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Chapter 1: What is the main focus of the podcast episode?
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Coach, pain in the ass. He's done it all on the gridiron from South Bend to Arrowhead. From football on the radio, back to football. Then more radio, then a little more football, and now radio again. It's Chiefs Hall of Famer Tim Groundhog on the program.
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Chapter 2: How does Tim Grunhardt reflect on his football journey?
Well, I'm a horrible traveler, too, so I feel your pain. This time of the year, airports, everybody's going on summer vacations, summer storms. It's a lot of people. It's just a mess. It's just a mess. So I was telling you this Saturday trip this weekend.
Yeah.
Yeah, this Saturday I did an auction on it from a high school in Chicago. Go to a Cub game with Tim Grunhardt, and we're going to go out for some pizza after the game and go into Murphy's before the game. And Rick Sutcliffe is going to hook us up with going on the field before the game. So it'll be a nice little package.
But it's supposed to storm, like, Friday night all the way through until Sunday. So I called the guy. I'm like, listen, I'm not ā because, listen ā I've been gone. You guys know this. I've been in either Florida or Cincinnati just about at least four and a half out of the last five, four and a half months out of the last five I've been gone. I just want to sleep in my own bed.
So I'm leaving at five.
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Chapter 3: What are the updates on Patrick Mahomes' recovery?
So I'll see some of you guys at the airport at 5.05 a.m. to fly to Chicago on Saturday, which means I have to leave my house at 3.30 a.m. And then I'm flying back that night. I said, listen, I want to go home. And it's supposed to pour. And the guys, I'm like, I'm not going to the game. This isn't... Hey, I'll get to go to Wrigleyville and hang out. I don't want to do that.
I'm going to go to the game, being generous with my time, and it's supposed to pour all day. So I'm sitting in a holding pattern now. I said, listen, we'll make a decision Friday afternoon, Friday evening, whether I'm going to go or not. And he's not real happy about it, but screw that. I don't care. I really don't. I said, we'll do something else.
I mean, I'll take him out to dinner or something. We'll go to a football game, whatever. But I'm not going to sit in Wrigleyville at Murphy's at like 2 o'clock in the afternoon waiting for a 1 o'clock game to start while it's pouring. And so nobody really gives a rat's ass about my problems.
But I had to vent.
I really had to vent. But you brought up travel. And traveling is just so hard this time of the year. I'd rather drive. And you make fun of me all the time, Kurt, for driving. Less and less I'm making fun of you. Less and less. Although the drive down I-70 right now is a, and I want to use the word, a blank show. For everybody that's in I-70 right now, I'm sorry.
I mean, literally, they have these cement blocks in the middle of the highway for these dividers. Get rid of the cement blocks in the middle of the highway. For everybody who's driven on I-70, you know exactly what I'm talking about. They have a couple cones, and all of a sudden, there's a big divider of cement that divides the lanes, and it comes up out of nowhere.
They're working on... You know you're in trouble when it says the next 55 miles is construction. Right?
Right?
It's horrible. I sat in Wentzville, driving home from Cincinnati. You get into Missouri, you're like, oh man, thank God, we're almost home. Not even close. It took like six hours to get from St. Louis to Kansas City. I sat in dead stop traffic in Wentzville for 45 minutes.
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Chapter 4: How important is the running game for the Chiefs this season?
One, you say I always gave you trouble about driving. I gave you trouble about being a cheap bastard and not having a car down in Florida to where you had to drive, otherwise you wouldn't have a car. That's what I gave you trouble for. If I had your kind of time, I would drive to Seattle. I don't care where it is, I would drive over flying. I know. I feel you.
I 100% have your back on making the drive part of the equation. And I do love when you say the next 55 miles construction. 55 miles, a flashy sign, 55 miles of construction. The good news is there's about 80 feet that they're actually working on.
Oh, I know, yeah.
I mean, listen, I'm a big believer you slow down.
They work their butts off. It's not an easy job.
It's not against the guys doing the work. But it's so frustrating. What was the idea of putting us all over to one lane for 55 miles?
You have to have a five-mile buffer to where they're working, and then a five-mile buffer past where they're working.
You're meaning that as a joke. No, that's the way they do it. That's the law? I don't know if it's the law, but that's the way they do it. Well, I'd be fine if that's what it was if they'd stick to it. But there are times where you're like, we have been driving... They're like 20 miles and there's nobody doing anything. That's what gets frustrating. I know. I don't sweat any of the guys.
The guys out there.
