Tales from the road: Offense steps forward and Ryan Williams’ Chiefs connection

For the first time this week it appeared that the Cardinals offense was a step ahead of the defense in practice.

Defensive coordinator Ray Horton did his best to light a fire under his squad after noticing the disadvantage, but for the offensive coaches this was likely a breath of fresh air.

Both Kevin Kolb and John Skelton seemed to have good command of the offense in the afternoon drills, and once again Ryan Williams made a couple great moves out of the backfield. However, it was what happened after practice that was the real eye opener from the Cards running back, who told local reporters a fascinating story of when he first met Chiefs General Manager Scott Pioli during his pre-draft visit to Kansas City.

Apparently the two were talking when Pioli noticed Williams’ accent and asked him where he was from. When he got the answer (Upstate New York, specifically a town called Newburgh), he dug a little deeper only to find that he (Pioli) played high school football against Ryan’s dad, who was also a running back. Williams went on to describe that his dad has been in prison serving a life sentence since he was 9 years old and after sharing that with Pioli, the GM reached out and wrote a letter to the incarcerated Williams to reconnect, something that has stuck with Ryan and forged a relationship between the two.

With the afternoon practice done, that concludes the work on the field for the Cardinals here at Missouri Western State University. They’ll have a final walk-through Thursday morning before leaving for Kansas City in the afternoon.

For more on the team’s experience here in St. Joseph, join me and AZCardinals.com’s Darren Urban at 5 p.m. Arizona time for a Google+ hangout live from our lovely dormitory at MWSU. The broadcast will be simulcast on www.azcardinals.com/hangouts/ as well as the Cardinals YouTube page. For no other reason, you should tune in to see what the tie-dye Cards shirt I made last week with my six-year-old daughter looks like.

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