The bad news started last Thursday night during a joint workout with the Minnesota Vikings when left tackle Branden Albert, the 15th player drafted last April, reinjured the same ankle that caused him to miss the final two weeks of spring workouts.

Coach Herm Edwards initially described Albert's prognosis as day-to-day before downgrading that to week-to-week two days later. It's looking likely now that Albert will miss not only this week's preseason opener in Chicago, but might not be available until after the team ends the Wisconsin portion of its training camp.

The bad news only grew two nights later.

At their second and final evening workout in camp, the annual Family Fun Night at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, top pick Glenn Dorsey went down with what Edwards described as a left knee sprain. His prognosis was described as week-to-week, but even a mild knee sprain can put a player down four to six weeks.

The Chiefs were awaiting the result of a more extensive MRI examination before knowing the full extent of Dorsey's injury. But it was not to the right leg that sustained a small fracture during his 2007 BCS championship season at LSU.

--The Vikings' decision not to bring their 30-something starters to the July 31 joint workout with the Chiefs in the Twin Cities commuter community of River Falls, Wis., seemed understandable.

But their decision to leave former Chiefs defensive end Jared Allen in Mankato seemed more rooted in public relations. Especially when Allen made the two-hour trip from Mankato on his own later that night.

After telling Chiefs coach Herm Edwards earlier in the week that Allen likely would not be working against his former teammates, Vikings coach Brad Childress defended his decision not to expose Minnesota's new $31 million investment (in guaranteed money) to the media throng anticipating his arrival.

"I thought it would cut down on the circus," Childress told a large group of reporters that greeted his arrival. "This is a little dog-and-poniesh, which I knew it would be."

But while he didn't come over with his new teammates, Allen did make the trip on his own to visit his former teammates later that evening. He was seen with Tony Gonzalez and other Chiefs friends at a River Falls bar/grill frequented by media and players on nights when they have a later curfew.

--Tony Gonzalez, to reporters earlier in the evening, on Jared Allen's absence from the joint workout: "It's no big deal. What questions did you want to ask him? I'll ask 'em for you the next time I see him." In a matter of hours, as it turned out.

--Quarterback Brodie Croyle and wide receiver Dwayne Bowe have worked a unique bond while rooming together in camp.

Croyle, a soft-speaking country boy from Alabama, said he had only one concern about rooming with Bowe, a highly charged hip-hop guy from Miami via LSU.

"Wake-up calls to Lil Wayne," he said of the rap CDs Bowe likes to play upon arising.

Bowe said he would gladly listen to any country music Croyle would like to feature, but that watching his hunting DVDs would be too much to ask.

"Oh, no no no. If he wants me to watch that, he's got to listen to the whole Lil Wayne catalog," Bowe said with a laugh.

"I'll listen to his stuff if he wants me to. I'm trying to relate, you know. But what he does is, he sings it in the car. He'll turn my Lil Wayne down and start singing some country stuff.

"I know this: When it's third-and-12, and he knows I've had to listen to his country music, he's got to throw me the ball! He has to!"

QUOTE TO NOTE: "The other day I went back to my room thinking, 'This guy's got the devil in him.'" -- MLB Pat Thomas, who has been taking most of the first-team snaps over incumbent Napoleon Harris, on linebacker coach/defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham, who has been riding his linebackers hard during spring drills and the opening 10 days of camp.

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