Tamba Hali to start training camp on PUP list

The Kansas City Chiefs are being careful with Tamba Hali in training camp by placing him, once again, on the PUP list.

Last year, the Kansas City Chiefs worked out a way to keep Tamba Hali fresh heading into the season knowing he had significant issues with his knees after a decade in the NFL. The Chiefs started Hali on the Physically Unable to Perform list in training camp, getting him loose during weeks 2 and 3 of the preseason in order to get ready for the regular season. The move worked well enough that the team is once again employing the same strategy in the hopes of keeping Hali fresh for 2017 as well.

Hali only had 3.5 sacks last year but the amount of quarterback pressures generated was actually much greater. Hali looked good during the season and was another defensive weapon for Bob Sutton to use alongside the blossoming Dee Ford and the team’s best pass rusher Justin Houston.

Hali says he’s known all along this offseason that he would begin training camp on the PUP list, a move worked out with the team’s trainer, Rick Burkholder.

"“Rick (Burkholder) and I have been on the same page. We talked. We basically said, ‘We are going to do the same thing we did last year, which will start you on PUP and then, maybe, two or three weeks in to camp you will be able to come out and start getting ready for the first game.’”"

Fortunately for the Chiefs, Hali is already coming into this season feeling “much healthier” than he did at this point in 2016.

"I think I am way ahead of the ballgame. Last year, around this time, I could barely run. It took a while for me to regain my strength. As far as where I am today, I can run. I can do the things that I was doing before the year. I feel much healthier."

Hali has played in 178 games for the Chiefs in his 11-year career.