As they sat down for dinner last Saturday, Rakeem Nunez-Roches felt the need to preface the message he was about to deliver to his mother.
“I’m going to tell you something, but I don’t want you to go crazy,” Nunez-Roches told Nancy. “Then I told her.
“She went crazy, and started crying.”
They were tears of joy. Nunez-Roches, the Chiefs’ second-year defensive lineman, had just told her he was about to make his first NFL start.
Nunez-Roches made the most of the opportunity, recording four tackles, one solo, in the Chiefs’ 20-17 victory at Carolina.