Exclusive: As Troubles At Home Simmered, Chiefs Tried To Help Jovan Belcher from KC Star
When another Chiefs employee arrived, Pioli told him to stay back. Meanwhile Pioli tried to persuade Belcher to lay down the weapon, Sharp said.
Belcher thanked Pioli for everything he had done for him. He asked if he and Clark Hunt would take care of his daughter.
Chiefs Head Coach Romeo Crennel and linebackers coach Gary Gibbs arrived in the parking lot and Belcher reportedly announced, "Guys, I have to do this."
Romeo Crennel On Jovan Belcher: 'I Don't Know What Made Him Snap' from KC Star
Q: How do you reconcile Belcher as a teammate versus his horrible acts?
A: "We will do it like any other family would do. Jovan is a member of the family. What he did, we didn't like, we're not crazy about, but he's still a member of our family. When you go out in society and things like this happen in society because they do happen in society, you don't see people throwing the family members out the door. They are still loved by their family members, but the act, you don't like the act. So, you move on. You deal with it, and you don't have a choice; you have to move on."
Chiefs Walk A Fine Line In Remembering Belcher from KC Star
There is no handbook to walk this tightrope, but the Chiefs are making their way with care. They encourage the players speak their own minds about their friend while reminding them that the tragedy robbed young people from two families.
The team held a moment of silence before Sunday's game for victims of domestic abuse, never mentioning Belcher's name - not even in a statement about the tragedy.
Belcher's bio is wiped from the team's website, and owner Clark Hunt has made it clear there will be no helmet stickers or armbands or other public displays honoring a man who killed an innocent woman. The message against domestic abuse and that Belcher's final acts affected two families comes straight from the top. The team is working on details about how to help provide for the baby girl Belcher and Perkins had together.
Defining Leadership from The Mothership
What could possibly allow a coach, his general manager and defensive coordinator to endure such horror and 30 hours later lead a team in front of not only its fans but the entire country?
"You have to rely on each other, rely on your family, your friends and your faith," Crennel said. And the Chiefs head coach did just that and did it remarkably, to his players' admiration.
"He's been a rock for a lot of guys and he's been the definition of a leader," said Chiefs C Ryan Lilja, who fought back tears. "He's been really consistent and you know he's hurting, you know he's hurting but he has a job to do and really, his job the last couple days was to lead this group of men not necessarily to win a football game, it was to help us cope. I don't think you can ask for a better leader in that situation than what he's done."
With Heavy Hearts, Chiefs Shift Focus To Next Game from KC Star
"From a football standpoint, we played a good game and I think we're happy with the way our team stuck together through immense adversity," linebacker Andy Studebaker said. "But when you zoom out 200 feet or a thousand feet, it's really insignificant what we accomplished compared to what happened to those families, to Kassie and Jovan's mom and Kassie's family and their little baby, Zoey.
"It wasn't like a normal Sunday. I don't want to say we didn't enjoy the win. We did. But when you think about it, there are bigger things going on that need to be addressed."
OpinionOnline: K.C. Chiefs Tragedy Goes Beyond Football from USA Today
We grasp for answers because it's what we do whenever something awful and incomprehensible happens. ... The Internet filled on Saturday morning with the usual culprits: It must be football. It must be head trauma. It must be the culture of on-field violence carried into real life. Here is where we need to hit pause. ... The worst thing we can do is grab at the easiest answer simply because it makes us comfortable.
Cowboys Corner: After Kansas City Deaths, Garrett Repeats His Message To Players -- Talk To Us, There's No Issue We Can't Solve from The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Garrett said cornerback Brandon Carr, who spent his first four years in Kansas City before joining the Cowboys this year, knew the deceased player well and did a good job of getting himself ready to play as best he could.
The suicide of Belcher touched Carr most directly, but Garrett said everyone felt its effect.
"That's part of our fraternity. That happened in the Kansas City Chiefs' organization, but it happened in the NFL, and we had some guys on our team who knew him and knew that situation really well,"
Brandon Carr Deals With Chiefs Tragedy from ESPN
The NFL is such a small fraternity where players don't forget each other. Ever.
"I knew him and Kasandra," Carr said. "That was my family, Kansas city was my family before I got here. I'm still close with a lot of those guys there. The whole situation is just shocking. It's unexpected. Out of the blue. You automatically want to ask why, but all I've been doing is praying and asking God to be there for the families that are affected by this and certain people are affected by the incident."
QB Brady Quinn's Interview On KC Murder-Suicide 'Eloquent' from The Amarillo Globe-News
The most mature, insightful comments of the weekend came from Chiefs quarterback Brady Quinn. His words in the KC interview room after the game were spot on. Maybe he thought about what he might say, knowing he would likely would be in front of the press after the game, but his comments were not the usual off-the-cuff remarks, but extremely eloquent. How he was able to see the big picture right after a game were remarkable.
Tragedy In Kansas City Weighed Heavily On ODU Coaching Staff from The Virginian-Pilot
The death of Kansas City Chiefs' linebacker Jovan Belcher, who took his own life after allegedly killing his girlfriend early Saturday morning, was felt deeply by many members of the Old Dominion football coaching staff.
Head coach Bobby Wilder coached Belcher at Maine before coming to ODU in 2007, as did offensive coordinator Brian Scott and special teams coach Mike Zyskowski. ODU quarterbacks coach Ron Whitcomb was a teammate of Belcher's at Maine.
Wilder said he learned about Belcher's suicide about an hour before Saturday's NCAA playoff game against Coastal Carolina, which ODU won, 63-35.
