I've become quite enlightened, I must tell you. Only because a number of revelatory things have burst out of my skull over these two days that must I write again. I've always worked really hard to only write on gameday, but I really must unload this visionary anguish onto the blog today.
Ten things I've just got to spell out before the masses, ten things that I do know for sure. There are some things I'm not sure about, but these, I am sure about. Commiserate with me, please, I beg you. The following is in no particular order, though I kind of arranged them in the order of when the light came on:
1. I do know that the Patriots scored 59 points in their game on Sunday. I caught this when looking at the NFL website to peek at past Chiefs drafts -- a hobby I have, sort of a cerebral exercise to resolve the ongoing conundrum of our contemptibly incessant ineptitude. The Patriots beat the Colts 59-24. I think the Colts had 24, but the Patriots did score 59 points.
Then I looked at how many recent games it has taken the Chiefs to score 59 points. You laugh at this?
Well, let's put it this way. If the Chiefs were playing the Patriots this past Sunday, and the Patriots gave the Chiefs a five-game head start to score points to try to beat the Patriots and their 59 points, the Chiefs still would've lost. 59-58.
Yee-epp. Patriots 59, Chiefs 58.
Patriots vs. Colts, 59 points. Chiefs vs. Buccaneers Raiders Chargers Steelers Bengals, 58 points.
I just can't refuse to bring your attention yet again to that time in November, 2005, that glorious time when the Chiefs beat the Patriots at Arrowhead. I actually thought, wow, now it's our time to be awesome and great and wonderful, and the Patriots are going to get to schlurp for a while.
Ouch.
The whole Chiefs-Patriots comparison thing, which I do every once in a while, is really, really painful, yes. I'm just a masochist, that's all.
2. I do know that people are dying because of the Chiefs. There was actually a story, there in the national news no less, that a Kansas City man died and blamed his death on the Chiefs. Now you'll see that the dude was a fun, joking, kind of guy. But you know? If you're a true Chiefs fan, you know that the Chiefs have been trying to kill you for years. Here's a guy who's just openly sharing the truth about things. Good for him -- as it were.
3. I do know that the San Francisco 49ers now have a raging quarterback controversy. They have two pretty dang fine quarterbacks, Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick, and the latter had a splendidly boffo game last night in place of the concussion-recovering former. It's kind of like the quarterback controversy the Chiefs have, only the complete opposite.
The Chiefs have no one.
Oh, yeah, in the 2011 draft we could've snatched up Kaepernick who, from what little I know, was a studly dude from some Nevada school whom everyone apparently knew quite surely was studly. Maybe Scott Pioli was getting his cup of coffee when everyone noticed. Instead he got Jon Baldwin, who still can develop into a fine receiver, and I mean that, exceppttt there is no quarterback to throw him the ball. Annnd there is no coach to coach the quarterback we don't have. Annnnnd...
Here's the real deal with the quarterback thing right now. Why are Matt Cassel and Brady Quinn still around? Why is Ricky Stanzi still around if they won't at least put him out there and see what he can do? Why aren't we picking up someone like JaMarcus Russell or Matt Leinart or someone who was thought to once be studly but are nowhere now? Why don't we just try somebody out?
What on earth do we have to lose?
Respect? I can't see how we have any of that now. Announcers were saying Sunday that players were nervous they'd be benched or canned or whatever, and that affected their play. What? If you suck you'll be out -- nothing personal, but this is business.
So why not get somebody else and just see what they can do for the rest of the season? Who cares if we lose 87-0? What difference does it make? Maybe someone like JaMarcus Russell is the perfect fit for Kansas City when he wasn't for Oakland -- and if he doesn't fit here, what's the loss?
See, this is the time for the Chiefs to show they mean business. But, well, erggkhhkrgh...
4. I do know how phenomenally important O-linemen are. Even though having Rodney Hudson in there probably wouldn't have made that much difference with all the Chiefs rotteness there is, I can't help but think that losing your brand spankin' new spiffy center to a broken leg for the rest of the season in only the third game has got to be pretty major. People still don't get how critical the offensive line is, and when your center goes down, the one O-line guy who's got to do a real skill thing in snapping the ball, that's devastating.
Look at what's happened with our O-line. We've had a crazy high number of bad snaps from the replacement centers. The coaches have been frantically shifting linemen's positions all around to try to get the right mix. What you've got is our backs unable to get untracked, no sustained pass protection, and more turnovers.
Just losing that one seemingly meaningless player has doubly killed us this year.
