When I started this blog back in 2005, I envisioned just writing a bit about each game, enjoy how we were doing, revel in recognizing the best of our team and lament about the not-as-best with honest and clear assessments. Each game would be about the game and pretty just the game, and maybe I'd add some about where we were at in relation to the rest of the teams and our playoff possibilities to the extent that I knew.
It'd be fun.
Well, this year it has been an entirely different endeavor. I've actually barely talked about items within each game, because the implications of what is going on right now with this team overall have been so pressing. This year it has purely been therapy, because I am such a passionate Chiefs fan and the Chiefs of 2012 were so utterly, astoundingly, sublimely wretched that this writing has probably been the only thing that keeps me sane through it all.
I've never written in this blog as much as I have this year. I've had to.
Here're the things that I simply have to splurch onto this post, just because I have to. I can't help it.
The abysmalosity of this season, wrapped up today in a typically underwhelming hammering by the Broncos:
We reached (and far surpassed) the minus-200 point differential plateau, or Marianas-sized trench as it should be. Very few teams reach it. Only the worst of the worst do. We barely beat two sucky teams this year, while they were saying Denver's only three losses were to three of the best in the NFL.
I think they said Denver had five players with 40+ receptions on the year. I'm pretty sure we didn't have one. I could think of a dozen different statistical evidences of just how atrocious the Chiefs performance was this year. There are so many it is hard to bring them to mind to put them down. Things like other team's quarterbacks who've thrown for five or six touchdowns in a game. I think we've had, what, eight or nine TD passes all year. Look it up! I'm sure it's close to that.
We were 0-12 against the conference this year. Think about that. I'd bet in the history of the NFL only winless teams like the 2008 Lions or 1976 Bucs could claim that. There're probably a couple 1-15 teams whose sole win was against an opposite conference team, but if you looked it up I'd bet only the worst of the worst went winless against every other team in their own conference.
Our best receiver is our punter. While the Broncos were making one-handed grabs for touchdowns left and right, our receivers were bumbling about as usual. But with the second-to-last punt on the day, Dustin Colquitt had a snap sail on him and he reached up with his right hand and -- wow! -- what a spectacular one-handed grab! No touchdown though, just another punt. Yay.
Meanwhile to get to his last punt of the day, we had 4th-and-2 with two-minutes left. And we punt the ball. At that point Denver kneels for three straight plays. Sure with the score 38-3 it didn't matter a whole lot, but it was just an indication of how lame this team is, especially its coaching. Romeo Crennel said he was proud of his men for never giving up. Yay. He still can't respect them enough to go for it on that 4th-and-2 just to make the statement, to stay in there and give it your all even when all is lost. Even though it was Brady Quinn, still. The crutch that Crennel had for a bad leg meant more than that in this game.
I saw earlier this week that Matt Cassell was dead last in QB rating, 66-point-something. I'd seen Brady Quinn's mark even worse, 60-point-something. I'm sure it didn't get any better today. So there ya go. The Chiefs 2012 quarterback performance. I just don't know how you could get any worse than that. I mean, I don't know how they arrange the quarterback rating, but I'm pretty sure that to get a rating lower than 60 you've got to complete only three passes for minus-18 yards, throw six interceptions, and get sacked seven times. Wait, didn't that happen to us a couple games this year?...
Otherwise, a couple of playing-against-Denver memories.
Remember the final game of the season three years ago, in Denver? We sucked then too but we'd had Scott Pioli and Todd Haley for just one full year, the first year of the rebuilding process? Remember that? We went into Denver and pasted them. Derrick Johnson had something like 14 pick-six's. I exaggerate, but if you remember that game you know what I'm talking about. It was splendid. Well, this year was supposed to be the full fruition of what was supposed to be, what was supposed to be coming out of that game. Today it should be us going into the playoffs with home-field advantage throughout, not Denver. But then, they have Peyton Manning and we've had Matt Cassel. Yeeeee-ah.
Remember that game late in the 1990 season, the one against a reeling Denver team when Steve DeBerg hit Rob Thomas and he ran up the sideline for a game-sealing touchdown? I treasure that play in my heart because it just represented a turning point when the Chiefs got to be great for a while after Denver had for so many years. In fact in the 90's the Chiefs had the best regular season record of any NFL team except the Bills. Better than the Cowboys, the 49ers, the Packers, and the Broncos. Except all of those teams had Super Bowls wins that decade and the Chiefs had... well, you can guess. So now we're back to really sucking and the Broncos dominating.
During the gamecast today they'd said Crennel is as good as gone, but Pioli may stay. Whatever the case, this Chiefs team needs leadership like nothing else. One of those critically wonderful things that someone like Peyton Manning provides is that leadership. So it can't be emphasized enough:
If Clark Hunt is going to build a winning team here, he's got to know football to make the best football happen in Kansas City. (See last post.)
If Scott Pioli is going to show that he's all about that leadership he's got to get out of that funk that it is about him and make it about Kansas City.
As it is those two have got an uphill climb because the most harrowing thing of all is not even that we had the crappiest of crappy seasons. It is that for the first time in however many years there isn't a marquee franchise quarterback in the draft at the time we're picking No. 1.
Every Chiefs fan knows how much we need a drafted and developed quarterback, and for the umpteen-gazillionth time that guy is just not going to be there when we draft. And we're drafting No. 1. How stinkin' rotten is that Curse.
As it looks right now we're faced with picking some other quarterback off the retread pile for the -- okay, I won't write "umpteen-gazillioth time" again -- and seeing what happens with that. But it won't mean anything until we
Get that leadership.
I truly believe that leadership deficit is what is killing us. Look at our talent. It seems others think we've got the talent too, because at the beginning of the year most thought we'd contend. But look what happened. At least a dozen of our best players just played waaay crappier than anyone thought. In any normal instance maybe a few of them would be crappier than people think, but for us this year there were that many? That's a result of a leadership deficit.
And while Clark Hunt is getting football, Scott Pioli needs to get on with hiring that fantastic coach and ultimately drafting and developing that quarterback. Please-oh-please, Chiefs fans are begging you, don't get a retread coach -- sheez we're already faced with having to get a retread quarterback from somewhere.
For cryin' out loud, 1987 is the last time a Chiefs D&D quarterback won a game for us. There ya go, there's another stat to look up. It'd require scouring games and some counting or just some computer wizadry by some sabermetrics guy. But here it is: Which team is second-to-last with number of wins by a their own D&D quarterback since 1987? That is, since that September game in 1987 -- 25 years ago -- the Chiefs have had zero wins from their own D&D quarterback. How many is the next fewest? It's got to be at least 20 or 30, and if it's any higher it's just that much more of a brutally ugly testament to the Chiefs abject futility in this area.
So how does Pioli do that if he can't get one with the No. 1 pick? Could he trade down? Is there any way he can get a Ricky Williams-type trade going, that one where I think it was the Saints traded all their picks to get Williams in the draft? Why can't Pioli show some leadership ganas and swing that kind of a deal, then we can get lots of picks and still get a Matt Barkley or Geno Smith at No. 17 or somewhere like that? Look what the Hershel Walker trade did for Dallas. Is there no team who's salivating over the guy we'd otherwise get at No. 1 but will do us no good, some team that will give up their entire farm system for that pick?
Whatever Pioli (or yeah, whoever the GM is) does, it has got to be about what the Chiefs here need more than anything else.
LEADERSHIP.
When we get that, then we'll contend.
As it is, I've got a lot more banging around in my head, and just not enough space here or time right now to get to it. So without the Chiefs in the playoffs this year yet again, I thought I'd use the next three weekends to blog on three things, just to reminisce about these first 50 years of Chiefs football.
Next week I'm planning to put in a blog post about what I consider the five worst Chiefs seasons when they were in the playoffs. Oh the heartbreaks from those years give us a lot to choose from there. Anyway, you'll get to commiserate with me then, and you can agree, disagree -- it'll be great fun.
The following week I'm planning to put in a blog post about what I consider the five best overall seasons in Chiefs history. That will definitely be the funnest. Good wholesome reminiscing then.
The week after that I'll put in what should be my last blog of the year: the five worst Chiefs seasons overall. I had to split up the "Worst Seasons" category because there were bad playoff results and just plain bad seasons.
Guess what'll be No. 1 on that list.