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Chapter 5: What changes are being made to the Chiefs' wide receiver unit?
Never. Yeah. Never. So you got that going for you. It's a work in progress, like the Kansas City Chiefs. Yeah. Right? First of all, have you seen any of the video of Patrick Mahomes... Jumping up and down on his leg? Well, and practicing, and just what's your reaction? What do you... We're not doctors.
We're not doctors, but I'm just shocked that he has as much flexibility and strength in that leg as he does. Really? Okay, that's good. But I am still concerned about that he is... moving at such a fast pace that I'm just hoping that he's letting this thing heal correctly. Which, listen, I'm sure he is. There's a lot of doctors. There's a lot of trainers.
He has his own personal trainer and all these people that are monitoring his activity to make sure that he's doing the right thing. But it's a minor miracle. how far he's come so quickly. I still think that it would probably be the best for him to maybe take the first couple weeks off and kind of get this thing at 100%, as close to 100% as he can for the season.
But I don't think he's going to do it. I think he's going to play it. I mean, if he's doing all this stuff right now in OTAs, basically, though, just for everybody out there, he's basically just doing 7-on-7. He's not doing 11-on-11, which the reason why he's not doing 11-on-11 is because some dumb rookie or free agent is going to fall on his leg that would be a bad thing.
That guy would be in big trouble if he fell on Patrick Mahomes. In fact, training camp scares the hell out of me because guys are going to be going full speed in pads trying to prove something because there's a lot of young players like you guys have been talking about. Nobody knows everybody on the team.
So there's guys trying to make an impression and all of a sudden somebody pushes somebody over a guy and he lands on Patrick Mahomes' leg is my nightmare. So I just hope that they are monitoring this and and making sure that he is taking everything into consideration with this healing process.
Yeah, I do think they've got to protect him from himself as part of it. And I had this conversation with Jeff and Sam on our podcast about, you know, like Patrick Mahomes has been the ultimate cheat code.
And if you dial up a play and you go, you know, you leave only five in and you send five out and they bring an extra guy, well, Pat will evade and he'll bail us out and he'll either throw it away or maybe he'll even run for a first down or he'll get some positive yards. And Andy Reid's got a... Absolutely. He cannot be leaving just five in all the time.
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Chapter 6: What challenges does the offensive line face in the upcoming season?
Nothing frustrated me more than watching Wanya Morris get trucked time and time again, and then watching no help. Like, Patrick, it cannot be, well, Pat will just make the guy miss. Has got to come out of the mindset of Andy Reid. And I will ask you, do you think at 67 years old he can change that mindset?
I don't know, but if you look at what Patrick Mahomes has been able to do in OTAs, I think the positive things that have come out for him, obviously being out there doing something, is very, very positive. But he's basically, like I said, he's doing seven-on-seven individual periods, which are
basically monitored and controlled so that nobody's gonna fall into him or he's gonna mistakenly get hit, which is vitally important at this point in the healing process. The other thing, just like you said, and I wrote it in my notes, so... Amazing that we're on the same wavelength. He won't be able to be the Superman and save the day, at least early in the football season.
And some of the things that he's been able to work on in OTAs, even though he hasn't been in 11-11, but through the individual periods in 7-on-7, he has to. And really, I think this year will be better because of this injury at his pocket discipline. He's got to become more of a pocket player. You don't want to be running out in space with a...
an injured knee, and the knee's going to be injured for this season, the whole season, all right? It'll get better, and it may get to where it was before, but it's not going to happen, guys, until at least a year, maybe a year and a half. You can play on it. It can be strong, and you'll be able to do a lot of things that you're hoping.
No risk to further the injury, but it doesn't mean you're 100%.
Absolutely. So he's got to learn his pocket discipline. He's been able to work on his timing and rhythm a little bit. And listen, Patrick Mahomes has things he needs to work on still. Even though he's the best quarterback in the league, you still have things that you have to get better at with age, experience, and the guys around you. Things change. So he's going to have to change.
He has to make some adjustments. Pocket discipline, timing, rhythm, and basically learning to work within the offense a little bit more. One of the things we always talked about with Patrick Mahomes, and one of the things that endure him to us, is he's like a magician in space. He goes out there and he creates space.
magic in space but i'm not sure that's what he needs to be doing at this point in his career pocket presence is so important for him and protection is so important for him a running game is so important for him especially in the first half of this season yeah i think you know we're going to find out real quick is are they calling him under center you know i just i just think back to some of the simple things you can do off of play action and every play doesn't have to be
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Chapter 7: How is the coaching staff adjusting their strategies?
