| Quarterback Brady Quinn embraces Crennel after Sunday's win. (US Presswire) |
A day after Kansas City linebacker Jovan Belcher shot and killed his girlfriend before taking his own life, the Chiefs took the field at Arrowhead Stadium and won their second game of the season. The 27-21 victory over the Panthers didn't mean much in football teams -- Kansas City was eliminated from the playoffs last week -- but for obvious reasons, this was about more than a game.
"That's what we do," said coach Romeo Crennel, who along with general manager Scott Pioli saw Belcher kill himself. "We are football players, football coaches and we play and coach on Sunday. That's why I wanted to play the game. ... If for no other reason, it takes our mind off our misery for a few hours."
Chiefs quarterback Brady Quinn offered some poignant remarks after the game. As he stood in front of reporters following an afternoon in which he completed 19 of 23 passes for 201 yards and two TDs, with a 132 passer rating, he spoke of the importance of taking a break from our online lives, looking up from our phones and interacting with those around us.
“The one thing people can hopefully try to take away, I guess, is the relationships they have with people,” Quinn said. “I know when it happened, I was sitting and, in my head, thinking what I could have done differently. When you ask someone how they are doing, do you really mean it? When you answer someone back how you are doing, are you really telling the truth?
“We live in a society of social networks, with Twitter pages and Facebook, and that’s fine, but we have contact with our work associates, our family, our friends, and it seems like half the time we are more preoccupied with our phone and other things going on instead of the actual relationships that we have right in front of us. Hopefully, people can learn from this and try to actually help if someone is battling something deeper on the inside than what they are revealing on a day-to-day basis.”
Belcher and his girlfriend had a 3-month-old daughter who, as Crennel said Sunday, will have to grow up without a mother and father. Quinn spoke about what the team plans to do for her.
“We are going to try to put together a fund for her," he said. "Obviously, without having either parent in her life now I think it is important that she understands what type of love that she should get from a family, and Jovan was part of our family. We make sure to take care of our own, so we want to try to put together a fund and we will have more information and details as to where you can go to donate, but we just want her to understand.
"You know, at one point in time she might have some questions in life and we want her to understand how much she is loved and not reflect back on a thing like this and look on it in a negative way," Quinn continued. "Hopefully she can understand, try to find a peace with it and move forward with her life.”
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