But then, from that point, we've just got to hope it'll get better. It looks so grim right now, and there's certainly no reason it can't get worse -- but wow, it has just got to be hard for it to get any worse than it was this year. The Curse simply can't be that awful can it?
Let's just hope once again that to get going Clark truly really actually does
Football.
_
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Colts at Chiefs - Week 16 - Record: 2-13
I don't really hate the Colts -- indeed one of the reasons I do engage in some measure of sports celibacy is because I get tired of hating teams or watching them have all kinds of fortune drop in their laps while we make our home in the most putrid misery.
So again while I don't hate the Colts, they sure are a pain in the ass.
In fact, our fantastic misfortune through the years may not be because of the Curse of Odin's Revenge at all. It may very well be some kind of pukifying Curse of John Unitas or something. Think about it.
Back in 1970 we were the defending Super Bowl champions, and the second ever Monday Night Football game was a 44-24 Chiefs shellacking of the Colts on their field. Some Baltimore witch doctor had to have put the hex on us because we played very inconsistently that year, failed to make the playoffs at all, and watched the Colts run the table and get the NFL championship.
Since then the Colts have done everything within their power to crush us. Remember 1995? We were way better than they were and lost to them at home in that playoff game. Remember 1996? We were way better than they were, holding a 9-5 record, and only needed to beat them at home to clinch a playoff spot, and lost, ultimatly missing the playoffs. Remember 2003? We were at least a bit better than they were and again lost to them at home in that playoff game. Remember 2006? This time they were indeed a bit better than us annnd, we still lost. Remember last year? We hammered them in Indy with one of our best offensive showings (we scored four touchdowns, can you believe it?) and that helped them be really really bad for one year so they could have the chance to get the next Peyton Manning.
See, here's a team that is three years removed from being in the Super Bowl, they suck one single year and as such they get to have Andrew Luck under their Christmas tree and a trip to the postseason yet again.
The Chiefs? They're a few geological eras from being even close to a Super Bowl, about as sucky a team as there can be this year, and what super studly quarterback is waiting under the tree for them this year?
The Colts have a horseshoe with the ends facing up, so all the luck stays in the horseshoe. Their quarterback named Luck today set the rookie record for passing yardage, breaking the record of the first draft pick the previous year, Cam Newton.
Now it's the Chiefs turn to have the NUMBER ONE SELECTED FUTURE HALL-OF-FAME QUARTERBACK IN THE DRAFT to lead the Chiefs to Super Bowl glory next year and for many many many years to come.
Yeah, right.
Well, thinking more and more about this team, I just don't think our talent is really that bad, except at quarterback. Again, it is something I've shared a bazillion times before, and something every single Chiefs fan knows. It is simply two key things, in no particular order.
We're so poorly coached.
Our quarterback is terrible.
To wit, in today's game we ran all over the Colts defense. Jamaal put up 200+. Peyton Hillis added another 100+. We had the most rushing offense of any team in any NFL game this year -- what a great showing by our O-line. Brady Quinn even made some nice completions. Our defense played their hearts out. We stuffed their running game and kept Luck in check for most of the game. Our fine defensive game plan was actually executed well, letting their bunched up receivers get into their routes before picking them up, frustrating their whole passing game.
But when it came right down to it, what happened has been happening all year long and it is indeed all on the quarterback and the coach.
We didn't finish.
Quinn had three interceptions on the day, and even though it was technically two, one of them was called back for a phantom pass interference call on them, so it was really three. That's all on the quarterback.
When we needed some ganas down close to the goal line we had none. We fumbled the ball, we got stupid penalties, we couldn't get an easy first down late on third-and-short and fourth-and-really-short, giving them the opportunity to zip down the field, get a clutch last minute touchdown, and win the game. That's all on the coaching.
Think about it. In the last three games we've scored two touchdowns. One was an 80-yard romp by Jamaal to open the Browns game, the other was an 86-yard romp by Jamaal today. That's it. Thing is, all of the other games not-against-Carolina it's been pretty much the same. We're almost at the rarified air of a minus-200 point differential on the year, a threshold the Chiefs have never reached and few teams ever do.
So since it's deep into the Christmas season, I thought I'd share my wishes for the Christmas gifts I'd like to see under the tree for the three gentlemen responsible for all this.
Clark Hunt - Football.
Yes, you saw that right, football. Not a football, not any football item, just football.
It starts at the very top, and I'm sorry, but from from what I see -- and it isn't much, granted, but it is some -- from what I see, I just can't understand how this guy is really that inept. I mean, are the Chiefs suffering from some transgenerational punishment brought about by his grandfather's bigamy? I mean, I just can't figure it out.
The Hunts seem to have been respected throughout pro football. They seem to have done all they can to be a key part of the success of the NFL. They seem to have done all the right things in the community and providing through charity and all that. They seem to have gone above and beyond to make sure Arrowhead is a fine place to watch football. They seem to have worked their tails off doing all the things to make the business a justifiably thriving one.
And Clark seems to be a fine owner holding the reigns of all of this gooditude.
So what gives?
Well, it may just be that one intangible that I think plagued his dad, too. And that is this.
He just doesn't know football.
Oh he knows football is a terrific sport and he knows about how the game is played and he pays his players to do football-oriented things but you know what I think?
I just don't think he knows football.
So for Christmas I wish Clark would get football. He has got to find a way to surround himself with people wholly committed to Chiefs excellence long-term, but just as importantly those people have got to be extraordinarily football-wise people who really know football and can furthermore get him to know it. This isn't just management personnel doing the football business, this is an inner circle of the most trusted confidants who aren't just advisors but in a very real sense teachers.
I think he did his damndest to get the guy we all thought would be our savior, Scott Pioli, but something tells me he just didn't know football enough to insightfully recognize he wasn't the guy. Now I'm going to talk about Pioli in a minute, but for now: remember when Lamar just let Jack Steadman run things, and what a mess the Chiefs were for most of his tenure? I'm sorry, but this is looking a lot like that because Clark just isn't getting the football of things.
He can still do everything well he's doing as an owner, and he doesn't have to be in the mix of making direct football decisions, he doesn't really have to do much at all except just - know - football so that when he's got to do whatever ownership things he has to do to make the Chiefs great he'll know what the hell he's doing up there.
Scott Pioli - A head coach and accompanying coaching staff who will get this team to the promised land.
I know many think Pioli is as good as gone, and he could be. If he is I won't be weeping too much. But just to put in a good word for the guy, I really think his catastrophic 2009 draft has been the touchstone for this disaster and has always made him look bad. No excuses at all for that, but it seems the last three drafts have been pretty decent.
The problem is in the coaching. This teams needs a full staff who really knows what they're doing about getting this team to play to its potential and above all, to finish.
And don't get me wrong, if we can't get that leadership because of Pioli, then he definitely has got to go. Because, really, as much as we so so so so so need that quarterback, we really need that head coach just as much.
As critically important as building the team and showcasing our skill sets and establishing a high standard of play-calling excellence and finishing, all the quality aspects of fine coaching, I'm looking forward to a coach who's coaching a Chiefs team that is playing with the highest level of discipline.
It's not just the stupid mistakes, but it's the insipid little celebrating they do over the piddlest little achievements. I'm not saying they shouldn't be playing at an elevated emotional level, that's great. The problem is, quite frankly, you don't deserve to be spouting off when you're 2-13. Play hard, keep your head up, fire off your marks, and genuinely appreciate one another's contributions. But the Chiefs don't really know how to reign it in. All that silly stuff the Chiefs players do on the field just makes everything Chiefs look so pathetically lame.
We are in such need of a kick-in-the-ass guy whom the players respect, and if we don't get that guy, then get ready for many more years of misery, Chiefs fans.
Romeo Crennel - The very best Christmas-time and all other-times spent with his family and friends, and of course all the Chiefs players he once at one time in the past coached.
I mean that in the most sincere terms. Romeo Crennel is a fantastic individual, the players love him -- they even lobbied to get him to be the permanent head coach. He was a phenomenally strong rock, even a father figure some said, when the Jovan Belcher horror occurred. And he does try really, really hard to make the Chiefs a good football team. For all this he should be awarded all the accolades that he is due.
But he cannot coach a pro football team that hopes to contend.
Last year when I watched him brilliantly coach the team in their win over the undefeated Packers I really did hope he could do that on a regular basis. But then I watched him work the Raiders game and just knew in my heart it wasn't to be.
