KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Few members of the Kansas City Chiefs – make that few NFL players – have put forth the type of effort that second-year guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif has since January.
Not only has he taken part in significant physical training and classroom work with the Chiefs, but he spent the first four months of the year in Montreal, where he’s finishing up his medical school work. LDT is just four months away from earning an M.D. in his native Canada.
“When you have two passions, you don’t count the hours; you just work as hard as you need to,” Duvernay-Tardif said. “I love being in med school. I love being here and playing. The good thing now is I when I am here, I can focus 100 percent on football and I don’t care about med school. When I was back in college, I had to do both at the same time, so I think it’s a good thing now that I am able to focus on football and I really enjoy it.”
After being selected by the Chiefs in the sixth round of the 2014 draft, Duvernay-Tardif was on the 53-man roster for all 16 games, but each week he was designated as a game-day inactive player. He’s trying to learn all the twists and turns of being a professional blocker, coming out of a Canadian college system that most NFL personnel types consider the equivalent of Division III football in the States.
Improvement has come through a better understanding of the techniques needed to achieve in the NFL.
“Just my fundamental learning,” Duvernay-Tardif said. “(Like) how to step up, how to make the proper adjustment and how to do the proper footwork. I think after watching a lot of film, I improved a lot on that.”
–Third-round draft choice Chris Conley continues to show improvement in his comprehension of head coach Andy Reid’s offensive playbook and that alone gives him a shot at earning time with the first-team unit once training camp begins in late July. There’s little doubt about his physical skills with his size and his speed. As it is with all rookies, the question is how much can he absorb in the classroom and translate it to the practice field.
“It’s learning how to play football on a different stage, on a different level with more pressure and learning how to be adaptive in different ways,” said the University of Georgia product. “There’s another tier of learning and it comes at you so much faster. In college, they kind of ease you into things and they allow you to accept the transition (from high school) as it comes. Here, they throw you in the fire, they throw you straight in there and they want to see who rises up.”
–Even though it’s not real football, players pick up injuries in OTA practices. The league can limit physical contact all it wants, but that does not lessen the chance of players ending up in the training room with the team doctors. The Chiefs wrapped up their OTA sessions with a few injuries of note, but apparently nothing major.
It started with inside linebacker Derrick Johnson, who is battling back from missing 15 games last season due to a ruptured Achilles tendon. He showed in early practices that his heel doesn’t appear to be a problem, but he came up with swelling on his right knee and went two weeks without being a full participant in the on-field work. Nose tackle Dontari Poe walked off the practice field on June 2 with what the team called back spasms. Poe did not return to practice, missing the final five workouts.
Wide receiver Albert Wilson suffered a hamstring strain and missed three practices. Undrafted rookie cornerback De’Vante Bausby suffered a broken clavicle in practice on June 9 and his status won’t be known until training camp. Wide receiver Jeremy Maclin missed one practice with foot inflammation.
Quarterback Tyler Bray (ACL), running back Cyrus Gray (ACL) and tight end Demetrius Harris (foot) did not take part in any of the 10 OTA sessions as they are rehabbing from surgery.
