During the Kansas City Chiefs‘ 27-20 win over the Baltimore Ravens in Week 1, Ravens veteran linebacker Kyle Van Noy suffered a fractured orbital bone early in the third quarter.
It wasn’t until 40 minutes after the injury occurred that the Ravens ruled Van Noy out for the remainder of the game. That’s because, as Van Noy explained on September 10, of the Chiefs training staff’s lack of “urgency.”
“I was disappointed in the way the training staff of the Chiefs handled the situation,” Van Noy said on the Yahoo Sports podcast “McCoy & Van Noy”. “When things like that hurt, especially something that could be serious like mine was, you’re supposed to rely on the team’s training staff or their doctors and I was supposed to see an ophthalmologist — which is somebody who checks out eye(s) — performs eye surgery –and they took an entire quarter to get down to talk to me in the locker room. Which, to me, is unacceptable. Because then you start thinking, ‘What if I was trying to go back in the game? What if I was really, really hurt?’
“I know mine (injury) happened to be moderate but it’s still serious because it’s an eye. And your expectation of someone to be down there as the training staff asked them to be down there would have had a little bit more urgency,” Van Noy continued. “The way it took time was super unprofessional to me. Especially because there were people in there too. One of the doctors, or the friend of the doctor was in there double-cup fisted, styrofoam cups like everything was good and I just felt like that was unprofessional.”
Van Noy then said Kansas City’s training staff receiving an F grade on the NFLPA’s report card, making them the worst training staff in the league, is justified.
“I understand how Kansas City, the players have given that training room an F because, with my experience, I would have probably after that given them an F too.”
Kyle Van Noy Did Praise University of Kansas Medical Staff
Van Noy made sure to also give credit when credit was due. He followed up his criticism of the Chiefs training staff with some praise for the University of Kansas medical staff for the treatment they gave him after the game.
“Now, fast forward to going to the hospital that night at the [emergency room]. I don’t know if they handled that or my trainers and the doctors were handling that [but] they executed so I do want to shout out the KU medical for doing a great job,” Van Noy said. “They took care of me in the wee hours into the morning. [They] did an awesome job getting all the info really quickly and so I appreciate that. So, if they did have their hands on that, I do applaud them for that. Everything went smoothly.”
X Users Reacted to Kyle Van Noy’s Podcast Comments
Users on X — formerly Twitter — reacted to Van Noy’s comments about the Chiefs training staff.
“I listened to the podcast and this is insane entitlement by Kyle Van Noy,” Dr. Jimmy Liao of the Lions Wire wrote. “Are players really expecting a full range of medical specialists available on-site at the stadium? Maybe NFL pays for this, IDK.
“Surprised that an ophthalmologist would even go to the stadium and as quickly as 1 quarter. Zero chance that happens for the rest of us. It’s not even a good idea as I doubt there’s a slit lamp, CT scan, and other things ophthy needs for full eval.
“I have to pull strings as an MD just to hopefully get patients an ophthy appt same day. Go to ER/UC like everybody else if it might be urgent.”
“This seems like whining just to whine,” another person wrote. “Sorry that every possible specialty of doctor isn’t twiddlin’ their [expletive] on the sideline waiting for the pampered NFL players’ beck and call.”