This team is making too many mistakes and is doing too much to demonstrate they don't know what's going on out there for us to be convinced he can coach an NFL team. Sure a lot of it is the quarterback, but there is so much awfulness happening having nothing to do with the quarterback.
Think about it, whoever we get to be quarterback next year -- especially if it is some highly drafted young phenom (oh we can only hope) in need of the most expertly nurturing development -- come on, would you really put him in the hands of these guys?
This is why it is critically imperative:
We have got to get the very best bright extraordinarily respected head coach out there.
And yes, it all starts with Clark.
Get the football.
_
So again while I don't hate the Colts, they sure are a pain in the ass.
In fact, our fantastic misfortune through the years may not be because of the Curse of Odin's Revenge at all. It may very well be some kind of pukifying Curse of John Unitas or something. Think about it.
Back in 1970 we were the defending Super Bowl champions, and the second ever Monday Night Football game was a 44-24 Chiefs shellacking of the Colts on their field. Some Baltimore witch doctor had to have put the hex on us because we played very inconsistently that year, failed to make the playoffs at all, and watched the Colts run the table and get the NFL championship.
Since then the Colts have done everything within their power to crush us. Remember 1995? We were way better than they were and lost to them at home in that playoff game. Remember 1996? We were way better than they were, holding a 9-5 record, and only needed to beat them at home to clinch a playoff spot, and lost, ultimatly missing the playoffs. Remember 2003? We were at least a bit better than they were and again lost to them at home in that playoff game. Remember 2006? This time they were indeed a bit better than us annnd, we still lost. Remember last year? We hammered them in Indy with one of our best offensive showings (we scored four touchdowns, can you believe it?) and that helped them be really really bad for one year so they could have the chance to get the next Peyton Manning.
See, here's a team that is three years removed from being in the Super Bowl, they suck one single year and as such they get to have Andrew Luck under their Christmas tree and a trip to the postseason yet again.
The Chiefs? They're a few geological eras from being even close to a Super Bowl, about as sucky a team as there can be this year, and what super studly quarterback is waiting under the tree for them this year?
The Colts have a horseshoe with the ends facing up, so all the luck stays in the horseshoe. Their quarterback named Luck today set the rookie record for passing yardage, breaking the record of the first draft pick the previous year, Cam Newton.
Now it's the Chiefs turn to have the NUMBER ONE SELECTED FUTURE HALL-OF-FAME QUARTERBACK IN THE DRAFT to lead the Chiefs to Super Bowl glory next year and for many many many years to come.
Yeah, right.
Well, thinking more and more about this team, I just don't think our talent is really that bad, except at quarterback. Again, it is something I've shared a bazillion times before, and something every single Chiefs fan knows. It is simply two key things, in no particular order.
We're so poorly coached.
Our quarterback is terrible.
To wit, in today's game we ran all over the Colts defense. Jamaal put up 200+. Peyton Hillis added another 100+. We had the most rushing offense of any team in any NFL game this year -- what a great showing by our O-line. Brady Quinn even made some nice completions. Our defense played their hearts out. We stuffed their running game and kept Luck in check for most of the game. Our fine defensive game plan was actually executed well, letting their bunched up receivers get into their routes before picking them up, frustrating their whole passing game.
But when it came right down to it, what happened has been happening all year long and it is indeed all on the quarterback and the coach.
We didn't finish.
Quinn had three interceptions on the day, and even though it was technically two, one of them was called back for a phantom pass interference call on them, so it was really three. That's all on the quarterback.
When we needed some ganas down close to the goal line we had none. We fumbled the ball, we got stupid penalties, we couldn't get an easy first down late on third-and-short and fourth-and-really-short, giving them the opportunity to zip down the field, get a clutch last minute touchdown, and win the game. That's all on the coaching.
Think about it. In the last three games we've scored two touchdowns. One was an 80-yard romp by Jamaal to open the Browns game, the other was an 86-yard romp by Jamaal today. That's it. Thing is, all of the other games not-against-Carolina it's been pretty much the same. We're almost at the rarified air of a minus-200 point differential on the year, a threshold the Chiefs have never reached and few teams ever do.
So since it's deep into the Christmas season, I thought I'd share my wishes for the Christmas gifts I'd like to see under the tree for the three gentlemen responsible for all this.
Clark Hunt - Football.
Yes, you saw that right, football. Not a football, not any football item, just football.
It starts at the very top, and I'm sorry, but from from what I see -- and it isn't much, granted, but it is some -- from what I see, I just can't understand how this guy is really that inept. I mean, are the Chiefs suffering from some transgenerational punishment brought about by his grandfather's bigamy? I mean, I just can't figure it out.
The Hunts seem to have been respected throughout pro football. They seem to have done all they can to be a key part of the success of the NFL. They seem to have done all the right things in the community and providing through charity and all that. They seem to have gone above and beyond to make sure Arrowhead is a fine place to watch football. They seem to have worked their tails off doing all the things to make the business a justifiably thriving one.
And Clark seems to be a fine owner holding the reigns of all of this gooditude.
So what gives?
Well, it may just be that one intangible that I think plagued his dad, too. And that is this.
He just doesn't know football.
Oh he knows football is a terrific sport and he knows about how the game is played and he pays his players to do football-oriented things but you know what I think?
I just don't think he knows football.
So for Christmas I wish Clark would get football. He has got to find a way to surround himself with people wholly committed to Chiefs excellence long-term, but just as importantly those people have got to be extraordinarily football-wise people who really know football and can furthermore get him to know it. This isn't just management personnel doing the football business, this is an inner circle of the most trusted confidants who aren't just advisors but in a very real sense teachers.
I think he did his damndest to get the guy we all thought would be our savior, Scott Pioli, but something tells me he just didn't know football enough to insightfully recognize he wasn't the guy. Now I'm going to talk about Pioli in a minute, but for now: remember when Lamar just let Jack Steadman run things, and what a mess the Chiefs were for most of his tenure? I'm sorry, but this is looking a lot like that because Clark just isn't getting the football of things.
He can still do everything well he's doing as an owner, and he doesn't have to be in the mix of making direct football decisions, he doesn't really have to do much at all except just - know - football so that when he's got to do whatever ownership things he has to do to make the Chiefs great he'll know what the hell he's doing up there.
Scott Pioli - A head coach and accompanying coaching staff who will get this team to the promised land.
I know many think Pioli is as good as gone, and he could be. If he is I won't be weeping too much. But just to put in a good word for the guy, I really think his catastrophic 2009 draft has been the touchstone for this disaster and has always made him look bad. No excuses at all for that, but it seems the last three drafts have been pretty decent.
The problem is in the coaching. This teams needs a full staff who really knows what they're doing about getting this team to play to its potential and above all, to finish.
And don't get me wrong, if we can't get that leadership because of Pioli, then he definitely has got to go. Because, really, as much as we so so so so so need that quarterback, we really need that head coach just as much.
As critically important as building the team and showcasing our skill sets and establishing a high standard of play-calling excellence and finishing, all the quality aspects of fine coaching, I'm looking forward to a coach who's coaching a Chiefs team that is playing with the highest level of discipline.
It's not just the stupid mistakes, but it's the insipid little celebrating they do over the piddlest little achievements. I'm not saying they shouldn't be playing at an elevated emotional level, that's great. The problem is, quite frankly, you don't deserve to be spouting off when you're 2-13. Play hard, keep your head up, fire off your marks, and genuinely appreciate one another's contributions. But the Chiefs don't really know how to reign it in. All that silly stuff the Chiefs players do on the field just makes everything Chiefs look so pathetically lame.
We are in such need of a kick-in-the-ass guy whom the players respect, and if we don't get that guy, then get ready for many more years of misery, Chiefs fans.
Romeo Crennel - The very best Christmas-time and all other-times spent with his family and friends, and of course all the Chiefs players he once at one time in the past coached.
I mean that in the most sincere terms. Romeo Crennel is a fantastic individual, the players love him -- they even lobbied to get him to be the permanent head coach. He was a phenomenally strong rock, even a father figure some said, when the Jovan Belcher horror occurred. And he does try really, really hard to make the Chiefs a good football team. For all this he should be awarded all the accolades that he is due.
But he cannot coach a pro football team that hopes to contend.
Last year when I watched him brilliantly coach the team in their win over the undefeated Packers I really did hope he could do that on a regular basis. But then I watched him work the Raiders game and just knew in my heart it wasn't to be.
