The Kansas City Chiefs are attempting to recover from a nightmare 2-14 season, which ended with the loss of Jovan Belcher in a murder-suicide. In a season during which everything went unimaginably, horrifically wrong, they’re very few positives to build upon. With an offseason that produced a new head coach (Andy Reid) and new quarterback (Alex Smith), Chiefs’ fans may finally be able to remove their face from their palms.
Despite Kansas City having one of the most suspect defenses in the league last season, the 6’0, 210-pound safety is coming off an individually solid comeback year after sitting out the entire 2011 season with an ACL injury. Very few teams in the NFL have a player quite like Berry safeguarding their secondary, as he can defend the run like Troy Polamalu and has comparable instincts to the great Ed Reed. His natural gifts of speed and instinct have made him what some considered the best safety prospect in about a decade when he entered the 2010 Draft out of Tennessee.
“When I was around 12 years old, something clicked,” he told ESPN in 2009. “My mom started videotaping my games. I started watching football differently and I started watching the tapes seeing what I was doing wrong and then correcting those mistakes.”
This is why he is the leader of the Chiefs’ defense. This is why it is rare to catch him out of position. This is why he’s one of, if not the, best doing it.
