RIVER FALLS, Wis. -- Practices are long but much fairer than in his past. The light in the head coach's office burns out between midnight and 1 a.m. Meetings aren't memorable until a few tears are shed.

Yes, Dick Vermeil is back, this time donning the red-and-white colors of the Kansas City Chiefs. He's 64 years old going on 40, but his coaching motor is going 80 miles an hour. On the field, he's everywhere, patting players on the back for good plays and encouraging others to do better on bad plays.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted recently retired center Tim Grunhard. "Grunny," Vermeil shouted at the top of his lungs. "Let's get in there and hit somebody." Grunny laughed. Players chuckled. Perhaps that the most noticeable observation of the Vermeil-coached Chiefs is that this might be his first season as head coach but players are accepting him like a third-year coach.

	Return to Glory?
	Dick Vermeil is just the fourth head coach to win a Super Bowl title and then take a brief hiatus before returning with another team. Vince Lombardi, Bill Parcells and Jimmy Johnson all did it in the past, but none reached the postseason in their debut seasons with their new teams. Parcells eventually led the Patriots to the Super Bowl, though.
		Seasons off	Return season W-L
	D. Vermeil	1	??
	J. Johnson	2	8-8
	B. Parcells	2	5-11
	V. Lombardi	1	7-5-2

"Dick feels comfortable with the players who are here," said quarterback Trent Green, who joined Vermeil from the Rams in exchange for a first-round choice. "His big thing is his relationship with the players. He genuinely cares about his players."

Which may make the Chiefs a dangerous team this season. They aren't the most talented team in the division. Unlike the Rams team Vermeil built, the Chiefs don't strike fear in anyone -- yet. Still, there is a bond with these players that is emerging, a bond that usually takes three seasons to form.

"He has a master plan," Green said. "He gets a certain profile of player that he wants to bring in and be part of that program. Usually, the first couple of years, he kind of washes out some of the players."

Chiefs president Carl Peterson and vice president of football operations Lynn Stiles sold Vermeil that this was the best job for him since taking over UCLA in 1974. It was better than the Eagles and Rams because a lot of the dirty work had already been done. They sold him that malcontents that plague most losing teams were gone. They sold him on the Chiefs' talent. If it takes five years to rebuild a franchise, Peterson and Stiles sold Vermeil on the idea that this was Year Three.

"Everything is so much further along," Vermeil said. "These guys won seven games last year and nine the year before. The Eagles hadn't been doing that before I got there. The Rams were the losingest team in football along with the Jets when I got there plus I had been out of football 14 years. My expectations are higher here initially."

Gone are the problem children, which in the case of Chester McGlockton, caused significant tugs against the Chiefs' salary cap. The Chiefs rank among the leaders in dead money from the transition, but it was needed. The Chiefs are younger. Management also looked at a team that beat three playoff teams but lost to five non-playoff teams and felt the organization needed an attitude adjustment.

"Players from the Rams told me that he's a team guy, a players coach," Gonzalez said. "He creates an environment in which guys will get along with each other. When you've got a team that loves each other, there is no telling what you can do."

Vermeil's rebuilding usually works like clockwork. In the past, the timetable was three years. He was 9-19 in his first two years with the Eagles before getting into the playoffs in his third season. With the Rams, he came off a 9-23 start to win the Super Bowl in 1999. Time is essential. Vermeil only signed a three-year, $10 million contract.

"I don't look any further than that," Vermeil said. "I'll be 65 in October. This job takes a lot out of you. I plan to evaluate after my second year. If I'm not successful, they may not want me."

Vermeil is treating the Chiefs as though they are in their third year of development. He's using the abridged practice schedule that worked his third season with the Rams. Thirty minutes have been trimmed from each practice. It's two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon. As long as the players don't screw it up, there won't be any chance of the player mutiny of his second season with the Rams.

As a coach, Vermeil is older and better. He's also more realistic. He drives his coaches and himself from 6:15 a.m. to midnight or 1 a.m. every day. Gone, however, are the sleepless nights of working until dawn in his office. "I left a meeting (Friday) at 1 o'clock sand said, 'Guys, I can't go any longer. I've got to go to asleep. You guys are boring me,' " he said.

	“	He has a master plan. He gets a certain profile of player that he wants to bring in and be part of that program. Usually, the first couple of years, he kinds of washes out some of the players. ”
		— Trent Green on Dick Vermeil

His current drive is to make the playoffs in his first or second season with the Chiefs. No longer is he wasting time trying to count on players who don't appear to have the ability to be playoff caliber.

"If we make the right decisions, we should be successful quicker, and maybe win a few games to get us into the playoffs quicker," Vermeil said. "My first 18 guys on defense have more talent than the first 18 guys on my Super Bowl team, and that was the sixth-best defense in football. That Rams defense was built in my first two training camps. We had tough, long practices. I'm not taking that approach here, so maybe I leave myself open for criticism. We are using the same approach as we did my third season with the Rams."

One realization is that he probably won't achieve the same offensive success as the Rams. He doesn't have Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt and Az-Zahir Hakim and Marshall Faulk. Instead, he has the league's best tight end (Gonzalez), one of its best fullbacks (Tony Richardson), a talented receiver adjusting to the offense (Derrick Alexander) and a quarterback who knows how to run it (Green).

"We don't have that skilled person that can take an average play and take it beyond its design," Vermeil said. "That's part of building a football team. We'll have to develop some."

With Sylvester Morris out for the season with a knee injury, third-round choice Snoop Minnis will have to step forward early. Priest Holmes shows amazing balance in being able to bounce off tacklers to gain yardage, but he's not Marshall Faulk.

"I don't think we can catch up in any year with Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Az Hakim, Marshall Faulk and Orlando Pace, but we can catch up at other positions," Vermeil said. "We don't have Kurt Warner, but we have Trent Green."

Most important, the Chiefs have each other, which leads to plenty of emotion.

"I know he takes a lot of heat about being emotional, but it happens in meetings," Green said of Vermeil's emotional tendency to well up in tears. "He starts talking about people who helped him along the way. It's emotional, and the players are picking up on that. He genuinely cares."

And the Chiefs care for him.

John Clayton is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.