commanders-level scandal, I think most of this is just noise.

Locker room complaints: Chiefs just upgraded the locker rooms in Arrowhead what 2 years ago or less? If they are talking about the locker rooms in the training facility (which I suspect they are) then that is on Clark to upgrade along with that facility and the weight room. He can afford to do that.

Air Travel complaints: My understanding is that the Chiefs charter a Boeing 777 from United Airlines. It only has 25 or so first class seats so that is on United. Only the Pats have their own personal plane.

Roomates: who cares and that is probably a Reid thing

Training Staff issues: I think this was a big deal but Rick is retiring so it shouldn't be an issue moving forward. Seems like the rest of the staff got high marks and the players love them.

Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?

The fact that the Dolphins training staff is tied for first in these rankings when they almost let Tua get killed on the field with repeated traumatic head injuries disqualifies the legitimacy of these rankings.

They apparently asked these questions before last season started but that doesn’t make it any less true

Yes this is referring to the locker room in the training facility which looks dated. The game day locker room at Arrowhead is the one that was renovate recently.

Also the fact that the Chiefs had the most contributions/impact from their rookie class of any Super Bowl champion in recent history indicates that maybe their overall approach to developing rookies… including pairing them with a room mate when traveling is having a positive impact.

The travel complaints are almost assuredly related to mystery marker mustaches.

Is it possible that you were a pro athlete once? :evil:

Finally read the article or whatever it is.

So, there's no daycare. I mean, they're millionaires. They can't be bothered to hire their own nannies?

So, it's not the food that's the problem in the cafeteria, it's the fact that the room itself isn't big enough somehow. I mean, I don't know what they can do about that.

It's not that the locker room isn't nice enough; it's that the players would rather they had a chair not a stool to sit on. Fine, get some chairs.

The "not enough room in the plane" thing is dumb. It's literally an aluminum tube flying at 400+ mph. Just how large should it be? Maybe some of the players would rather sit out on the wing or something so they can stretch out . . . maybe they could give them the illusion of a more open feel by making the thing convertible.

I thought I read somewhere he was retiring. He sorted alluded to it on Twitter but could be wrong

This surprised me, and if true it's a legitimate complaint. I just assumed they used a plane that had first class seats throughout. Most of these guys are pretty big, either wide and/or tall. Being crammed into a regular sized plane seat must be awful for them. Especially flying back from a game where they just got physically beat up for several hours. Seems like the team/league could and should do better in this department.

I'll say! We had evidence of this right in front of our very eyes!

Mahomes: "Damn! I think it's my ankle!"

Andy: "Well, go see Rick for an x-ray..."

Mahomes: "No! No not Rick! Not the Butcher of Arrowhead! I'm fine, coach, really, I'm fine! I'll play on it! Look, I'll show you! Let me back in the game! I don't want to go back and see Rick! Nooooooooo!"

To me this just seems like another desperate attempt to hinder the Chiefs success and try to detour free agents from signing here on the cheap, which we all know is going to start happening non-stop now. Pro Football Talk has an article up about it right now, and they don't bother mentioning any of the other issues with any other teams, just the Chiefs and their trainer.

Afraid to report injuries? This organization once let Eric Berry sit out an entire season because he didn't feel like his "spirit" was interested in playing. Give me a break.

Nice way to plug for new stadiums.
Make your franchises feel like crap

So THAT explains why he was so upset to leave the Bengals game...IT WAS FEAR OF RICK THE WHOLE TIME!! SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!

Quesadilla Joe says to himself, My plan is working I have the Chiefs fans all stirred up now.

https://media.tenor.com/XpAMuI5TsO4A...bing-hands.gif

Hold on, googling to confirm..

He really does live rent free in a lot of your heads. This is a national news story with a life of it's own. It was going to be posted here by somebody.

Must have been the trash on the stairs and in elevators, etc.

They aren't stuffed into some 727 or MD-88.

A Boeing 777 is one of the most technologically advanced commercial passenger aircraft flying. Here's a pic of typical business class seating:
https://i0.wp.com/thepointsguy.com/w...2C1024px&ssl=1

And it's huge, i'ts not like the team would have to sit crammed in next to each other. They could easily sit with a seat or two between each person.

Short of Hunt actually buying a 777 and having a custom interior put in, you can't really have it any better.

And before anyone starts with the idea of Clark buying such an aircraft, they start at about $250,000,000, before you start customizing it. Or they did before COVID. might need to tack another 25-35% or more onto that these days. Then whatever it costs to put in 1st-class type seating throughout. 10-20 million there? Then what it costs to operate, which would be, well probably $250,000 per flight? Thing burns like 3200 gallons of fuel per hour in cruise. Without breaking out a calculator, that's around $12000/hr just in fuel burn. Plus, pilots, attendants, insurance, maintenance, etc.

If the Bills face anymore adversity. They start folding and abandoning posts

NFLPA wanted to make a point about shared hotel rooms for rookies and knew the Chiefs did that so they included some bullshit about the plane so that the F grade was not just about shared hotel rooms even though that was the reason for the F.

The plane the Chiefs players were flying in on the State Farm commercial with Andy Reid seemed real nice.

I'm 6'2" and I'm squished in those main cabin seats.

Suck it (anonymous) Rick Burkholder haters…

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Congratulations are in order for our Head Athletic Trainer and VP of Sports Medicine &amp; Performance, Rick Burkholder, on his induction into the National Athletic Trainers&#39; Association Hall of Fame! 👏 <a href="https://t.co/oyJDWfZJSO">pic.twitter.com/oyJDWfZJSO</a></p>&mdash; Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) <a href="https://twitter.com/Chiefs/status/1672307127250038786?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

That reduction of income after taxes is depressing. Good grief.

But you are right, daycare isn't a NFL responsibility.

Its not, but these guys are giving their lives to nfl. they deserve to see their kids as much as possible.