This team is making too many mistakes and is doing too much to demonstrate they don't know what's going on out there for us to be convinced he can coach an NFL team. Sure a lot of it is the quarterback, but there is so much awfulness happening having nothing to do with the quarterback.
Think about it, whoever we get to be quarterback next year -- especially if it is some highly drafted young phenom (oh we can only hope) in need of the most expertly nurturing development -- come on, would you really put him in the hands of these guys?
This is why it is critically imperative:
We have got to get the very best bright extraordinarily respected head coach out there.
And yes, it all starts with Clark.
Get the football.
_
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Chiefs at Raiders - Week 15 - Record: 2-12
What a great game for the very best Chiefs unit!
Was it our scintillating passing game? Was it our grind-it-out running game? Was it our ferocious pass rush? Was it our clutch game-winning field goal kicking?
Of course not.
But hey! We have a great punting game! Woo-hoo!
Really, Dustin Colquitt's average today was around 50 yards a punt. Zowie! We got the ball downed within the 10 a few times, even within the 5 at least once. Yowza! He even had what they said was his career long, a 70-something yarder. Yabba-dabba-dooski!
Other than that, it was typically abysmal. In fact, I really think it was worse than abysmal. Very recently I'd talked in this blog about this being easily the worst Chiefs season ever, and I truly believe this game could be classified right up there as one of the worst ever. Just before the Chiefs got some very gratuitous yardage in the third quarter, they were talking as if this'd surpass the worst Chiefs game ever yardage-wise, which itself was a game against the Raiders from 1963 when they'd gained only 60-some yards total. Today we got a few more than that, but not much.
And here's how abysmally abysmal this all is.
The Raiders are one of the worst rushing teams in the NFL. We let them take off for 200 yards on the day. The Raiders are also dead last in points allowed on defense, giving up 30 a game. We scored zero.
Last week we made the Browns look like a championship contender as they torched us. This week the Redskins' offense went up against the Browns with their second string guy at quarterback, a rookie replacing an injured Robert Griffin III, and they torched the Browns.
Here we were playing two of the worst teams in the entirety of all present En-eff-ellitude, and in both we clearly showed we're not even in the same multiverse.
And I have to tell you I was thinking this. In my mind I am thinking, really, "We just can't be this bad." But then I actually thought back to what I'd written in a post at the very beginning of the year, that we should just try really really hard to pretend like we're playing hard but make sure it isn't good enough to win so we'd just flat-out get that first round pick this year.
And then I thought today, are we actually doing that?
Of course there are very, very disturbing things about either of the answers to that question. If the answer is yes, that they are doing that, what a bunch of gutless wusses these guys are. That they'd deliberately lose on purpose. Sure we'd like a very very very high draft pick next year, but whichever pick we get, even if it was going to be the greatest quarterback ever which it won't be anyway, that guy is not by himself going to come close to fixing what's wrong with this team.
Now I seriously don't think the Chiefs players are doing this. I do believe our players are working and playing hard to hold up the honor of Kansas City and pro football there. The still disturbing thing is if the answer to that question is indeed no, they're not faking being bad, then -- ::gulp:: -- we truly are a very very very bad team. I'm just not going to go into the litany of our awfulness -- again... Been doing it all year, will certainly do it again before the season is over.
The most frustrating thing in all of it is something we all continue to agonizingly wonder.
What is the reason? What is the real reason for all of this???
Just look at Jon Baldwin. Today he had three or four passes thrown his way, and he was flailing miserably for every one. What gives here? He has a ton of talent, and yet he's been utterly worthless so far. I could blame the quarterback, but it seemed to me those passes were in his vicinity. So again, what gives? Is it just him -- he's just way worse than we all thought? Is it Crennel and the coaches for failing to show him how to run routes? Is it Pioli for being that faked out before drafting him? Is it Clark for just not running a comprehensively quality organization? Is it Odin for just persisting in his abject refusal to stop tormenting us from the Halls of Valhalla or wherever he malevolently resides?
What is funny (as much as these things can be funny) is that, yet again, it isn't just the Chiefs that are sucking but it is, yes, the entire original contingent of American Football League teams. Except for two of them, all the others are royally sucking as well. AGAIN. For the past few years during NFL playoff-time I'd been writing in this blog about how woeful it has been for those AFL teams in the postseason. Thought I'd get a head start on it now because already is it miserable. Go ahead and look at those teams and how they're doing this year, you'll see. From best-to-worst:
1. Patriots - Great. Still doing awesome. The reason? They've had a great head coach and a great quarterback together for, what, 12-plus years now? The last time the Chiefs had either a decent head coach or quarterback was in 2005. (After suffering a major concussion in the first game of the '06 season, Trent Green was never the same.)
2. Broncos - Great, again. Reason? Do I have to say fine coach and great quarterback?
Now for the rest, with the added gratuitous note that the last time a non-Patriots-or-Broncos AFL team won the Super Bowl was nearly 30 years ago.
3. Jets - Sucking again but amazingly still on life-support for a playoff spot.
4. Chargers - Sucking again.
5. Titans - Sucking again.
6. Bills - Sucking again.
7. Raiders - Sucking again.
8. Chiefs - Is there any way to say it that reflects the most abysmal sucking of them all?
Now to be fair I could add the Bengals and Dolphins here, two teams still in the hunt for the playoffs, but they're not original AFL teams.
The point is that as much as the Curse of Odin's Revenge is still still still crushing the Chiefs, the Curse of the NFL's Revenge is still hammering the AFL.
Yeah, ahem. Just something to talk about because it is so depressing talking about the Chiefs right now.
_
Was it our scintillating passing game? Was it our grind-it-out running game? Was it our ferocious pass rush? Was it our clutch game-winning field goal kicking?
Of course not.
But hey! We have a great punting game! Woo-hoo!
Really, Dustin Colquitt's average today was around 50 yards a punt. Zowie! We got the ball downed within the 10 a few times, even within the 5 at least once. Yowza! He even had what they said was his career long, a 70-something yarder. Yabba-dabba-dooski!
Other than that, it was typically abysmal. In fact, I really think it was worse than abysmal. Very recently I'd talked in this blog about this being easily the worst Chiefs season ever, and I truly believe this game could be classified right up there as one of the worst ever. Just before the Chiefs got some very gratuitous yardage in the third quarter, they were talking as if this'd surpass the worst Chiefs game ever yardage-wise, which itself was a game against the Raiders from 1963 when they'd gained only 60-some yards total. Today we got a few more than that, but not much.
And here's how abysmally abysmal this all is.
The Raiders are one of the worst rushing teams in the NFL. We let them take off for 200 yards on the day. The Raiders are also dead last in points allowed on defense, giving up 30 a game. We scored zero.
Last week we made the Browns look like a championship contender as they torched us. This week the Redskins' offense went up against the Browns with their second string guy at quarterback, a rookie replacing an injured Robert Griffin III, and they torched the Browns.
Here we were playing two of the worst teams in the entirety of all present En-eff-ellitude, and in both we clearly showed we're not even in the same multiverse.
And I have to tell you I was thinking this. In my mind I am thinking, really, "We just can't be this bad." But then I actually thought back to what I'd written in a post at the very beginning of the year, that we should just try really really hard to pretend like we're playing hard but make sure it isn't good enough to win so we'd just flat-out get that first round pick this year.
And then I thought today, are we actually doing that?
Of course there are very, very disturbing things about either of the answers to that question. If the answer is yes, that they are doing that, what a bunch of gutless wusses these guys are. That they'd deliberately lose on purpose. Sure we'd like a very very very high draft pick next year, but whichever pick we get, even if it was going to be the greatest quarterback ever which it won't be anyway, that guy is not by himself going to come close to fixing what's wrong with this team.
Now I seriously don't think the Chiefs players are doing this. I do believe our players are working and playing hard to hold up the honor of Kansas City and pro football there. The still disturbing thing is if the answer to that question is indeed no, they're not faking being bad, then -- ::gulp:: -- we truly are a very very very bad team. I'm just not going to go into the litany of our awfulness -- again... Been doing it all year, will certainly do it again before the season is over.
The most frustrating thing in all of it is something we all continue to agonizingly wonder.
What is the reason? What is the real reason for all of this???
