Chiefs safety Eric Berry is afraid of horses. He’s not, however, afraid of talking about a 2-14 team making it to the playoffs.
“As long as we keep working, as long as we keep getting better every day, and everyone comes in focused, we have a very, very high chance of reaching the playoffs – which is not our only goal but it’s the first step toward where we want to go,” Berry said on Wednesday’s edition of Pro Football Talk on NBCSN. “So, as long as we just keep working and keep moving forward, I feel like we got a great chance of doing some great things but if we don’t then, it’s not going to happen. But I’m going to make sure that we do stay focused and that we keep moving in that direction so it’s a high possibility that we will be.”
Berry’s focused is being enhanced by new coach Andy Reid, who is as Berry said, “Tough on me.”
"[I]f anything’s going bad on the defensive side of the ball, he’s always going to come at me,” Berry said of Reid. “Just to make sure, because he knows I’m supposed to hold that side of the ball to a high standard and just making sure that everybody’s doing what they’re supposed to do. It’s just been a lot put on me. I know I’m up for the challenge. I know I can handle that so I’ve just been trying my best to keep moving forward and getting this team moving in the right direction.”
But he won’t be moving in the direction of any horses. While he may not hate anyone who ever had a pony, Eric Berry hates ponies. And horses. And anything else equine.
"[B]ack when I was little and my home girl, I was about three or four, she had like a little party or whatever,” Berry said. “And they had like a pet horse there, like a little pony. And me, seeing how ponies act on TV, I thought it was going to be the same way and tried to go over there and touch the pony and it actually bit me. So after that it’s been no ponies, horses, donkeys, anything of that family. You know what I’m saying, like I don’t deal with none of them.”
Berry definitely deals with Broncos. And if the Chiefs are going to make it to the playoffs in 2013, Berry may need to do some biting of his own when Kansas City plays Denver this season.