If you have a running game, you can run play action. If you have a running game, you can run a boot. If you have a running game, you will get a little bit more man. You'll be able to do some different things, which I think help Patrick Mahomes to have more success. There was no threat of a running game over the last three years, and I think you've seen the effect of this offense.
and Patrick Mahomes when you don't have an effective running game. I'm not saying you have to be run-orientated or even run heavy. You have to have the threat of a running game. You have to have the threat of the ability to run the ball and make big plays. And the Chiefs just haven't had that over the last couple years.
I think you've got to design runs that get you yards. You know, the Rams, I think, only ran the ball 14 times more than the Chiefs last year. But they gained, like, a yard more per carry.
But do you think a little bit of that is just the reputation of the Rams and, like, the 49ers? They had that reputation that even if they don't ā Well, I think it's the success rate.
Right. When they run, they get real yardage. It gets them into shorter downs and distances. It makes it easier for them to run again if they want to. And it forces teams to keep their big people on the field because the run is a legit option on second and four.
You can run again, and so they don't go to the dime because you're at second and 11 because you got nowhere on the run, or second and 10 because Patrick Mahomes had to evade the rush and then just throw it away. On second and four, you've got to leave the big people on the field, and then you've got a chance to strike for a 16-yard completion.
I mean, like, all you had to do was... Look, I mentioned Eddie Kennison had a couple of thousand-yard seasons in his career, and... Eddie Kennison was a fine player, but Eddie Kennison was not the best wide receiver in football in his day. But when Priest Holmes was churning out 4, 12, 9, 3, 13, you could not just throw defensive backs all over the field.
And Eddie Kennison and Trent Green were able to just... The 15-yard out from Trent Green to Eddie Kennison was just stealing. I mean, and... So I think we all agree we want them to run to throw better.
Well, look at ā I think it was either 91 or 92, and it's going back to my career. We played the Eagles. The Eagles were undefeated. They had one of the best, if not the best, defense in the league at the time. And we came out, and they just loaded up saying, you're not going to run the ball against us. And they kept their big guys on the field. They had three linebackers on the field.
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Chapter 8: What are the expectations for the Chiefs this season?
The reputation of that team running the football opened up so much in the passing game because they just didn't respect that. So it's kind of the opposite right now with the Chiefs. Everybody's saying, listen, they can't run the ball, so we're just going to put dime out there.
Just like you said, we're going to limit what they can do in the passing game and just say, hey, listen, the only way you're going to beat us is to be able to establish and run the football properly. and then if you show us you can do that, then we'll make the adjustments. The Chiefs haven't been able to show they can do that to make the defense make an adjustment to their offense.
I do think Kenneth Walker is a much better running back than Isaiah Pacheco and what's left of Kareem Hunt. So I do think they've upgraded there. There was somebody tweeted out. I don't remember who it was. I retweeted it. I think I did. Maybe I didn't. But they showed... Isaiah Pacheco and, I want to say Yelding, the Alabama running back for the Lions. Jameer Gibbs. Jameer Gibbs.
They showed them running the same drill. And it was a little video, a little GIF of them running through some pads. I can't remember what it was. And they simply said, what do you see here? And what you saw was how much faster Gibbs was getting through the drill than Pacheco.
Pacheco was this, what we've all seen, the tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, all these steps and not really going anywhere, where Gibbs was maneuvering through things in half the steps. And so he was getting... to the hole, theoretically, in this drill, so much quicker than Isaiah Pacheco. So I do think Kenneth Walker is going to help that a lot.
But, again, that's why I come back to it's not just calling the run. It's designing an effective run and blocking it effectively. And, you know, we've talked to her blue in the face. We've been talking about it since Eric Eager was still coming on as a guest and wasn't working for the Panthers about the RPO stuff.
It's just absolutely castrating the offensive line of the Chiefs because they can't fire out. Now, we've, to me... Brett Beach has sounded the alarm this offseason and talking about, we've got these big guys inside, we've got these bulldozers, we've got to be more effective at that. The general manager, in my opinion, has said, I see it too.
Okay, the question is going to be, does the head coach?
Will he be committed to designing and implementing a run game that uses the guys that he has? Yeah. That's the question. Now, listen, Kenneth Walker, you know, Called a couple people, said, hey, how are OTAs going? Some got back to me, some didn't. But the one who got back to me said, Kenneth Walker looks the part. He's got great vision. He's catching the ball effectively.
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