Long Live the AFL! ( ::Sigh:: ) - Final 2011 Season Note

As we prepare to endure another Chiefsless Super Bowl, I thought I'd wind down the season with one last post. Today is indeed one of those days when I'll be drawn into watching at least a bit of the game. Some years I can delightfully get away with not seeing any of it, like last year when there was no party we had to attend and I could joyfully escape the day without knowing anything about what happened.

But today there is a Super Bowl party held by good people in a nice home with fine comestibles, and my sports celibacy does not allow me to be pathologically anti-social. So I will go, and indeed I will have a good time with friends. In honor of Lamar Hunt I will have at least a tepid rooting commitment for the Patriots, the old-AFL team that is appearing. This doesn't mean the old-AFL teams have really done anything Super-Bowl-wise. Six of the ten haven't won at all since the merger in 1970 (Chiefs, Jets, Chargers, Bills, Titans, Bengals) and the last non-Broncos-or-Patriots win was by the Raiders in January of 1984. But then I detail all the current old-AFL team woes in past posts.

So this still keeps me hoping that the next dominate NFL team from the old-AFL will be the Chiefs. It's their turn all right. But former Patriots mover-and-shaker Scott Pioli has got to take care of business.

The thing is, I know nothing about what we've done since the last game of the season, except for a few things I've picked up on my radar. For instance I have no idea if we've decided to keep Romeo Crennel or be earnestly in the hunt for the next Bill Belichick. I don't know what we're doing with our current quarterback situation. I did hear that after he was fired, Todd Haley complained that the things he shared with others through communication technology were being monitored by higher-ups, which can be good if it means we're taking care of business by ensuring we have the best personnel we can to win football games, or bad if it is considered to be invasively creepy.

In other words, is the organization going to carry itself as all business and will the people in it be enthusiastically committed to excellence all around? Or is it too psychotically paranoid and only frightening all those within the organization leading to many more years of poor performance on the field?

Will Scott Pioli be a beloved leader or a whacko dictocrat? Whichever one he is will be the main thing that determines whether or not we'll be the next Patriots, bringing back a long lost stature to that old-AFL.

As for what can happen with championship-team-assembling type things, we just have to hope that that quarterback falls to us in the draft. Already Pioli has insisted he won't trade up to try to get one. That's actually a great move because the price is always stratospheric to move up a handful of spots. Even though we really need that guy, we just have to hope like crazy a QB good enough to be picked at No. 11 is there for us.

There is only one other exception to the that-QB-has-got-to-be-snatched-up-very-high-in-the-draft requirement. If that guy just is not there, we could get by if a dominant pass rusher is available or the next Ray Lewis. It cannot be another Tyson Jackson! If we don't have that guy right there at No. 11, it'll just be another instance of failing to overcome the Curse of Odin's Revenge.

If there is one thing to be learned from the New York Giants making it to the Super Bowl, it is that an otherwise crappy team is there because

a. It has a fantastic coach in Tom Coughlin,
b. It has a phenomenally resourceful quarterback in Eli Manning,
c. It has an overpowering pass rush.

You have those three things and you're in the Super Bowl. It isn't for nothing that the Giants are there again after beating the undefeated Patriots four years ago.

Will the Chiefs get a coach that gets the most from the players he has and knows how to manage a football game?
Will the Chiefs be blessed to have that field general who can run the offense and just make things happen to win games?
Will the Chiefs slot in that last piece of the puzzle and add that pass rusher to compliment Tamba Hali to truly dominate on defense?

As it is I also noted that Willie Roaf got inducted into the Hall of Fame. How awesome is that. Very much no surprise. It has been my contention that Roaf was the most important player on those early '00's Chiefs teams. Trent Green and Priest Holmes, awesome players, truly, taking nothing away from them -- but they weren't half of who they were without Roaf there. When he retired, I knew it was going to be very hard. And it was. The late '00's were abysmal for the Chiefs.

As for the early '10's here, I have high hopes for Branden Albert and Jon Asamoah. Hopefully Jamaal Charles and Tony Moeaki will be back strong. It is easy to see the potential of Jonathan Baldwin.

But what about our Eli Manning?

Will he be there?

And can the Chiefs start to actually make the AFL what we all thought it should be after they won it all in '69?

Can the Chiefs finish what they started?
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