I guess Priest is the only news we will get on a bye week about the Chiefs.
Buck Harvey: A weirdo? Priest does it yet again
Web Posted: 10/22/2007 10:44 PM CDT
Buck Harvey
San Antonio Express-News Priest Holmes came back to pick up a last paycheck, right? No. Holmes came back because of his ego. He missed the attention.
Or, for the more sinister theory, Holmes came back to mess with the running back who had taken his place, Larry Johnson.
All of this has been tossed around in Kansas City, including the suggestion last summer that Holmes came to training camp wanting to be cut. "He doesn't want to play for the Chiefs," a Kansas City columnist wrote then. "Not under his current contract."
But that's the way it has been for a career. Holmes goes by his own schedule and his own standards, and when others question his ability, health or motives, he has consistently done one thing.
He did it again Sunday.
Everybody should have seen this coming, because Holmes has spent a lifetime both running against and going against the grain. He came out of San Antonio too small to be a major-college running back, and yet he overcame an ACL injury to help Texas win a Big 12 championship.
He went undrafted, cobbled together a 1,000-yard season, went to a Super Bowl — then became a star. After leading the league in rushing with the Chiefs, he made sure everyone understood it was no fluke. He led the league again.
Buck Harvey MailbagGot a question for Buck Harvey? Use the form below and fire away!He hurt a hip only to return to set a touchdown record, and he endured another ACL tear. Then, after returning yet again, he seemingly came to his end two years ago.
Suffering head and neck trauma in 2005, Holmes sat out the rest of that season and all of the next. In his 30s, with a $10 million bonus safely in his pocket, with injuries that will likely stay with him in old age, why would he ever leave San Antonio again?
Holmes acted as if he were finished, too, and this is where his personality has continued to baffle those around him. "He's a weirdo," one of his teammates told a Kansas City reporter. And though the writer said the player didn't mean it in a bad way, it's a reputation that has led to some seeing the worst in Holmes.
He didn't come around last season, for example, planting the idea he isn't a team guy. When he did report this past summer, he referred to a dream as a reason.
Then, with Johnson holding out, Holmes said what teammates never say. If L.J. doesn't want the money, Holmes said, I'll take it.
The package was there for application: Money, ego and spite.
But the details said something else. Carl Peterson, the Chiefs general manager, has said he wanted to keep Holmes on the roster even after the 2005 injury.
Holmes was earning $3.5 million at the time, and Peterson couldn't pay that. So the two agreed to the minimum salary for 2006 and 2007, an annual salary of about $700,000.
"That was my decision," Peterson told the Kansas City media. "I thought it was worth that money to keep Priest Holmes a member of our team. I still felt that he might come back, and I think I know the character of this guy. I thought that was well worth it. And it was a way to pay back our all-time leading rusher."
But that's not the way it was presented by some when Holmes unexpectedly came back last summer. Did Holmes return to pick up the check without working, or did he want to get out of the deal altogether?
Peterson countered with this: "Why can't people just accept Priest Holmes is unlike anybody else?"
He was again Sunday. He'd made his way back through his legendary work ethic, and naturally he was the first Chiefs player on the field. He caught passes from a coach nearly three hours before kickoff.
Then 721 days after his previous NFL play, he trotted out for his next one. Holmes lost 6 yards on a check-down pass.
He would pick up a crucial first down on an 8-yard run late in a tight game, but it's unlikely he will ever come close to what he was. Johnson, established now, ran for over 100 yards in the win.
But nothing is certain when it comes to Holmes. Just when others overlook him, or they think they know him, he reacts the same way every time.
He fools them.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/s...N.33f67f0.html
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by tornadospotter
Bookmarks