Just look at Jon Baldwin. Today he had three or four passes thrown his way, and he was flailing miserably for every one. What gives here? He has a ton of talent, and yet he's been utterly worthless so far. I could blame the quarterback, but it seemed to me those passes were in his vicinity. So again, what gives? Is it just him -- he's just way worse than we all thought? Is it Crennel and the coaches for failing to show him how to run routes? Is it Pioli for being that faked out before drafting him? Is it Clark for just not running a comprehensively quality organization? Is it Odin for just persisting in his abject refusal to stop tormenting us from the Halls of Valhalla or wherever he malevolently resides?
What is funny (as much as these things can be funny) is that, yet again, it isn't just the Chiefs that are sucking but it is, yes, the entire original contingent of American Football League teams. Except for two of them, all the others are royally sucking as well. AGAIN. For the past few years during NFL playoff-time I'd been writing in this blog about how woeful it has been for those AFL teams in the postseason. Thought I'd get a head start on it now because already is it miserable. Go ahead and look at those teams and how they're doing this year, you'll see. From best-to-worst:
1. Patriots - Great. Still doing awesome. The reason? They've had a great head coach and a great quarterback together for, what, 12-plus years now? The last time the Chiefs had either a decent head coach or quarterback was in 2005. (After suffering a major concussion in the first game of the '06 season, Trent Green was never the same.)
2. Broncos - Great, again. Reason? Do I have to say fine coach and great quarterback?
Now for the rest, with the added gratuitous note that the last time a non-Patriots-or-Broncos AFL team won the Super Bowl was nearly 30 years ago.
3. Jets - Sucking again but amazingly still on life-support for a playoff spot.
4. Chargers - Sucking again.
5. Titans - Sucking again.
6. Bills - Sucking again.
7. Raiders - Sucking again.
8. Chiefs - Is there any way to say it that reflects the most abysmal sucking of them all?
Now to be fair I could add the Bengals and Dolphins here, two teams still in the hunt for the playoffs, but they're not original AFL teams.
The point is that as much as the Curse of Odin's Revenge is still still still crushing the Chiefs, the Curse of the NFL's Revenge is still hammering the AFL.
Yeah, ahem. Just something to talk about because it is so depressing talking about the Chiefs right now.
_
Sunday, December 09, 2012
Chiefs at Browns - Week 14 - Record: 2-11
The game opens with Jamaal Charles blasting off on an 80-yard touchdown run. The Browns stall on their next possession, and Brady Quinn and the Chiefs offense comes back blazing hot, with Dwayne Bowe snatching a long pass to get to the Browns 4-yard line. Woo-hoo! I was actually thinking, wow, we're going to be up 14-0 quick. This is the same team that's been stinkin' up the place all year long?
Well. Turns out...
There we were in the red zone where we've been pathetic. And we were pathetic again. Three plays, three doinks of some sort or another. Succop comes in and doinks his FG attempt off the upright. I think we were in Browns territory once more the entire game.
This was just a classic example of a good, young, healthy, decently-coached team coming up against, um...
The Chiefs.
The Browns were simply waaay better than us in every facet of the game. Criminy they even got a run-back for a touchdown from someone not Josh Cribbs. That's really sad. But everything about this game was extraordinarily sad.
Our quarterback? Still crappy. Last week Brady Quinn looked so good that I actually thought maybe he may have something to show. They said today that in the Carolina game Quinn set a Chiefs record for completion percentage. Guh? I knew he did well, but that well? Well, today he went back to really sucking.
Our running backs? Charles got banged up shortly after his big run, and was ineffective. But any running back is much less effective when you're playing from behind for much of the game. Peyton Hillis? Browns fans were happy to be all over his ass, but I guess it's good they didn't much chance to boo him. He did very little also.
Our offensive line? It was back to being inconsistent, and very poor in the pass protection area. Branden Albert went down again. That's very not-good. This line is all over the place because of the injuries thing.
Our wide receivers? The question I can ask yet again: Where's Jon Baldwin? This was yet another day when the opponent's big strong wide receiver had a great day -- in fact the Browns had two of them, rookies even, who ate us up. Game after game after game after game some big strong receiver kills us. And our big strong receiver? Invisible. What gives??? Oh, and we just can't avoid getting clobbered by injuries. Dwayne Bowe went out for the game and for who knows how much longer with some rib issue trying to make a block. At the end of the game the only guy we were passing to or trying to pass to was this Jamar Newsome fellow, a call-up from the practice squad a few weeks ago. That's it. How many times do we see a Chiefs guy on the field playing regularly who was called up from the practice squad? Compare that to how often it happens with the other teams we're playing. Yeah. Yeah, I have a weird twisting thing going on deep in my stomach too.
Our defensive line? Too many times the Browns more skilled and seasoned O-linemen pushed us around. They enough got separation for enough running plays and they got plenty of pass protection for their quarterback to get crisp passes to his receivers getting fine separation. Dontari Poe was back to looking like a rookie. ::Sigh::
Our linebackers? Derrick Johnson had a couple of his patented in-like-a-shot backfield tackles. Tamba Hali was a bit of a force. But that was it. Our guys were pushed around there too. As I look at this squad, I think about that guy from Notre Dame who may be there for us in the draft. I just don't know, would he be that good? We so need that quarterback, but we may reeeeeeeeeeally need to get the next Ray Lewis too. ::Whimper:: this team needs so much help...
Our defensive backs? They said Eric Berry had injury/illness issues, and as such just looked weak out there. He even dropped an easy interception that would've stopped a drive they eventually scored on.
Our special teams? Succop sucked, adding a kick-off out-of-bounds to his missed FG. Our coverage team allowed that punt return for a touchdown, but to their credit the Browns' blocking on that play was extraordinary. The one shining spot beside the Charles run was probably our punter Dustin Colquitt's long booming punt that went out of bounds at the Browns 4-yard line. How great was that. But how awful was that, too, that a punt is regularly the coolest thing about a Chiefs game.
Oh the joy of that day in the future, whenever it is, when we can field a team that is as good as the other team on a regular basis.
Guess we can dream. Yet again, it's all we have.
_
Well. Turns out...
There we were in the red zone where we've been pathetic. And we were pathetic again. Three plays, three doinks of some sort or another. Succop comes in and doinks his FG attempt off the upright. I think we were in Browns territory once more the entire game.
This was just a classic example of a good, young, healthy, decently-coached team coming up against, um...
The Chiefs.
The Browns were simply waaay better than us in every facet of the game. Criminy they even got a run-back for a touchdown from someone not Josh Cribbs. That's really sad. But everything about this game was extraordinarily sad.
Our quarterback? Still crappy. Last week Brady Quinn looked so good that I actually thought maybe he may have something to show. They said today that in the Carolina game Quinn set a Chiefs record for completion percentage. Guh? I knew he did well, but that well? Well, today he went back to really sucking.
Our running backs? Charles got banged up shortly after his big run, and was ineffective. But any running back is much less effective when you're playing from behind for much of the game. Peyton Hillis? Browns fans were happy to be all over his ass, but I guess it's good they didn't much chance to boo him. He did very little also.
Our offensive line? It was back to being inconsistent, and very poor in the pass protection area. Branden Albert went down again. That's very not-good. This line is all over the place because of the injuries thing.
Our wide receivers? The question I can ask yet again: Where's Jon Baldwin? This was yet another day when the opponent's big strong wide receiver had a great day -- in fact the Browns had two of them, rookies even, who ate us up. Game after game after game after game some big strong receiver kills us. And our big strong receiver? Invisible. What gives??? Oh, and we just can't avoid getting clobbered by injuries. Dwayne Bowe went out for the game and for who knows how much longer with some rib issue trying to make a block. At the end of the game the only guy we were passing to or trying to pass to was this Jamar Newsome fellow, a call-up from the practice squad a few weeks ago. That's it. How many times do we see a Chiefs guy on the field playing regularly who was called up from the practice squad? Compare that to how often it happens with the other teams we're playing. Yeah. Yeah, I have a weird twisting thing going on deep in my stomach too.
Our defensive line? Too many times the Browns more skilled and seasoned O-linemen pushed us around. They enough got separation for enough running plays and they got plenty of pass protection for their quarterback to get crisp passes to his receivers getting fine separation. Dontari Poe was back to looking like a rookie. ::Sigh::
Our linebackers? Derrick Johnson had a couple of his patented in-like-a-shot backfield tackles. Tamba Hali was a bit of a force. But that was it. Our guys were pushed around there too. As I look at this squad, I think about that guy from Notre Dame who may be there for us in the draft. I just don't know, would he be that good? We so need that quarterback, but we may reeeeeeeeeeally need to get the next Ray Lewis too. ::Whimper:: this team needs so much help...
