Rick Burkholder Clears the Air After Kyle Van Noy Calls Out Chiefs' Training Staff

Baltimore Ravens LB Kyle Van Noy recently voiced frustrations stemming from medical treatment in Week 1, and the Kansas City Chiefs responded on Friday.

Jul 29, 2015; St. Joseph, MO, USA; Kansas City Chiefs head athletic trainer Rick Burkholder addresses the media after the first day of camp at Missouri Western State University. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-Imagn Images / Denny Medley-Imagn Images

In the last month or so, the Kansas City Chiefs have dealt with some relatively unique injury situations. One was to a player of their own, wideout Marquise "Hollywood" Brown, but another was related to an opponent during the regular season.

Week 1's outing against the Baltimore Ravens saw Kyle Van Noy exit the contest early. The veteran linebacker was eventually diagnosed with a fractured orbital bone, which subsequently led to him criticizing the Kansas City training staff on his "McCoy & Van Noy" podcast. Citing them as "unprofessional," he said he also would've given the staff an 'F' grade in the annual NFL Player Team Report Cards.

The NFLPA has since defended Van Noy, but the league doesn't think the Chiefs were at fault for any wrongdoing. On Friday, Chiefs vice president of sports medicine and performance Rick Burkholder attempted to clear up the Van Noy saga and said the team has communicated with the Ravens to square everything away.

"Real quickly on the Kyle Van Noy situation," Burkholder began. "We respect the Ravens, we respect their medical staff. I respect Kyle as a player and I'm pretty upset that he was upset. I've talked at length with their doctors and actually exchanged text messages with John Harbaugh to clear the air."

Burkholder then gave his account of last Thursday's events in great detail.

"Just a couple [of] points," Burkholder said. "One is it's not mandated in the NFL to have an ophthalmologist or a dentist in the stands. We do that as a courtesy to both teams, so it's not mandated by the NFL or the NFLPA. The second thing is when he went down, I went out there because I thought he had a head or neck injury and I waited for them. I asked their physician whether they needed an ophthalmologist. They didn't at the time, they evaluated him and then when they wanted an ophthalmologist, we made the phone call up into the stands and got the ophthalmologist out of the locker room in 12 minutes. So there was a 12-minute time frame [from] when we were alerted to him, so I'm sorry that he was upset and I think we've worked it out with the Ravens through Coach and I, and both organizations respect the process."

If Burkholder's assessment is accurate, one would find it difficult to put too much stock into Van Noy's frustration. Assuming everything was indeed handled promptly and his orbital injury was treated appropriately, this situation should blow over in due time. Following his departure from Week 1's game, Van Noy missed Baltimore's first two practices of this week before returning on Friday.

Van Noy is on record saying he didn't want the Chiefs to apologize for anything. Burkholder's thoughts on Friday aren't quite that, but they add much-needed clarity nonetheless.

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