According to Baltimore Ravens outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy, the Chiefs’ training staff took an entire quarter to inspect his fractured orbital bone.
On the sixth play of the third quarter, Baltimore Ravens outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy suffered a fractured orbital bone when he was landed on by quarterback Patrick Mahomes after being hit by Nnamdi Madubuike. His injury occurred at 10:33 p.m. The report of him being ruled out with an eye injury came 40 minutes later, which is an unorthodox amount of time on a player’s injury. According to Van Noy, the wait was due to the Chief’s training room taking a quarter of play to get down and inspect him for injury, and he had a lot to say on the matter.
“I was disappointed in the way the training staff of the Chiefs handled the situation,” Van Noy said. “When things like that hurt, especially something that could be serious like mine was, you’re supposed to rely on the team’s training staff or their doctors and I was supposed to see an ophthalmologist—which is somebody who checks out eye(s), performs eye surgery and they took an entire quarter to get down to talk to me in the locker room. Which, to me, is unacceptable. Because then you start thinking, ‘what if I was trying to go back in the game? What if I was really really hurt?’ I know mine was moderate but it still serious because it’s an eye [injury]. And your expectation of someone to be down there as the training staff asked them to be down there would have had a little more urgency. The way it took time was super unprofessional to me. Especially because there were people in there too. One of the doctors, or the friend of the doctor was in there double-cup fisted, styrofoam cups like everything was good and I just felt that was unprofessional.”
According to the NFLPA’s team report cards, the Chiefs graded as one of the worst in the NFL. Five of their categories graded as an ‘F,’ with their training staff being graded as the worst in the NFL.
Training Staff Report Card Comments
The team’s head trainer is given the second-lowest overall grade in the league as compared to other team ratings of their head trainers.
Only 43% of players feel like they receive enough one-on-one treatment (32nd overall).
The players feel that the training staff only slightly contribute to their success. The Chiefs trainers received the lowest score across the league in this category.
A number of players feel like the staff is not willing to provide support/treatment to all players
Some players say they are unable to get rehab done to prepare for practice and reference an overall lack of care by the team
Van Noy agreed with the grade after his experience.
“I understand how Kansas City, the players have given that training room an F. Because with my experience, I would have probably gave them an F, too,” Van Noy said. “Yeah, they ended up figuring a little bit, but it was just, the unprofessionalism. … To me, I just as a player you are expecting — people have that expectation of you being professional, handling business in a time of need. I wanted that from them and I felt like I didn’t get it. Cause then you get into, ‘did they take their time because I’m a Ravens player?’ Those are just the thoughts that go into it. I don’t think it was that but at the same time I don’t want them to come out and apologize. It is what it is. It’s all good. I don’t need somebody to come out with a press release and say they apologize, we take care of our players, blah, blah, blah. I experienced it. I know the training room that I was in knows, we know the truth. And it was just disappointing because I wanted that to be handled.”
Following his critique, Van Noy gave praise to the University of Kansas Health System.
“Now, fast forward to going to the hospital that night at the [emergency room]. I don’t know if they handled that or my trainers and the doctors were handling that [but] they executed so I do want to shout out the KU medical for doing a great job. They took care of me in the wee hours into the morning. [They] did an awesome job getting all the info really quickly and so I appreciate that. So, if they did have their hands on that, I do applaud them for that. Everything went smoothly.”