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Holmes a pawn in Carl's game.
This isn’t quite Michael Jordan coming out of retirement to play for the Bulls.
This — Priest Holmes’ return to the Chiefs — is a business move, negotiating ploy and just a teeny bit of payback.
Take this seriously on Sept. 9, the day the Chiefs take the field in Houston for the season opener. If Priest Holmes is in uniform and part of the game plan on that day, I’ll believe he’s serious about playing football again, and only then will I believe Carl Peterson seriously believes Holmes is serious about playing football.
Until then, I’ll refer to the Chiefs’ all-time leading rusher as Pawn Holmes, a pesky chess piece in the middle of Larry Johnson’s contract negotiations.
It’s Larry’s move now. Two days before players are scheduled to report to River Falls for training camp, Peterson and Denny Thum unveiled the maneuver they think puts Johnson, his contract demands and holdout threat in check.
We will see.
Holmes’ comeback strikes me as suspicious for an assortment of reasons — not the least of which is that his longtime, San Antonio personal trainer says Holmes hasn’t been working out regularly.
But there is more, much, much more. The timing and orchestrated nature of this announcement raises doubts about its legitimacy.
When Carl Peterson wants the world to know what’s going on with the Chiefs, he generally leaks the information to Fox’s Jay Glazer. When Peterson wants Kansas City to know what’s going on with the Chiefs, he unstraps Bob Gretz’s lips from his backside, hands Gretz a prepared statement and tells him to read it aloud.
Nope. This story leaked in locations — 610 Sports and Nick "The Erroneous One" Athan’s Web site — so remote that you needed a hearing aid to hear it. And the leaks were followed up by a celebratory, detailed press release from the Chiefs that stated Holmes informed Peterson on Wednesday that he wanted to play again and would report to camp on Saturday. The release then added:
Peterson received a call from Todd France (Holmes’ representative) and indicated that Priest had made a decision that he wants to play for the Chiefs in 2007. Peterson then received a phone call from Holmes in which he personally reiterated his intentions for 2007. The Chiefs then coordinated visits with the team’s orthopedic physicians and specialists in Miami. Everyone conferred after the examination, and it was the opinion of the doctors that Priest could play NFL football in 2007.
“In my conversation with Priest, he was excited about playing,” Peterson explained. “Later, Herm (Edwards) and I sat down with Priest here in Kansas City and discussed his decision and our thoughts on his return. We may put him on active PUP (Physically Unable to Perform) initially to gauge his football conditioning and to see how he feels after noncontact drills. But he indicated very strongly to me that he wanted to play and his motivation was to help the Kansas City Chiefs win a championship.”
Maybe it’s just a typo, but how did Holmes inform the Chiefs on Wednesday, coordinate an in-person sit-down with Peterson and Edwards and set up visits with doctors in KC and Miami? That was either one busy Wednesday or Holmes told the Chiefs last Wednesday that he wanted to play football again. And if Holmes said he wanted to play last Wednesday, why not announce that then? Why hold it until two days before training camp, until the day you were supposed to make a “final” contract offer to Larry Johnson?
This is a game. It’s a game Peterson plays well.
He drafted Larry Johnson years ago to improve the Chiefs’ contract leverage with Pawn Holmes. That move worked out beautifully, in Peterson’s opinion. Holmes accepted a sensible $10 million signing bonus, and Johnson turned out to be a great player. On the flip, Dick Vermeil hated the decision, Kansas City’s talent-deficient defense was denied a first-round injection of youth, and Holmes reached the conclusion that the Chiefs were more concerned with business than winning and rewarding productive players.
Good business moves don’t always contribute to a championship environment.
I’m not sure how a soon-to-be-34-year-old running back with two years’ rust and playing in a different offense than the one that made him great is going to help the Chiefs win a Super Bowl. But he can help Peterson save a few dollars.
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Originally Posted by DrunkHillbilly
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