Falcons at Chiefs - Week 1 - Record: 0-1

There is a reason I am "sports celibate," watching-seeing-reading-hearing nothing about any Chiefs things except at game time. I did not know that we were without Tamba Hali, Brandon Flowers, Kendrick Lewis, and Jalil Brown until the game started. At that moment I knew we were dust, because I do happen to know a little bit about the Falcons, namely that they have probably the best wide receiver tandem in the NFL. And they have a still-very-good Tony G.

Sure enough Matt Ryan and the Falcons carved us up like the juiciest, tenderest roast beast.

The reason I mention the sports celibacy is because if I'd known, say, five days ago that we would have soft butter spread for a defensive backfield, that's five days I'd be going crazy knowing we were to be served up for dinner Sunday. That's five days of agony that, blessed be, I got to do without.

Oh glorious sports celibacy.

As it is we've lost yet another opening day game, and for the second year in a row getting pasted at Arrowhead. The last Chiefs opener I watched before I quite joyfully commenced my sports celibacy program was that Sunday night splendor of a win against Oakland in 1998. The image I have in my head about that game is of Derrick Thomas making stew of Raiders QB Jeff George. The joy.

Thing is, since that game we've won a total of four opening day games. Know what they were? '02, that weird ending game against the Browns, '03 (starting with San Diego) when our very good offense blasted us out to a 9-0 start, '05 (against the Jets) when we finished as a very strong 10-6 team but barely missed the playoffs, and in '10 with that nifty Monday night win against the Chargers.

Other than those, utter dreck. Today was the tenth Chiefs loss on opening day in that last 14. We just can't be ready for an opener.

And the main reason today was that the other team was just better than we were. Yes, the D-backfield situation was a killer. But I could also mention our extraordinarily poor offensive line play in the second half. Or the abject failure of our pass rush to put any pressure on their QB. Or just how much quicker the Falcons were in every aspect of the game. Or even how yet again we have to suffer through another field goal attempt bonking off the upright. This is such a curse that it was after that when our entire effort today completely imploded, did you notice that?

But that main thing is something that the announcers mentioned about halfway through the 4th quarter. It was as if they were reading the words from The Quarterback Project right off the computer screen.

They merely pointed out that the Chiefs just flat-out don't have the quarterback.

At the beginning of the game they asked the question everyone was asking. Which Matt Cassel will show up? In the first half it really did look like Cassel had done his duty and in the off-season enthusiastically attended the Bill Walsh School of Acquiring Reasonably Decent Pro Football Quarterbacking Skills. But in the second half it looked like he spent the summer layin' on a beach in Tahiti.

I'm not going to regale you will all the frightening details I've shared in The Quarterback Project. The thing that was funny was that the announcers mentioned the Chiefs have gone the longest among all NFL teams without drafting a quarterback in the first round. The last one was Todd Blackledge, of course, back in '83. Yet really, let's be honest, this is mostly just because we've never, ever had any luck at being in that one perfect drafting position to get that one guy that is just the right fit for us. It has been just wretched, it really has been.

Meanwhile, the Redskins were busy taking it to the Saints in the upset of the day, led by this Robert Griffin III fellow, who, well, ::sigh:: is not on the Chiefs.
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