Locked and Loaded

It was a dark dreary day on turf in mid September that we watched our All-Pro running back Jamaal Charles go down out of bounds with a torn ACL. The pain; The hurt; The uncertainty we all shared as he was carted off with "that look". The question of if he could return for Week 1 or if he could simply recover from this injury was 80 percent answered two weeks ago. Via the Chiefs organization; Jamaal had this to say:

"I'm hungry. I want it this year. I've got the passion for it. I can be patient. I just can't wait to play football, I can't wait to bring stuff back to this community and show how much we can win. And I feel like this is a year for us, that we can go all the way because I can feel it. And me, I feel I can bring a lot to the team this year being bigger and stronger, and I don't know, maybe even faster. I can wait awhile. In my mind, I want to get back out there because I want to see where I'm at, but I feel like I'm already there, so I can just wait. Just like when I had my shoulder surgery, I waited the whole training camp to go back. I didn't do anything really during OTAs or minicamp."

Make ya feel good don't it?!

When asked about how he felt watching the games on the bench from the sideline after his injury; He replied:

"It was sick. It made me stronger. It made me the person that I am today, I can't wait and I know how to take care of my body, how to eat right and do the right things and it's made me not want to wait to touch that field again. When I touch that field going out there, you're going to feel my pain; you're going to go through what I went through. That right there is going to be there for the rest of my career because I don't want to be out a whole year ever again. That point, at my stage, I'm 25 years old, I'm at the point in my life that I've got to win games, I want to go to the playoffs, I wonder why we can't go to the Super Bowl. That had me thinking a lot and made me a better player."

Over-excited would be an understatement! I can't wait to see Charles back to 100%. With all the pieces coming back and the additions from the draft; I'm thinking about what design will Nike come up with this year for the division champs shirts.