In the seven years I've been writing this blog, today's game was only the second game I've missed due to a distant travel commitment to see my brother back east. The funny thing is that the other time I missed the game was last time I'd gone out to see my brother back east.
And both times the Chiefs got shellacked by the Bills.
That last time it was in November of 2008. Tyler Thigpen was our quarterback, and the shellacking was so thorough that we made it a 54-31 game on the strength of a Dwayne Bowe touchdown catch from, ahem, Quinn Gray. Now, just to tell you how pathetic that is, after looking up that game just now to see what the score was for this blog post, that was the first time I'd ever heard of Quinn Gray. I'd never heard of him before.
I'm about as passionate a Chiefs fan as there is (who albeit is committed to earnest sports celibacy), but I'd never ever known of a Quinn Gray taking a snap in a Chiefs uniform. (Wonder if there is any relation to Brady... eh.)
Today we got pasted again by the Bills, just a repeat of last year's debacle to them early in the year. They had 21 points on the board before you could blink, and since I did not see the game I really can't say anything about it. I did happen to catch the running scores on the flight home today because of the ticker at the bottom of the screen on the TV set in front of me at my seat.
A couple things to note, however. All the funness about quarterbacks above ain't no fun now. But hey, I'll yet again refer you to The Quarterback Project for the excruciatingly ugly outlook for our Chiefs. Sure Matt Cassel had a decent stats day during garbage time in today's game, but, well, yeah: The Quarterback Project.
The other thing is something that came up at the very end of the Giants-Buccaneers game that happened to be on the TV during the flight this morning. It was something that was troublesome in the Super Bowl, and the Giants offense was involved then too.
It is that situation in which the offense has the ball waaaay deep in the opponent's territory, about a minute left, tie game, and all the offense has to do is let the clock wind down to one second, call timeout, then boot in the game-winning field goal. But they do have to run a play. With 30 seconds left the Giants ran the ball and the Buccaneers defense, much like the Patriots' in the Super Bowl, just wilted.
Deliberately.
"Go ahead and score," then essentially said. Hey, at least they tried to look like the brave, valiant matadors that they were.
At first glance you'd think, that's just so crappy. The integrity of the game. The honor. Play hard all the time -- come on. I even thought that right now the NFL has got to be devising some rule change to keep that from happening.
Now in case you don't get why the defense does this, it is because the touchdown stops the clock and allows them to have the ball back, giving their offense at least a little time to actually get down the field and tie the score themselves. It's a long shot, but at least they have a chance.
On the other hand, if the defense works real hard and succeeds in keeping the offense out of the end zone, that offense would still have that second on the clock to kick the field goal to win it, which in the NFL is something like a 99.99993819% certainty.
The reason I bring all this up is because I concur with those expressing disgust over this practice, trust me, I really do, but ya know?
If that's what ya gotta do...
Which leads me to the Chiefs.
As much as it pains me to say this, can we just do the matador strategy this year? For the whole season? Pleeeeaze???
I really don't think we have a bad team (today's game of which I know little notwithstanding). But can we use whatever goodness we have and pretend to work real hard to win games, yet finish with an 0-16 season? I mean it'd be nice if we'd win a game or two, but I just flat out don't want to win a single game to threaten our chances to get the No. 1 pick in the draft and be the winner of the Matt Barkley (or whichever college superstud it is we need to get at quarterback) Sweepstakes.
Last year it looked like we'd be in prime position to get Andrew Luck, starting very very very abysmally. But then we foolishly went off and won a bunch of games to finish mediocre again, ensuring we'd get Dontari Poe.
Great. Guh-rate.
Yes, I am serious, and yes, I think it does do a little to compromise the integrity of the game. But just like those teams playing obvious matador defenses at the end of games to their obvious advantage, why shouldn't we? Really?
Again, just like I shared last year, I'd love it if we win, but let's be about as candidly up-front as we can. It's getting more and more frustrating to watch us win a few times a year, stay mediocre with a pathetically mediocre quarterback, and never, ever have the chance to draft and develop a field general who will win the war for us.
So yeah. It's all there.
Quarterback Project, baby.
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