It's not every day that you get to think about baseball on a football blog, or mix your hometown Royals with the cross-the-street Chiefs, but this is the rare alignment of those factors (and, hey, the Royals are hot, and Chiefs practice is over for six weeks).

I was thinking last week about an issue that kept making me more curious. Chiefs coach Todd Haley's intensity and business-first approach is certainly getting results, but what happens if Kansas City struggles anyway? Because he is testing players' limits, is he under some sort of psychological deadline in which he must prove his harsh method works -- before players begin to question it or, worse, revolt?

I think Haley will lose some soldiers' faith if the Chiefs start, say, 1-5. It's natural. Players questioned Herm Edwards last year, and he was as friendly to players as the all-you-can-eat menu at the Argosy. I remembered last year that Royals manager Trey Hillman tried to instill some discipline and a no-nonsense approach to the team. And in some ways, that backfired, Hillman later admitting that he might have gone about some things the wrong way.

I'm certainly no Royals expert. So I asked former Kansas City player Brian McRae what he thought about it and what a coach/manager faces when he strips the fun out of sports, even if temporarily, and how long players will remain patient.

Here's some of what he said, in his words:

He (Hillman) even admitted that what he did last year didn’t work the way he thought it would, and he’d go about things a little bit differently this year. With players, the players bottom line is, just be consistent in your approach.

You run the risk of it backfiring on you if you don’t do things like that because players will run over you and take advantage of you.

Both these guys are trying to change the culture. If you’re trying to change the culture of what’s been going on in the past, then more drastic measures may need to be taken. The culture of the ballclub or the team has been terrible, and you have to come in and instill your will and what you want to do on the players, and sometimes that takes being the bad guy in a sense. Things aren’t going good, and you’ve got to whip these guys into shape and make things right very quickly. What Trey tried to do last year was what he thought was best at that time, and he found out that they weren’t the results that he thought they would be.

He admitted, and I think it was good that he admitted them, that when he looks back at it, he won’t do those types of things this year.

On the fact that neither Hillman nor Haley had MLB or NFL experience before being chosen to take over:

I don’t think the respect thing comes from what you did or what’s on the back of your bubble gum card or what’s in your bio in the media guide. A lot of kids that they may be coaching, might not have paid attention to the game when they were playing. All they’re worried about is how you’re going to make me better.

There were some veterans that didn’t see eye to eye with Trey. Bottom line is, if they won, everybody would’ve acted like they got along.

Some guys will buy into anything a guy says for a certain amount of time. Once they don’t see results, they’re not buying in anymore. That’s the thing that’s tough. If guys don’t see results and get some positive feedback about what they’re doing wins and loss-wise for the most part, guys start going in survival mode and start worrying about themselves: "If the team is going to hell in a hand basket, I’m not going to have a bad year because of it."

You can’t pick your manager or your head coach. He is picked for you, and you learn how to adapt for his style. Whether you like it or not, you learn. Until you go somewhere else, you have to find a way to make it work. It’s not the manager or coach’s job to conform to the player; it’s the player’s job to conform to what the manager or coach wants you to do.

They hate you, but they have to respect you. Do you lose them as far as respect goes? Or do you lose them as far as they don’t like you because they don’t like you but they can play for you? There’s a fine line there. They don’t want to talk to him, but they can play for you. We don’t have to hang out. Their personalities won’t allow them to play for a guy they don’t like.

If the players hate you so much that they go out and find a way to win and they hate you so much they’re going to play together despite you, then I guess he did his job. If that’s a motivating factor that the players needed to play better, then in the end nobody cares if you like the guy.