"He's so book smart yet he understands every rule,Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale," Chiefs center Mitch Morse said, "so book smarts almost turn into football smarts. He can understand what's happening in a second."
When you combine that intelligence with impressive size (6-foot-5, 320 pounds) and speed, you get the rare combination that makes for an imposing NFL offensive lineman.
So when the topic of concussions is broached, he approaches it in an analytical way.
Not surprisingly, Duvernay-Tardif has a particular interest in sports science. He is fascinated by the way the body works. It's one of the main reasons he got into medicine in the first place.
The difference with Duvernay-Tardif is that, rather than put medical school on hold until his playing career is over, he keeps plowing along. He spent this past offseason putting in residency hours, and plans to do the same next offseason. This past week, when the rest of the Chiefs enjoyed their bye, Duvernay-Tardif was taking another exam for which he'd been studying for weeks.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The day before the Kansas City Chiefs made Laurent Duvernay-Tardif their newest member, he was cradling in the biggest hands you'll ever shake the first of tiny twins born premature.
The sixth-round draft pick is not the first medical student to make it in the NFL, or even the first to make it out of McGill. Jean-Phillipe Darche spent nearly a decade as a long snapper, most of it with the Seattle Seahawks but ultimately ending his career in Kansas City.
His footwork needed refinement. He needed to put on muscle. But it became evident in a hurry that Duvernay-Tardif was an athlete, and his intelligence was off the charts.
"I think everybody thinks about it," Duvernay-Tardif said, "but it's more a question of knowing the risk. Knowing the potential consequences. And asking yourself the question, 'Is it worth it?' I think I'm in the position where it's worth it."
"I would tell you he's still learning,Cheap Jerseys From China," Reid said, "but he's making improvement every week. Sometimes he can take that step back and take a little bit of a bigger step forward. I think he's done that to this point."
It sure put the stress of the NFL draft into perspective.
Those games gave an old high school friend, Sasha Ghavami, enough material for a highlight film that Duvernay-Tardif sent out to NFL teams. Close to a dozen sent scouts to see him work out.
"When they look at the metabolism of the glucose inside the brain, it's all material I can understand," he said, "and share that knowledge with guys who want to know more about it."
Just as he has work left in medical school,China Jerseys NFL Wholesale, Duvernay-Tardif is still learning the ins-and-outs of professional football. He still struggles to grasp some of the more complex protections and deal with some of the exotic blitzes that are quickly becoming in vogue in the NFL.
"I saw potential in him within five minutes," said Matthieu Quiviger, an assistant coach for McGill at the time. "He was the one who asks the most questions. He always wants to know. With intelligent people, you can't tell them to do something. You have to tell them why. You have to be pretty quick on your feet and justify what you want him to do."
"When I was back in college," he said, "I had to do both at the same time."
He's also in a unique position to help his teammates deal with the issue.
The level of play at Canadian colleges like McGill is roughly equivalent to a junior college in the U.S.,Wholesale Hockey Jerseys China, so it's not as if Duvernay-Tardif was playing in the SEC. But that was a good thing. Medical school kept him so busy that he would usually practice just once week, learning the game plan just in time to step onto the field and bulldoze some unsuspecting defensive end.
This isn't simple biology, either. This is the kind of stuff that makes those often cumbersome, complicated playbooks of an NFL offense seem like reading "Goodnight Moon."
"When you have two passions,Cheap Hockey Jerseys, you don't count the hours, you just work as hard as you need to," Duvernay-Tardif said. "I love being in med school. I love being here playing. And the good thing now is when I am here, I can focus 100 percent on football and I don't care about med school.
There's a difference between book smarts and football smarts, though. They don't always equate. But in the case of Larry, as he's known to teammates and friends, there is a correlation.
But consideri
