I’ve really enjoyed watching a lot of these young backs run this season. Two that have come on very strong of late are Steve Slaton and Chris Johnson. Both are speedy backs, with fresh legs who make great cuts. They both have enough size too and that should keep them healthy.  If they can avoid injury, they will become very good backs in this league for years to come.

I thought I’d talk about a couple of painful things this week: turf toe and losing. When I came to the Chiefs in 1987 and 1988, we won 4 games each year. It wasn’t until 1989, when Marty Schottenheimer came, that we started to win. I believe we went 8-7-1 that first year under him. Those two years of losing were not fun. Losing in the NFL is a hard thing to change. Everyone has a bad feeling. When you lose a lot, players expect to lose. A cancer grows through the team and the locker room. It’s not until you change that attitude that winning can happen. Players just want the season to be over and to get out of there. They can’t wait until it’s over. It’s very hard to change that feeling of losing.

I’m watching a lot of the preseason games and it’s exciting to see the young players out there competing. I get lots of questions about will this back be good or how will that running back do. With young players like Darren McFadden, Felix Jones and Ray Rice, it remains to be seen. They have to come to camp and into the regular season with the right mindset. They have to come out in practice and know they can do it. They can’t be intimidated by the other players in camp. They can’t let the veterans scare them. All the talent in the world doesn’t matter. It depends on their mindset.

Look at what Adrian Peterson did last year. He had the right mindset for sure. He got hurt and he came back and did very well. That shows he’s tough enough to stay around and play at a high level. I expect him to do very well this season.