Ravens at Chiefs - Week 5 - Record: 1-4

I am so eager to put up that full rich post and I'm going crazy not being able to. As you know yesterday I was privileged to enjoy the transcendant experience of being at Arrowhead to watch my favorite team play football. I so much want to put in the time and energy it takes to blog on it all, and I will. But my workload right now is so numbingly oppressive that I won't be able to get to it all in right away.

So with the intention of making this a well-merited two-parter, I can take a quick moment to get right to the one issue that even some of my students mentioned today, and I'm sure most Kansas Citians were intensely conversing about at some length.

The Matt Cassel incident.

With a few minutes left of game time, the Chiefs were around midfield, down 9-3, when Cassel was laid out flat on the turf. Immediately something happened that I actually figured was going to happen when he just didn't get up.

Chiefs fans were going to cheer.

And far too many did.

There really weren't a lot of them who did, but enough did to make a good dent in the air. I must say that at that moment I instinctively shouted with some reasonable volume, "No cheering!" I shouted it a couple of times, and mentioned to the gentlemen in front of me, "Yes, we all know we need a new quarterback, but you don't cheer here." They fully agreed, and I know most Chiefs fans did.

What is so disappointing is that people watching the game around the country heard that and thought about Chiefs fans as a bunch of louts. And ya know? Some are. It was disappointing to see that a few people I was in the stands with were drunk swearing pukes whose only redeeming quality is that they had red and gold on. That was sad.

But I also know that most Chiefs fans are pretty decent people who don't want to see anyone get injured, they enjoy seeing a good game, and they do really care about every Chiefs player no matter who they are.

Yes we do need a new, better quarterback. Brady Quinn did come in and lead us to a game-winning, stupid-ref-call-nullifying touchdown (more on that next time). Before the game a plane flew around the stadium with a banner reading "WE DESERVE BETTER: FIRE PIOLI, BENCH CASSEL."

Every Chiefs fan knows what the deal is with Matt Cassel.

It just takes quite a bit more maturity to behave in such a way that football or even the Chiefs do not take precedence over civility, dignity, and respect for human beings. And I believe most Chiefs fans do behave that way, and it was an honor to watch our team work as hard as they did to play well in a game they really should've won.

More on that next time with a deeper analysis of the team effects of the whole Cassel situation!

I can't wait!
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