Our defensive backs? They said Eric Berry had injury/illness issues, and as such just looked weak out there. He even dropped an easy interception that would've stopped a drive they eventually scored on.
Our special teams? Succop sucked, adding a kick-off out-of-bounds to his missed FG. Our coverage team allowed that punt return for a touchdown, but to their credit the Browns' blocking on that play was extraordinary. The one shining spot beside the Charles run was probably our punter Dustin Colquitt's long booming punt that went out of bounds at the Browns 4-yard line. How great was that. But how awful was that, too, that a punt is regularly the coolest thing about a Chiefs game.
Oh the joy of that day in the future, whenever it is, when we can field a team that is as good as the other team on a regular basis.
Guess we can dream. Yet again, it's all we have.
_
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
Chiefs Game Last Sunday
I felt the need to write another post about last weekend's events, as they were.
I'd realized that a thread I'd been using in this blog just before the weekend was about this question:
What exactly is the worst thing that can happen to the Chiefs?
Insane, really, when I think about it. The timing of it.
I thought I really should qualify that, because there are a lot of things way worse than losing a few football games. Of course one of those things is what happened Saturday.
What could even be worse than that is how much we've been finding out as the full story emerges about what was really going on with Jovan Belcher and his relationship with his girlfriend. That story involves discovering quite dysfunctional behavior on Jovan's part that could have been bright red flags for what actually happened. What should we make of this? Were the Chiefs and the NFL complicit in some way by not taking more substantive action in all this?
This is hard to say because also revealed was that the Chiefs organization itself was helping Jovan and his girlfriend by providing help and counseling for them. In this sense then the Chiefs were doing all they could to help Jovan, and it is obvious that they always did have very high regard for Jovan. What are you going to do? Jovan still did what he did, made the choices he did.
The NFL complicity could be seen in the possibility that any pain Jovan was enduring -- pain that derives from the physically demanding and often brutal aspects of the game -- had reached a level which Jovan could no longer tolerate. This is the whole Junior Seau and Dave Duerson effect -- these were players who also took their own lives presumably because the prospect of continuously living with football-generated chronic pain became intolerable.
What to do with that?
Yes, the extremes range from a complete ban on the game to doing nothing more and allowing players in this extraordinarily fast and furious sport to be subject to more near-lethal injuries. Or perhaps someday there on the field there will actually be a lethal one. Well, in a real sense several players have experienced that lethality, just much later in life.
I must say that as a fan I do struggle with this. On the one hand we do need to be in there in life getting messy and dirty with it -- football is great with that. I wrote about that earlier. But then how far do you go until it gets to be simply too dangerous for thoughtful, considerate, civilized people to do?
There is so much more to talk about regarding all this. There's the whole controversy about guns and gun control, but I'm just not going to get into that here, now.
All I'm saying is that while we may not fully be able to articulate the very worst of the worst things that could ever happen about some thing or all things, there are some things worse than others.
Yes, this blog is about bitching and moaning about how awful the Chiefs are without a solid coach and studly quarterback. That's a pretty crappy thing, it is.
But there are worse things.
No matter how much longer the Chiefs are bad, and if it's a long time that's a very bad thing indeed, but no matter what happens on the field...
What happened Saturday and all the terrible news about how it happened and why it happened and what happened when it happened and all the stuff that's happening now and what's left to happen -- hey, there's that three month-old baby still with no mother or father -- all of that is way worse.
It goes without saying, really.
But sometimes we just have to talk about it, like I need to here in a blog post.
_
I'd realized that a thread I'd been using in this blog just before the weekend was about this question:
What exactly is the worst thing that can happen to the Chiefs?
Insane, really, when I think about it. The timing of it.
I thought I really should qualify that, because there are a lot of things way worse than losing a few football games. Of course one of those things is what happened Saturday.
What could even be worse than that is how much we've been finding out as the full story emerges about what was really going on with Jovan Belcher and his relationship with his girlfriend. That story involves discovering quite dysfunctional behavior on Jovan's part that could have been bright red flags for what actually happened. What should we make of this? Were the Chiefs and the NFL complicit in some way by not taking more substantive action in all this?
This is hard to say because also revealed was that the Chiefs organization itself was helping Jovan and his girlfriend by providing help and counseling for them. In this sense then the Chiefs were doing all they could to help Jovan, and it is obvious that they always did have very high regard for Jovan. What are you going to do? Jovan still did what he did, made the choices he did.
The NFL complicity could be seen in the possibility that any pain Jovan was enduring -- pain that derives from the physically demanding and often brutal aspects of the game -- had reached a level which Jovan could no longer tolerate. This is the whole Junior Seau and Dave Duerson effect -- these were players who also took their own lives presumably because the prospect of continuously living with football-generated chronic pain became intolerable.
What to do with that?
Yes, the extremes range from a complete ban on the game to doing nothing more and allowing players in this extraordinarily fast and furious sport to be subject to more near-lethal injuries. Or perhaps someday there on the field there will actually be a lethal one. Well, in a real sense several players have experienced that lethality, just much later in life.
I must say that as a fan I do struggle with this. On the one hand we do need to be in there in life getting messy and dirty with it -- football is great with that. I wrote about that earlier. But then how far do you go until it gets to be simply too dangerous for thoughtful, considerate, civilized people to do?
There is so much more to talk about regarding all this. There's the whole controversy about guns and gun control, but I'm just not going to get into that here, now.
All I'm saying is that while we may not fully be able to articulate the very worst of the worst things that could ever happen about some thing or all things, there are some things worse than others.
Yes, this blog is about bitching and moaning about how awful the Chiefs are without a solid coach and studly quarterback. That's a pretty crappy thing, it is.
But there are worse things.
No matter how much longer the Chiefs are bad, and if it's a long time that's a very bad thing indeed, but no matter what happens on the field...
What happened Saturday and all the terrible news about how it happened and why it happened and what happened when it happened and all the stuff that's happening now and what's left to happen -- hey, there's that three month-old baby still with no mother or father -- all of that is way worse.
It goes without saying, really.
But sometimes we just have to talk about it, like I need to here in a blog post.
_
Sunday, December 02, 2012
Panthers at Chiefs - Week 13 - Record: 2-10
"Emotional win" are words that certainly describe today's victory, but with what happened yesterday and the dealing with it today that cliche just wouldn't get at it all. Not even close.
Watching the broadcast I noted that they did no interviews with any Chiefs players, coaches, or managers. The only one who spoke, perhaps most appropriately for the entire team, was owner Clark Hunt. He didn't say anything different from what you'd expect him to say, but it was clear that he was speaking from the heart in addressing Jovan Belcher, what happened, the prayers and concerns for Jovan and his girlfriend's family et al, and how it all has affected the Chiefs personnel.
The game itself was actually the very best game the Chiefs put together all year. Was some of it due to the emotions running so high? Maybe, I don't know, you still gotta get the job done. Today they did it, and they did it by coming within five minutes of becoming the first Chiefs team ever to get no penalties and commit no turnovers in a single game. An ultimately meaningless delay-of-game call as they ran clock on the Panthers at the end undid that, but quite a testament to the industry and cohesiveness with which they played this game.
I could go into all the other details about this game as I usually do in this blog, but it just isn't the time. I'm sure every Chiefs player -- indeed along with every Chiefs coach, manager, employee, and fan are just not too giddy about today's win, whether or not it'd actually mean anything in the standings. Now's the time to reflect, offer condolences where needed, and continue to pray.
And that's the thing I just have to close with here in this relatively short post.
I never watch the pre-game stuff on television any more, simply because of my general sports celibacy -- it just drives me too crazy. But I did watch a bit of it today just to see what was going on with the Chiefs and the tragedy.
One of the people on those shows, I don't even remember who said it, said something along the lines of, "There is no guidebook to help us with these things."
Well, there is. It is the Bible.
It tells us that really crappy things like this do happen, way, way more than we'd ever want. Even when people don't physically murder someone they murder others all the time, emotionally, spiritually. I don't think there is any question Jovan was influenced by forces that encourage people do this, and in his situation it all just went too far.
