Tamba Hali went on a Twitter rant about the Chiefs because all he wants is to win

The Chiefs finished last season 12-4 but fell to the Steelers in an 18-16 heartbreaker in the divisional round. Eleven-year veteran linebacker Tamba Hali hardly saw the field.

Hali tweets often to promote his new album or interact with fans, but he doesn’t typically spend his Saturdays tweeting a flurry of complaints about the Chiefs. Over the weekend, Hali went on an uncharacteristic Twitter rant about his playing time and his former college coach, Joe Paterno. On Tuesday, he took to Facebook Live to try to clear the air.

“Guys, I think it got blown out of proportion,” Hali said. “All I was trying to say is, at the end of the day, I love the game.”

Hali, 33, played in all 16 of the Chiefs’ games last season, but he only started two of them. That was a big change from the previous season, when he played in 15 games and started all but two. He had just 34 tackles, a career low, and his 3.5 sacks were the second-worst numbers of his career.

On Saturday, Hali pointed out his low snap counts in two losses against the Steelers last season.

On Tuesday, he said it was the frustration of losing a playoff game he barely played in that pushed him to vent.

“I’ve always wanted to win a championship, and I’ve always been a part of the equation, and what happened last year is, I just wanted to win,” Hali said on Facebook Live. “I think anybody can bear with me, understand that, the frustration of losing a game in the playoff and barely playing. Being a competitor as myself, you just want to win. And that was basically what the rant was about.”

Hali also drew a parallel between the Patriots with Aaron Hernandez and Paterno’s role in the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State.

Hali said on Facebook Live that he did not call out Robert Kraft, but was just trying to illustrate his point about Paterno.

“I said, well, I guess if you’re Mr. Kraft, and you hire someone like Hernandez, and then he commits a crime such as he did, so are we going to point fingers at Mr. Kraft and say he’s to blame for why some individual chose to be unstable and and do something that’s totally — basically none of us would agree with going and killing innocent people,” Hali said.

Hali shifted blame for the handling of the Sandusky case to Penn State’s former athletic director, Tim Curley, and the university’s president at the time, Graham Spanier.

Paterno’s career ended in disgrace because of his failure to report Sandusky, who was convicted for sexually assaulting minors in Penn State’s football facility. He was fired after 46 years as the Nittany Lions head coach, and the university even removed its statue of Paterno that stood outside of Beaver Stadium. Spanier and Curley were both convicted and sentenced to jail time for not alerting law enforcement to the situation.

Then Hali circled back around to the Chiefs, who start back at training camp Thursday:

Justin Houston, Eric Berry, and Marcus Peters — all key members of the Kansas City defense — missed the team’s voluntary offseason workouts this year.

“I wasn’t calling out any players,” Hali said. “I was just letting people know how I feel.”

Hali pointed the need to build chemistry as a reason for his frustration.

“And we have a young team, and sometimes you have to kind of tell your leaders or point fingers at your leaders and let them know that, guys, you’ve got to be around,” Hali said.

It all came back to Hali’s love for the game.

“It’s real serious business when it comes to football and me,” Hali said. “Some people don’t take it that serious. I do.”

After Hali’s Twitter rant, new general manager Brett Veach said he did not have a problem with Hali’s tweets. Head coach Andy Reid said he loves that Hali wants to play, but “we do not want to do it through the social media part of it.”

This will be Hali’s 12th season with the Chiefs, and he just wants to be on the field instead of the sideline this year.