Chiefs’ Donald Washington Nervous Lockout Will Drag On
Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Donald Washington is enjoying his free time during the lockout, but is ready to get back to work. He’s also nervous about the timetable for getting everything done. Washington joined Jay Richardson and I on Tuesday’s broadcast of the JRich Report to discuss his offseason, the Chiefs 2010 season, their outlook for 2011 and Ohio State where the two were teammates. Here is a little of what Washington had to say.
On time off during lockout
Honestly, it’s been nice and relaxing. I ended the year on an injury so I needed a little time to get myself back healthy. But other than that, I’ve been able to spend time with my family, time that I usually don’t get when we’re having OTA’s and things like that. . . taking a couple of vacations here and there. The last couple of months I’ve been hitting the weight room and running pretty hard. It worked out pretty good for me.
Jay Richardson’s follow-up
That’s what I was telling people. A lot of the guys, especially the guys who are vets in the league . . . As much as we want to play football, don’t get me wrong, everybody wants to be back on the field playing and be back to work–but for a lot of the guys it was kind of nice to have really a couple of months where you could rest your body, spend some time with your family and not have all those offseason obligations that can sometimes wear on you. Especially guys who are coming off injuries and now you’re talking about kind of being pressured back into workouts and OTAs by coaches sometimes and not to have that pressure to be able to relax a little bit it’s kind of nice. Now, it being a lockout, eventually it’s going to be some financial pressure on some guys.
On the timing of the lockout
I’m hoping they can get it done within that 7 – 10 day span just so we can get into camp on time. . . I think it’ll be good to be back in that team mode. Get back to team bonding. . . My gut, I’m still kind of nervous about it. I feel like they’ve been saying “This is a big week. This is a big week. This is a big week” for the last three or four weeks. Until something actually gets done I don’t think we can get too comfortable or put all our eggs in saying this things about to get done any day now. I feel like every week they’ve been saying, “this is a big week,” and here we are 120 days into the lockout.
On whether the Chiefs can repeat as AFC West Champions
I don’t want to sit here and put any pressure on myself or our team. You know, we got the core of our team coming back. We had a little bit of success last year. You know, I just think we’ll take it one game at a time. But we’ll be a very competitive team and we’ll try to keep the thing rolling. There’s a chance we can repeat, but I don’t want to make any guarantees.
