--As opposed to his second NFL season last year, Brodie Croyle will begin this year's Chiefs camp as the designated starting quarterback.
Now all he has to do is prove that he deserves to keep the spot.
Croyle doesn't come into the job with a world of credits on his ledger. He was, after all, 0-6 as a starter last year. He failed to beat out incumbent starter Damon Huard in training camp, and jumped into the starting role only when a battered Huard had to sit down after the first nine games.
Playing amid the same difficult circumstances that got Huard beat up -- a rebuilding offensive line, no Larry Johnson-led running game, few weapons beyond Tony Gonzalez and promising rookie WR Dwayne Bowe -- Croyle didn't have a lot of help as he amassed only a 69.9 QB rating on 56.7 percent passing accuracy with six TDs and six INTs. He was sacked 17 times in his six starts. A back injury caused him to miss a week after his first two starts, bringing back long-standing questions about his durability that date back to his Alabama years.
But now the job is Croyle's to lose. He was the starting QB from Day One of spring drills. The Chiefs liked what they saw of Croyle in Chan Gailey's new power-running offense, but who doesn't like what they see in spring intramural drills?
Croyle knows better than anyone that he has to justify the team's confidence in him early in the 2008 campaign.
"You can only believe in something so much until you go out there and prove it," he said.
"I can have good OTAs and mini-camps and a great training camp, even a great preseason, but it doesn't really mean much until you go out there and start winning football games. Only then is the offense going to hang onto every word you say because you're the quarterback. You don't really call it your team, your huddle, until you go out and win."
CAMP CALENDAR: The Chiefs will leave for their 18th camp in River Falls, Wis., a commuter community of the Twin Cities, on Thursday, July 24. They will conduct their first practice on Friday, July 25. The highlight of camp will be a joint workout with the Minnesota Vikings on Wednesday, Aug. 1 during which Jared Allen will work against his former teammates. The Chiefs will break camp on Friday, Aug. 15, before their second preseason game.
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