2009 Chiefs Preview - It Isn't Pretty

Anything that really counts for anything in the NFL begins a week from today. The regular season commences and our Chiefs open at Baltimore. I'll pop in each week to offer some thoughts from an impassioned fan so devoted to his pro football team that he can't do anything but tune in to the games for three hours... and that's it.

Thing is, my Chiefs radar is always up--it is indeed impossible to draw it in--so I'll pick up things here and there. The smattering of Chiefs items I've caught leading up to next Sunday will provide a pretty good idea of why I do no Chiefs thing unless it is Sunday from 12 to 3 central time.

Item #1 - With a desperately desperate need for offensive linemen new GM Scott Pioli used his 3rd pick overall to get a not-nearly-heralded-at-No.-3 D-lineman from LSU, Tyson Jackson. Pioli had better have the greatest prescient ability not held by other experts and I am telling you flatly I would luuuuuuuv for Jackson to be the reincarnation of Bruce Smith.

But I don't think so. Cynical me. I've just seen too many of these guys we're trusting our GM to know better about turn out to be not what they should be. Jackson at No. 3? He'd better be a nuclear-powered Bruce Smith. They say his pairing with fellow LSU alum Glenn Dorsey will be a fine thing. Whoa. We're still waiting for Dorsey to be studly which he waaay wasn't last year.

Item #2 - I saw one single Chiefs play this preseason. As I was heading out the door at our hotel room during a vacation stay, my son had some sports report on and I happened to see Chiefs highlights coming on. I turned to catch the play (that radar being fully enabled) and what did I witness? Was it the fantasy in my brain--brand spankin' new QB Matt Cassell throwing a spectacular TD pass against the Seahawks?

Not exactly.

Instead it was Cassell finding himself suddenly subsumed by of a phalanx of Seahawks injury-causers, disappearing until he emerged limping around. And why was he in that position, Chiefs offensive linemen? Yes, I'm talking to you, Chiefs offensive linemen. Explain yourselves.

See, that's what steams me just as much as any lasting injury effects of the Cassell incident. Even as much as the fact that exhibition play even remotely allows an NFL team's quarterback to be in such a position--is anyone planning to do anything about that?

It is most steam-making to know that we just didn't do a whole lot to build the most important part of an offense besides the QB, and that's the offensive line.

Now, maybe they did. Maybe Branden Albert is ready to take on the second most important single position on the offense, left tackle. Maybe this is the year these young kids start to blossom on the way to fine Super Bowl runs over the next several years.

Yes, yes, I'm serious about that. Maybe. We just need to give Pioli and Haley a chance. I'm fine with that. It's just when you see them use a No. 3 for someone not projected to be anywhere near there, when you see your OL utterly fail to fully protect your QB of the future, when you see stuff like this for a team that just can't afford it, it can just be very discouraging.

It sure can't seem like it can be any worse. In the last 24 games we've played, we have 2 wins. Think the Lions were worse? Not by much. The Lions have had one win over their last 24 games, but that one game: beating the Chiefs.

I guess the adventure is in just seeing what happens next. At least there's that.