Baltimore Ravens linebacker Kyle Van Noy criticized the Kansas City Chiefs’ medical staff for being slow to respond to his eye injury during the teams’ season opener last week.
Van Noy injured his right eye in the third quarter on Thursday night and said he was “disappointed” about how long it took for Chiefs doctors to see him in the locker room after leaving the field.
“When you get hurt, especially something that can 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,” Van Noy said Tuesday on his podcast with retired defensive tackle Gerald McCoy. “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 happened to be moderate, but it still was 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.”
A Chiefs spokesperson said the team had no comment on Van Noy’s remarks, which also referenced the organization getting a failing grade for its training staff on NFLPA report cards.
“I understand how Kansas City, the players have given that training room an ‘F’ because, with my experience, I would have probably after that gave them an ‘F,’ too,” Van Noy said. “As a player, people have that expectation of you being professional, handling business and in a time of need I wanted that from them and I felt like I didn’t get it.”
In July, shortly before training camp, Chiefs president Mark Donovan was asked about the “F” grades from players.
“You hate to see that, and you hate to be on the other side of that,” Donovan said at the time. “You do have to throw open your eyes to it and listen, so you learn from it. One thing that I think is important that probably isn’t as well known is we met with our (player) leadership team and walked through it and said, ‘What’s real and what’s not?’ We had a great meeting. It’s a smaller group of players, but it’s the leaders of the team.”
Van Noy, 33, is in his 11th NFL season and third with Baltimore. His thoughts drifted to wondering if the delay was because he played for the Ravens but said he did not believe that to be the case.
“I don’t think it was that, but at the same time I don’t want them to come out and apologize,” Van Noy said while wearing sunglasses. “It is what it is. It’s all good. I don’t need them to come out with a press release and say they apologize, ‘We take care of our players,’ blah, blah, blah, but I experienced it.”
Former Chiefs offensive lineman Geoff Schwartz, who played in the NFL from 2009-2015, defended the organization on social media.
“It’s been awhile (since) I’ve gotten injured during an away game so things could have changed,” Schwartz wrote. “I was unaware it’s customary for the home team’s doctors to immediately care for a visiting team’s player who’s not suffering an emergency.”
Van Noy did not practice Wednesday. Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said it was a situation he was not getting involved in.
“I don’t know what happened or didn’t happen,” Harbaugh told reporters in Owings Mills, Maryland. “I have respect for everybody involved. I have respect for the medical people everywhere in the league, of course. Our place, Kansas City, every place in the league, all of them have the utmost respect for the players. Certainly Kyle Van Noy, he’s my guy. I love him. This is one of these guys that competes and fights and does everything he can to be the best player he can.”