The Answer is the One who knew this the most, and loved us the most that He died for each one of us. Yes, I am an unabashed follower of Jesus Christ who just happens to be a quite impassioned Chiefs fan. In light of what's happened I simply can't refuse to share a word here briefly about the only antidote to the violence.
So it is indeed a very good thing to do a lot of praying for family and friends, especially that little baby girl, especially her. And then stepping up and sharing with one another how much love means -- and I know lots of people feel that deep inside when they say things like "If you need help don't be afraid to ask!"
But when Jesus is in the mix then anyone dealing with this can know Who it is who loves beyond anything we can ever imagine, and then it isn't just "Get help" or "Tough it out" or "Get therapy for long periods of time," it is actually that the One who made you is also the One who buys you back from yourself, the world, and those wicked forces.
When a Panthers player was down on the field injured today, Dwayne Bowe was kneeling with his head down next to him. I've got to think that in and around what's happening as the rest of this week unfolds there in Kansas City, Jesus' name will be mentioned a few times.
He's the one thing that gives hope.
He is Hope itself.
_
Watching the broadcast I noted that they did no interviews with any Chiefs players, coaches, or managers. The only one who spoke, perhaps most appropriately for the entire team, was owner Clark Hunt. He didn't say anything different from what you'd expect him to say, but it was clear that he was speaking from the heart in addressing Jovan Belcher, what happened, the prayers and concerns for Jovan and his girlfriend's family et al, and how it all has affected the Chiefs personnel.
The game itself was actually the very best game the Chiefs put together all year. Was some of it due to the emotions running so high? Maybe, I don't know, you still gotta get the job done. Today they did it, and they did it by coming within five minutes of becoming the first Chiefs team ever to get no penalties and commit no turnovers in a single game. An ultimately meaningless delay-of-game call as they ran clock on the Panthers at the end undid that, but quite a testament to the industry and cohesiveness with which they played this game.
And that's the thing I just have to close with here in this relatively short post.
I never watch the pre-game stuff on television any more, simply because of my general sports celibacy -- it just drives me too crazy. But I did watch a bit of it today just to see what was going on with the Chiefs and the tragedy.
One of the people on those shows, I don't even remember who said it, said something along the lines of, "There is no guidebook to help us with these things."
Well, there is. It is the Bible.
It tells us that really crappy things like this do happen, way, way more than we'd ever want. Even when people don't physically murder someone they murder others all the time, emotionally, spiritually. I don't think there is any question Jovan was influenced by forces that encourage people do this, and in his situation it all just went too far.
The Answer is the One who knew this the most, and loved us the most that He died for each one of us. Yes, I am an unabashed follower of Jesus Christ who just happens to be a quite impassioned Chiefs fan. In light of what's happened I simply can't refuse to share a word here briefly about the only antidote to the violence.
So it is indeed a very good thing to do a lot of praying for family and friends, especially that little baby girl, especially her. And then stepping up and sharing with one another how much love means -- and I know lots of people feel that deep inside when they say things like "If you need help don't be afraid to ask!"
But when Jesus is in the mix then anyone dealing with this can know Who it is who loves beyond anything we can ever imagine, and then it isn't just "Get help" or "Tough it out" or "Get therapy for long periods of time," it is actually that the One who made you is also the One who buys you back from yourself, the world, and those wicked forces.
When a Panthers player was down on the field injured today, Dwayne Bowe was kneeling with his head down next to him. I've got to think that in and around what's happening as the rest of this week unfolds there in Kansas City, Jesus' name will be mentioned a few times.
He's the one thing that gives hope.
He is Hope itself.
_
Saturday, December 01, 2012
Chiefs Game Tomorrow - Maybe
This is without question the worst season the Kansas City Chiefs have ever endured. It has already earned that notoriety by far, but what happened today puts it light-years up there at number one. It'd be the number one worst season ever and you wouldn't even need to consider a single thing done on the field for it to be so. In fact, you could even easily make a case for this being the worst season by any NFL team in all of the history of professional football, because the tragedy that happened today has never happened before.
This morning linebacker Jovan Belcher took the life of his girlfriend in their home, and a bit later right after speaking with Scott Pioli and Romeo Crennel in the parking lot of the Chiefs training facility at Arrowhead, took his own life.
There isn't really a whole lot I'm going to write in this blog because of the numbness. I can't deny that I wondered about this football thing or that football thing, most of it related to how this abjectly miserable season could have contributed to Belcher's actions. I really believe it is a lot less than we think, but ya know? I really just don't think it helped any. I think of Donnie Moore, the major league baseball player who was a pretty studly pitcher for the Angels in 1986 when he simply could not get that last single strike to put his team in the World Series. Sometime later he was so despondent he killed himself.
I feel somewhat ashamed about how much I myself use "the Chiefs are trying to kill me" language in my blog. Yeah, I could cut myself a break because all blogging fans of their teams use the exact same twisted metaphorical hyperbole in their expressions of zeal. But right now? The whole thing is just unfathomable.
Some of the football thinking has to do with something I have thought about long and hard for years upon years. How important is this stuff? We take this game -- a game for cryin' out loud -- and watch it and hash it and obsess over it and rant about it like it is everything. And to the credit of just being the human beings we are, it is natural to want to compete and strive and struggle and take on the challenge to show we can do something great.
Holding up a Super Bowl trophy? That's something great? In the vast metaphysical nature of things probably not, but it does represent something pretty important, the use of industry and determination and ambition to merely gratify that very natural need to accomplish things, things that we must accomplish in order to thrive as families, communities, and nations.
Yes, just that Jovan did what he did is bad enough simply because his was beloved by so many, but hey, even if the Chiefs were 1-10 he got to be in there doing that. We certainly weren't going to hoist a Super Bowl trophy this year, but at least there was a game tomorrow, just tomorrow, and maybe you could win it and demonstrate just that day that you'd done something great. And if not there are going to be more splendid accomplishing opportunities the next day.
It is tough because sometimes it just doesn't seem like those days will come, and Jovan surely thought that so intensely in whatever way he did this morning that he did what he did.
Yeah, for a nanosecond I'd thought who's going to fill his spot, what's going to happen with the Chiefs, how's it going to be tomorrow and all that. That's just the more base nature of my humanness, and I do cut myself a break because we all do that.
For right now there is just the wondering, the grief, the despair -- there is the thinking about Scott Pioli and Romeo Crennel who were watching this, and of course Jovan's teammates, his family, his friends, his girlfriend's family and friends, wow, the guy had an infant daughter -- the whole thing is just crushing.
We, the Chiefs fans? I guess we're in the mix too. I don't think I'm anything compared to all the others who are impacted. But I am impacted. I rooted for Jovan and cheered him on every single game, so I know Jovan in that sense. But...
Well, what else to say. Just riffing here in a post to grieve some.
_
This morning linebacker Jovan Belcher took the life of his girlfriend in their home, and a bit later right after speaking with Scott Pioli and Romeo Crennel in the parking lot of the Chiefs training facility at Arrowhead, took his own life.
There isn't really a whole lot I'm going to write in this blog because of the numbness. I can't deny that I wondered about this football thing or that football thing, most of it related to how this abjectly miserable season could have contributed to Belcher's actions. I really believe it is a lot less than we think, but ya know? I really just don't think it helped any. I think of Donnie Moore, the major league baseball player who was a pretty studly pitcher for the Angels in 1986 when he simply could not get that last single strike to put his team in the World Series. Sometime later he was so despondent he killed himself.
I feel somewhat ashamed about how much I myself use "the Chiefs are trying to kill me" language in my blog. Yeah, I could cut myself a break because all blogging fans of their teams use the exact same twisted metaphorical hyperbole in their expressions of zeal. But right now? The whole thing is just unfathomable.
Some of the football thinking has to do with something I have thought about long and hard for years upon years. How important is this stuff? We take this game -- a game for cryin' out loud -- and watch it and hash it and obsess over it and rant about it like it is everything. And to the credit of just being the human beings we are, it is natural to want to compete and strive and struggle and take on the challenge to show we can do something great.
Holding up a Super Bowl trophy? That's something great? In the vast metaphysical nature of things probably not, but it does represent something pretty important, the use of industry and determination and ambition to merely gratify that very natural need to accomplish things, things that we must accomplish in order to thrive as families, communities, and nations.