5. I do know how much we were destroyed by the stupendously poor 2009 Chiefs draft. I'd mentioned how bad the 2009 draft was in my last post, but when you think about it, it could easily be one of the worst ever in NFL history. One reason is that it came off a 2-14 season. There is just no way you should ever be having as bad a draft as this after being such an awful team the year before.
And even though it was Scott Pioli's first, he has no excuse. He came over as the genius player personnel guy from the Patriots. No excuse whatsoever. I mean, was he that bad? Did all the people he consulted and all the draft analysts get it all so wrong? Did we just have the most rotten luck, I mean, is the Curse of Odin's Revenge just that overwhelming? Or did Pioli just go out of his way to pulverize conventional wisdom and get guys who very predictably tanked? He definitely tried to do the whole "I'll turn the tables and show 'em" with Tyson Jackson and, well, we all know how that worked out.
In any case, not having a single regular player (that is, someone not a kicker) from that '09 draft class regularly out there doing great things for us now has really hammered us. (The irony that only a Chiefs fan can savor: the only truly relevant player from '09 is Mr. Irrelevant, Ryan Succop, taken last among the whole bunch. Wow.)
And this is again one reason the days are so deathly dark for Chiefs fans. We're rocketing to a 1-15 season and we just can't be sure the guys we get next April are going to make us contenders again. Extraordinarily depressing...
6. I do know I was wrong about my consideration of the Chiefs this year. Yes, I do try to be somewhat optimistic in the blog enough times to revel in some hopefulness among the Chiefs fandom, nothing wrong in that. But I must say it was painful to watch Sunday's gamecast show graphics related to how many others thought the Chiefs were going to really contend this year. I was right about the quarterbacks, I knew they'd schlurp and sure enough they've schlurped.
But I actually had very positive feelings about our ownership/management/coaching. This is just my mea culpa. I was very wrong. I will get to this more as the season progresses and we all see what transpires.
1st, ownership. This ownership, umm -- I have mentioned that Clark Hunt scares me. I still have yet to get and read Michael MacCambridge's new biography of Lamar, but I'm curious to see what could be in there that Lamar possibly did to have contributed to Chiefs not-very-goodness. I may not want to know. But we must face reality that after Lamar's stellar late-60's Chiefs run, the Chiefs were nothin' much, for great yawning periods of time.
How much of that was Lamar?
And even more frightening -- reality is brutal -- how much of it today is Clark?
2nd, management. I actually am still holding out hope for Scott Pioli. A little, tiny, sliver of hope that the guy may actually have it in him. I dunno. Watch, tomorrow he gets fired. But I can't see how that'll happen, because didn't Clark just give him a bazillion dollar contract extension? Looking at this train wreck as it is, that's comical really.
3rd, coaching. Romeo Crennel is as good as gone. If he doesn't go, then the ownership/management of this team is really deplorable.
7. I do know Peyton Manning is still a very good quarterback, and I think I know why he didn't choose the Chiefs. Remember back in, what was it, March or April when he was mulling over the team he'd want to join? Everybody was talking about it, it was all over the news even. Thing is, I'd heard some people say it was a sure thing he was going to the Chiefs. How overjoyed I was!
Well, he up and went to the Broncos. He had to have looked at our leadership, and looked at the Broncos leadership, and well, there ya go. And I don't think this was something lost on all the other Chiefs fans. I mean, look at the Broncos coaching. They're led by John Fox, who led the Panthers to the Super Bowl one year. The Panthers. Last year he led the Broncos to a division title and a playoff win, something the Chiefs have done only twice in their entire near-50-year history. (In case you're wondering: we won the division in 1966 then beat the Bills, and 1993 then beat the Steelers. That's it.)
So lessee, John Fox vs. Romeo Crennel. Romeo Crennel vs. John Fox. Hmm. I also know Peyton Manning is a smart guy.
8. I do know that the San Francisco Giants are the World Series champions of major league baseball. I only say this because I can still revel in knowing that my baseball team did the dance on the mound yet again, and not be so thoroughly despondent over the Chiefs destitution.
But I can add that I do know this. Good teams with good leadership win. There were a number of really good teams that didn't win the World Series, but still earn the greatest respect from everyone, the Tigers and Cardinals and several other teams are good and have good leadership. The Tampa Bay Rays are a shining example -- they didn't even make the playoffs but they still win and earn the respect of everyone for how they play on the field and what they do in the front office to make that happen. None of these teams have to worry -- sure the breaks may not go their way and they may not get the trophy, but they still win. (And yes, I do know this is all a zero sum game -- if there's a Giants there is most likely an Astros somewhere. But with the Chiefs, it is ridiculous...)
