Ravens outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy criticized the Kansas City Chiefs’ athletic training staff for what he said was an “unprofessional” response to the eye injury he suffered in Thursday’s season opener.
Van Noy, who said on his “McCoy & Van Noy” podcast Tuesday that he suffered a fractured orbital bone early in the third quarter of the Ravens’ 27-20 road loss, was initially treated by the Ravens’ athletic training staff on the team’s sideline inside Arrowhead Stadium.
But after heading to the Ravens’ locker room, Van Noy said he waited on treatment from the Chiefs’ in-house ophthalmologist. He said Kansas City 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?’”
Van Noy said the injury occurred when his helmet slipped under his chin strap on a play, and he ended up in a pile with Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Ravens defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike. He said the top of the pad in his helmet was on his eye when he hit the ground, and “the ground is undefeated.”
He said his injury, a “pretty good fracture” of his eye socket, was “moderate.” Still, he said he expected “a little bit more urgency” and called the response time inside the stadium “super unprofessional.”
A Chiefs spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.
In an NFL Players Association survey of Chiefs players conducted from late August to mid-November last season, Kansas City’s athletic training staff received a league-worst grade of “F.” According to the players’ union, Chiefs players “feel that the training room is significantly understaffed, with only 43% of the team responding that they get an adequate amount of one-on-one treatment time. Players feel that the staff is unwilling to provide the necessary treatment to support recovery and performance.”
On his podcast, Van Noy said that “with my experience, I would’ve probably after that gave them an ‘F,’ too.”
“To me, I just feel like, as a player, people have that expectation of you being professional, handling business,” he added. “And in a time of need, I wanted that from them, and I felt like I didn’t get it. Because then you get into, like, ‘Did they take their time because I’m a Ravens player? Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.’ Those are just the thoughts that go into it. I don’t think it was that. But at the same time, I don’t want them to come out and apologize. It is what it is. Like, 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.’ I experienced it.”
Van Noy, 33, said he later went to the emergency room at the Kansas City-based University of Kansas Medical Center, which did a “great job” with his treatment. “If they [the Chiefs] did have their hands on that, I do applaud them for that. Everything went smoothly there. But before that happened, I thought that was kind of ridiculous.”
Ravens coach John Harbaugh declined to comment on Van Noy’s injury Monday. Van Noy, who signed a two-year contract extension in April after recording a career-high nine sacks last season, did not have a timetable for his return, as he said he was undergoing tests with eye specialists.