Belcher Subject Of Police Reports While In College At Maine from The Macon Telegraph
Former Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher's name appears on at least three police reports released by University of Maine officials on Monday.
In April 2006, which was Belcher's freshman year, he was upset over a woman and punched a dormitory window, according to officials.
In February 2007, officers responded to a noise complaint involving Belcher and his girlfriend and "a discussion outside his room."
Jovan Belcher, KC Chiefs Tragedy Examined With A Sports Psychology Perspective from Chicago Now
As a Sport Psychology consultant, the wheels started turning as I read more and more about this tragedy and understanding everything involved. I started examining the facts from what I could gather from the National Sports media. There are still a lot of unanswered questions.
There are different facets within this tragedy - Family, Coaching Staff and Team Management, Teammates, and the Future of Football and Head Injuries. In this article, I plan to examine each one of them in depth.
One Lesson Of The Jovan Belcher Murder/Suicide: The NFL Has A Serious Domestic Violence Problem from Syracuse.com
After the Jovan Belcher murder/suicide, there's been a lot of talk about making more and better counseling services available to NFL players. And certainly, Commissioner Roger Goodell has made clear his goal of reducing domestic violence in the league. "We are going to do some things to combat this problem because some of the numbers on DUIs and domestic violence are going up and that disturbs me," he told CBS Sports' Mike Freeman earlier this summer. "When there's a pattern of mistakes, something has got to change."
But what Goodell has done to address this pattern as of now is unclear. Earlier this year, the commissioner suspended Saints defensive end Will Smith for his role in the team's "bounty program." (Smith has continued to play while the suspension is under appeal.) But he faced no league sanction when, in 2010, he was charged with domestic battery after allegedly grabbing his wife by the hair during an argument outside a nightclub.
Jovan Belcher: Domestic Violence Is Not Just An NFL Problem from The Washington Times
Today, critics say the NFL has a serious domestic violence problem. As a family law attorney who sees the results of domestic violence on a regular basis, I'm here to tell you domestic violence is not just an NFL problem. It is a problem in every single facet of our society.
Don't blame the game. Blame the culture of denial about domestic violence in this country.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an average of three women are murdered by an intimate partner every day in the United States.
The Future Will Reveal How Much Jovan Belcher's NFL Family Cares from Forbes
The Chiefs said they will set up a fund. The public can contribute to it. Will it be for the daughter only, also the grandmother, or all victims of domestic violence? What will be the competing preferences and allocations? Will the League provide matching funds or more? Will the NFL Players Association match or exceed the Chiefs contribution? Time will tell. We know the League and the NFLPA have all the sophisticated legal resources to draft complex insurance, deferred compensation and trust agreements. They did that with the 2011 collective bargaining agreement. Let's see if they are as dedicated to drafting and funding in this circumstance.
Chiefs Fans Remember Victim, Support Team On Sunday from Pro Football Weekly
While debate raged whether the game should've been played, some fans believed getting the players on the field was the correct decision.
"I actually think it's the total right thing to do," Tom Moore of Kansas City, Mo., said. "It's the only thing, at least for a short period of time, to get it off the players' minds and go out and keep the routine they had, and then after the game start truly going through the grieving process."
Mike Hopkins, who made the trip from Iowa on Saturday night, said he also agreed with the team's decision to play based on his personal experience with a family suicide.
CBS Drops The Ball In Coverage Of The Chiefs' Murder-Suicide Tragedy from Sports Illustrated
We live in a Bayless-ian age of hyperbole where can-you-top-this snap judgments are delivered for maximum viewership and page views. So I want readers to know the following sentence was considered with deliberation and thought:
CBS's The NFL Today show disgraced itself on Sunday.
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Brady Quinn's Deep Passing Lifts Chiefs from ESPN
Brady Quinn's 97.6 Total QBR in Sunday's win over the Carolina Panthers was the highest by a Kansas City Chiefs quarterback in a single game in the past five seasons. He was 8-of-9 on 3rd down and 6-of-7 for 132 yards on passes traveling at least 15 yards beyond the line-of-scrimmage.
Matt Cassel has yet to have a game with six completions of 15 yards-or-more downfield this season.
Offensive Linemen To Visit Fans At Local KFC To Raise Awareness For First Downs For Down Syndrome from The Mothership
WHO: Members of the Chiefs Community Caring Team, including members of the offensive line, Chiefs Cheerleaders and KC Wolf, as well as a representative from First Downs for Down Syndrome. (Subject to change)
WHEN: Tuesday, Dec. 4 from 12-1 p.m.
WHERE: KFC
8400 Clint Dr.
Belton, MO 64012
NFL Game Capsules - Week 13 from KC Star
An already challenging season for the Kansas City Chiefs only got tougher following Saturday's tragic events. But the show went on. And somehow the Chiefs avoided tying their longest losing streak in franchise history. Just over 24 hours after linebacker Jovan Belcher fatally shot his girlfriend before taking his own life at the team's facility, the Chiefs resiliently took the field and downed the Carolina Panthers, 27-21, snapping their eight-game slide. Brady Quinn threw for 201 yards and two touchdowns on 19-of-23 efficiency for the Chiefs (2-10), who avoided joining the 1987 and 2007 Chiefs as the only teams to lose nine straight games in franchise history. Jamaal Charles carried the ball 27 times for 127 yards in the win. Cam Newton completed 15-of-27 passes for 232 yards and three scores, while adding 78 yards on the ground for the Panthers (3-9), who downed the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday.
KCChiefs.com Photo Gallery: Lift Up America
KCChiefs.com Video: From The Podium: Romeo Crennel
KCChiefs.com Video: Inside The Locker Room