This year when I wondered if the Giants would win, if they'd come back from those deep series deficits they had against the Reds and Cardinals, I thought about something that as a fan of the Giants many years ago I knew sadly applied only to other teams, and that was this:
I took a great deal of assurance in the fact that the Giants this year were a good team, and a lot of that was because they had that very strong leadership. Yeah, the photograph here is of Giants manager Bruce Bochy, and it was taken of him with a 49ers cap on. I couldn't resist doing a "photoshop" job on it, just to think... ahhh... to have someone like that managing the Chiefs... true bliss.
Here's the thing: if the Giants weren't a good team, then they wouldn't win. The Chiefs have overwhelmingly proven this very basic principle this year.
If they have strong leadership they'll get good players who'll respect them and play well, and they will win too. Even if they don't win a title in one year or another, they'll be proud to be on the team and represent the city and the fans.
This leads to a very scary thing I know:
9. I do know that players can get very frustrated.
All men want to be respected in their jobs.
In football that's the players and the coaches and the managers and the owner.
And I fill in those positions with Chiefs people and I do wonder about something I don't know:
How much will these guys take all this hardship to heart? Will they stop trying? Will they give up? Will the fears they have of being disrespected move them to check out?
And how much of a toll will that take on the entire Kansas City Chiefs environment that encompasses the whole of all things Chiefs -- team, organization, city, culture, everything?
The scariest thing to me is this. What happens if someone like Matt Barkley does end up being the stud quarterback that he should be, and he's the guy we're slotted to get, I mean he really does turn out to be all that and we've got him, yet because of the abject wretchedness of all things Kansas City Chiefs he does a John Elway in 1983? Remember that? Just utterly rejecting the Colts in favor of ::gulp:: the Broncos (guess their leadership was better then too...)
I do know that all of this is not the worst thing that can happen to the Chiefs. You'd think this was about as rock-bottom as you could get being anything Chiefs, whether you're the smallest fan or our All-Pro quarterback. All of this horrificness, however, makes it very scary that the worst thing could happen.
That worst thing is not even that the Chiefs move to Los Angeles. Oh yes a very harrowing thing for Chiefs fans living in and around Kansas City. But ya know? The Chiefs in a big market like LA would be terrific for the Chiefs themselves. Don't get me wrong -- not an option for the KANSAS CITY Chiefs, no matter how awful they are.
No, the absolute worst thing is that the Chiefs fold all together. Many may very rightfully, understandably, perfectly reasonably say, "Huh! That would probably be the best thing that could happen! Take that big mean-looking shotgun to head of this suffering beast and put us out of our misery!"
Would that happen? At this point it is very unlikely. The Chiefs still have a great deal going for it. It has a proud history and strong support, with Arrowhead and the fan base in Kansas City. The team still has highly-regarded reputation and a prominent place in the entire NFL culture with the Lamar Hunt legacy -- I mean take a tour of the Hall of Honor there at the stadium again.
But I still wonder. How much more awfulness can be tolerated? Kansas City fans are fiercely loyal, they're still going to Arrowhead, many even wearing those terrible bags over their heads.
10. I do know there is a lot I don't know. I admit I don't know about a lot of the different things that make up Chiefsitude. The cruel truth is that we all do know that many of those things are indeed manifesting themselves as this.
How much longer will this go on? It isn't just the last few years. It is the entirety of time since we last won a Super Bowl for cryin' out loud. We weren't much through the '70s and '80s. We were nothing in the playoffs in the '90s. We've been back to not-much since then. I'm not being a Negative Nabob of Nattering Negativity...
I'm just telling you what I know.
And I do know exactly what was most meaningful about the words on that banner following the airplane, the one that circled Arrowhead on that Sunday I was there at the beginning of October. It wasn't the part about benching Cassel, everyone knew that was going to happen. It wasn't the part about firing Pioli, I'm just not sure that switching around your general manager every year or so will really get you anywhere.
I do know that Chiefs fans deserve better.
Will we get it? I just don't know. But we can keep looking to see if it will. And right now, all this is kind of fun in a therapeutic kind of way. And that's because I do know a couple other things.
There are still fans who are with me, still with the Chiefs, rooting for any and all Chiefs things no matter what.
And there is hope, however little there is.
Those two things are very good things to know.
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