Kiko Alonso's legend continues to grow

ORCHARD PARK

There have been numerous times over the past six months when Bills defensive coordinator Mike Pettine wondered whether middle linebacker Kiko Alonso understood what he was being told.

They'd be on the field, or in the meeting room, or even at the lunch table, and Pettine would look into Alonso's brooding eyes and he just wasn't quite sure if the rookie second-round pick was all there.

"I've had conversations with him and afterward I was like, 'I don't know if he heard a word or truly comprehended what I said,'" Pettine recalled the other day with a smile. "There are times I've talked to him about things and he tilts the head and has this 'why are you saying this to me' look; like the dog with the high-pitched sound."

But in his somnolent way, Alonso disseminates the information like an Intel chip, then does exactly what he was told to do, better than Pettine or anyone else could have possibly imagined for a first-year player, and Pettine is left to shake his head in amazement.

"We use the term 'pitch count' around here a lot and it's like he has a pitch count with his words; only so many he can use in a year," Pettine said. "He doesn't talk a lot, but underneath all of it, he's very intelligent. Soaks everything in, and the proof is what happens. You wonder if he really got that, and then he goes out on the field."

Apparently, he's getting it.

Alonso, picked with the Bills' second pick in the second round of the 2013 draft, has taken the NFL by storm. Six weeks into his NFL career he leads the league with 66 tackles, is tied for the lead with four interceptions, has become a trending phenom on Twitter, and already has his first honor as he was named NFL defensive rookie of the month for September.

Yet in those six weeks, as #thelegendofKikoAlonso has spread like a California wild fire, barely a peep has come from the laconic Alonso. He's a perfectly nice kid, but he just doesn't have much to say, the ultimate example of a guy who lets his play speak for itself.

"Nothing changes in what I've got to do," he said, softly downplaying all the attention he has garnered. "I don't think much of it. It's great, but I know I just have to get a lot better."

Anyone who truly knows Alonso isn't surprised by his attitude.

"This is exactly how he was in college," said Alonso's teammate at Oregon, offensive lineman Mark Asper, a 2012 draft pick of the Bills who recently rejoined the team. "He'd come smashing in there and make a big play and he has no emotion. He just goes back to the defensive huddle, and we had to trash talk for him. Our big line was 'Kiko Smash.' He'd come through and blow everything up like the Hulk and then just walk back and it was like he was saying, 'Next.'"

And to think, 10 years ago, Alonso had never played a down of organized football. He was a baseball player, and a really good one, perhaps even better than his older brother, Carlos, who currently is an infielder in the Philadelphia Phillies' farm system.

"I started playing baseball at a young age and that was really my sport," said Alonso, who was born in Massachusetts, then lived half his life in Texas before moving to Los Gatos, Calif. where he attended the same high school as former Bills quarterback Trent Edwards. "I played year round, I guess I was pretty good. I loved baseball and I had goals to play baseball when I was older, but then I started with football."

Freshman year at Los Gatos High. That's when it all changed. And while he continued to play baseball for a couple more years, football quickly became his passion.

"I just loved everything about football," he said. "I loved being able to run around and hit people."

Yes, Bills fans have noticed.

By the time he was a senior, he was a one-man wrecking crew. That year he made 150 tackles and 27 sacks, and even found time to play wide receiver as he caught 35 passes for 559 yards and seven TDs.

Oregon coach Chip Kelly recruited him, and then had to wait a bit for the dividend. Alonso red-shirted in 2008, played well in 2009, but then endured a miserable epoch between the spring of 2010 and spring of 2011. He suffered a knee injury, and also was suspended from the team for a pair of alcohol-related arrests.

He doesn't speak about much of anything, particularly those incidents, but he certainly gained a measure of maturity from that experience and it showed in his last two seasons. He became a full-time starter in 2011 and he earned defensive player of the game in Oregon's Rose Bowl victory over Wisconsin. In 2012 he made 87 tackles and four interceptions, and the Bills knew they had to have him.

Kelly left Oregon to take the head coaching job with the Eagles, and he would have drafted Alonso, but he didn't get the chance when the Bills swooped in at No. 46 overall.

"Kiko Alonso was a guy I would have loved to have," Kelly said. "I coached him and I think he's an outstanding football player. I know they got a great one in him."

The Bills knew this almost from the first practice.

"He was very well prepared for this," Pettine said. "Sometimes you get guys in shorts and you think they're going to be good players, and then the pads go on and you're like 'Ah.' We kind of knew. We had to almost tone him back in the spring; let's not be blowing our own guys up."

Pettine recalled one such day in one of the mini-camp practices. Alonso was flying all over the place, and he banged a teammate just a bit too hard.

"I remember he hit a guy pretty good and it might have been the day we had the league checker or the union here, and you kind of cringe because it's supposed to be non-contact practice," Pettine said. "It kind of looked accidental, but you had a little doubt because you didn't know the kid that well at the time."

Asper, of course, has seen that before. He went against Alonso plenty in practice back at Oregon, and it wasn't a whole lot of fun.

"He was a disruptive guy," Asper said. "I've seen him do a few things here that were identical to college where he reads a play real quick, shoots through the back side and makes the tackle in the backfield and everyone's like, 'where did he come from?' We always joked that we were glad Kiko was on our side."

Alonso was plugged into Buffalo's lineup and given the task of being the signal caller, and it's a role he has excelled in despite his lack of verbosity.

"Obviously he's communicating with the defense," said head coach Doug Marrone. "You look at a guy who is a first-year player and you look at what we put on his plate. We put quite a bit on it; he has to do a lot of preparation, probably extra preparation during the week because he is responsible for calling the defense. He wears the green dot out there."

As for Alonso's demeanor, well, Marrone recognizes his quiet nature, but every once in a while, he'll surprise you.

"I have had social conversations and he's extremely bright from that standpoint," Marrone said. "We actually had a conversation one time in the hot tub; we were talking about some financial things, which all of the sudden you're like, 'Whoa.'"

Whoa indeed. It's a word that has been used often to describe Alonso's exploits this season.

MAIORANA@DemocratandChronicle.com

Twitter.com/@salmaiorana





Kiko Alonso

Height/weight: 6-3/238.

Experience: Rookie.

Position: Linebacker.

College: Oregon.

Draft: Second round, 2013.

The skinny: Born in Massachusetts but lived half his life in Texas, and the other half in Northern California. … Attended the same high school as ex-Bills QB Trent Edwards. … Mother, Monica, is a native of Colombia, father, Carlos, was born in Cuba and raised in Puerto Rico. … Brother, Carlos, is a minor league baseball player in the Phillies organization. … Kiko's first language is Spanish. … His given first name is Kristian.

By the numbers

66 — Tackles this season, tops in the NFL.

46 — Pick overall (second round) that Buffalo used to draft him.

4 — Interceptions, most by a Bills rookie linebacker since Mike Stratton made six in 1963.

22 — Tackles last week against Cincinnati, second-most in a game by an NFL player since 2000.