Kansas City Chiefs general manager John Dorsey says safety Eric Berry is doing well as he battles cancer.
Kansas City Chiefs safety Eric Berry was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma cancer in November, as his team battled for a playoff spot. He left the team and has not done anything football-related since finding out about the cancer.
But the 26-year-old Berry is by all accounts doing well, according to Chiefs general manager John Dorsey. The Chiefs’ decision-maker joined SiriusXM NFL Radio on Tuesday and talked about Berry’s progress.
“Well anybody who knows Eric Berry knows that if there’s a challenge presented to him, he will attack it with a vengeance. And he will do that. Everything that I have gotten back is positive.”
Dorsey added that his conversations with Berry have been few and far between but there has been communication. “I have not spoken with him on the phone for probably six weeks, but I have texts. We communicated through texts,” sounding as if he needed to prove something through evidence.
Dorsey told the Kansas City Star earlier this week that Berry was “in good spirits”. Pro Football Talk relayed that conversation.
"“We spent two hours together over at his parents’ house, hung out with the whole family–mom, dad, brothers. He was laughing…that’s all you can ask for.”"
This meeting came in January when the Chiefs’ brass was in Mobile for the Senior Bowl. Berry’s family is in nearby Atlanta. He added, “And I think, whenever somebody is going through something like that, it’s appropriate that we, as an organization, make the effort to go see a player that’s very meaningful to us. That’s what it’s all about.”
Berry is expected to survive and recover from the cancer disease he has. And he’s making nice strides. Alex Marvez, the host of the SiriusXM NFL Radio program Dorsey was interviewing with, made it a point to recognize that Berry is currently able to drive, and is doing so.
Berry, the fifth overall pick in the 2010 draft, is a three-time Pro Bowler and has made one All-Pro team. Perhaps partially due to those abilities–and the hope that if he makes a full recovery he can return to that level of play–or simply out of sheer sentimentality, the Chiefs have decided to keep him on their roster for now.
He is set to make about $8.3 million in 2015–the last year of his rookie deal–and cost that much against the Chiefs’ salary cap. They could have saved around $5.5 million on their cap by releasing him this offseason.
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