Yes, just that Jovan did what he did is bad enough simply because his was beloved by so many, but hey, even if the Chiefs were 1-10 he got to be in there doing that. We certainly weren't going to hoist a Super Bowl trophy this year, but at least there was a game tomorrow, just tomorrow, and maybe you could win it and demonstrate just that day that you'd done something great. And if not there are going to be more splendid accomplishing opportunities the next day.
It is tough because sometimes it just doesn't seem like those days will come, and Jovan surely thought that so intensely in whatever way he did this morning that he did what he did.
Yeah, for a nanosecond I'd thought who's going to fill his spot, what's going to happen with the Chiefs, how's it going to be tomorrow and all that. That's just the more base nature of my humanness, and I do cut myself a break because we all do that.
For right now there is just the wondering, the grief, the despair -- there is the thinking about Scott Pioli and Romeo Crennel who were watching this, and of course Jovan's teammates, his family, his friends, his girlfriend's family and friends, wow, the guy had an infant daughter -- the whole thing is just crushing.
We, the Chiefs fans? I guess we're in the mix too. I don't think I'm anything compared to all the others who are impacted. But I am impacted. I rooted for Jovan and cheered him on every single game, so I know Jovan in that sense. But...
Well, what else to say. Just riffing here in a post to grieve some.
_
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Broncos at Chiefs - Week 12 - Record: NOW It's 1-10
A tale of two pass plays.
The score: Denver 14, Kansas City 9.
The situation: Sometime in the middle of the 4th quarter. The Chiefs defense had just brilliantly stopped Denver on successive possessions and their offense has the ball at midfield.
The Chiefs play: I'm not sure if it was a third down, but it was a critical passing play. Quarterback Brady Quinn passes the ball to super-duper wide receiver Dwayne Bowe who's running a quick in-and-out route covered by a linebacker. The ball just sort of plops off of Bowe's hands. The Chiefs must punt.
The Broncos play: In the ensuing possession, with the ball close to midfield but still in their own territory and about five minutes left in the game, quarterback Peyton Manning throws a perfect strike to his wide receiver, much-less-well-known-than-Bowe Demaryius Thomas who's gotten about a mile-and-a-half separation from his defender, quick Jalil Brown.
Soooo, our play: a supposedly stud wide-out covered by a linebacker: doink. Their play: a supposedly nothing-much wide-out covered by a speedy back gets the clutch catch, easily.
Broncos run clock all the way down to about the Chiefs 10-yard line whereupon they kick a pretty much meaningless field goal with seconds left to seal the game.
Chiefs lose.
The sky is blue, the Pope is Catholic, a bear shits in the woods, all is well with the world.
All we can do is continue our agonizing rumination about why it is all this way. And when I say it is this way I mean it has been this way for years. To review, in order of importance:
1. Our wretchedly poor drafts. Yes even in the last years of the King Carl era we got people like Dwayne Bowe, Tamba Hali, and Derrick Johnson, but we just haven't been able to flesh out our team enough to truly contend. The early-2000's drafts were especially abysmal, and the worst of all of this is in the equally woeful second thing:
2. The Chiefs ineptitude/misfortune/inability/refusal/rottenest-of-Curse-of-Odin's-Revenge-luck in drafting and developing a long-term studly quarterback.
Matthew Stafford, Matt Schaub, Tony Romo, Robert Griffin III, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Colin Kaepernick, Drew Brees. Because of Thanksgiving weekend the television has all the pro football games on, and yes, I do work to avoid watching much of it -- a lot because it is just too freekin' painful. All these guys played quarterback just splendidly for their respective teams Thursday or today, and each one demonstrated that he is about 87,000 times better than anything the Chiefs can even remotely put on the field.
Again, what I said in my last post is something that even my wife said today, "Isn't there some way we can get new quarterbacks?" To reiterate, is there simply no possible way in the entire universe that we could pleeeeeaze unload these guys, all of them, Cassel Quinn Stanzi, the whole bunch and sign three other guys whoever they are -- we have absolutely nothing to lose. WILL this team show us some ganas?
So much more can be said about this even after it seems it's all been said, but ya know? There's another really awful thought that has come screechingly into the picture. That is that
Our receivers may really be much more crappy than we ever thought.
Look at today's game. How many catches did Bowe have? Two? Along with the three or four standard drops? I've also noticed that Bowe just does not get separation from his defender nearly as often as the other team's receivers do, sorry.
Jon Baldwin was invisible again. And he's supposed to be our big strong receiver -- erckk, how many times I see the other team have some big strong receiver eat us alive and I wonder, where's ours? Where on earth is Jon Baldwin???
I don't think the not-Todd-Haley staff here likes Steve Breaston, he hardly plays. The only decent solid catch I remember today was by a wide-out named Jamar Newsome -- who? Where on earth did they get this guy? And there were a couple of catches by Tony Moeaki, a couple I think by Dexter McCluster, annnnd... that's it.
So, yeah, we actually truly in reality not only have a crappy quarterback but crappy receivers too. And this may actually be fixable if we didn't have this third major crappy thing:
3. Our head coach is hapless. That's all. This is not news. But we haven't had even a decent head coach since Dick Vermeil. Extraordinarily excruciating ouch.
We can all see that guys out there can play. Today I liked what I saw from just about every player on defense, especially the regularly solid guys, Eric Berry, Brandon Flowers, Justin Houston. I even liked what I saw in Dontari Poe. Our offensive line was actually pretty great today particularly in light of the injuries and the shifting guys around and the having to start rookies like Jeff Allen and Donald Stephenson.
But Romeo Crennel et al still have us running around like the Keystone Kops -- er -- Cops, you know, the KC -- there is simply so much going on out there that is on the coaching. How many times do I say during a game, "Romeo, that's on you." "That penalty -- Romeo, that's on you." "Calling that totally unnecessary time-out, Romeo..." Whatever kind of metaphor there is for things being on other things works just fine here, but I'm too tired to think of one.
Other things are in the mix too, like Rodney Hudson's crushing injury (again, see last post for more) and our terribly inconsistent defensive line play. But those big three just came smashing through the television set today.
Smashing through, just like the reality of future Chiefs destitution. I mention this at the cost of belaboring the harrowing details, but I knew there was something in that last post that I realized I was simply not fully articulating. You know, the post I wrote about how sure I was of things.
I saved this part for now, because I'm not so sure about it, but if what I think but am not sure about is the way it is actually going to be, then it is truly the most frightening thing of all. This thing was woven through all that I wrote in that post. You could see it in why a Chiefs fan may actually think, "You say the Chiefs folding is the worst thing? No it isn't, this train wreck is the worst thing..."
What would a particularly sensitive and cerebral Chiefs fan do to finish that thought? Why would they even think that it'd be best to put a shotgun to the head of all things Chiefs? Do you know? Have you thought about it? Have you grasped the deepness and darkness of these Chiefs days as the deepest and darkest ever?
What any observant Chiefs fan could perhaps very reasonably say to complete the above thought is:
"...and if it will be this way for many more years then it isn't any worse than mercifully putting us out of our misery right now."
For you see, worse than the Chiefs now, and worse than the Chiefs not being around at all ever more, is quite plainly
The Chiefs being the way they are now for many more years to come.
So yeah, I do know something else for sure, something that could easily be the very worst thing of them all. To echo my thoughts from the last post:
I do know the worst thing of them all is indeed being made a floormat for the AFC West, even the NFL, for the next many years to come however many that is.
Because we have no quarterback -- not a single one for the future, because we so contemptibly fail to ever get one in the draft, because we may have to resort to picking a quarterback off the rest-of-the-NFL scrap heap yet again, because that 2009 draft made Scott Pioli look like such a choke, and as such
Because the entire league and all pro football anything now looks at us with the lowest amount of respect...
How could a Chiefs fan not see anything else in his/her team's future?
As I said in that post, we can't know that it is this bleak. It sure looks this way, but it is still possible we can have a bit of luck in a draft, get that quarterback, nab a pretty decent head coach.
So there is that still slight ever-so slight sliver of hope.
We'll see. It's all we can do right now. Unless we hoot and holler about it, wear black at Arrowhead about it, put banners behind airplanes that say "We deserve better" and fly them around the stadium about it, or as I can do here, blog about it.
All we can do is wait and see...
_
The score: Denver 14, Kansas City 9.
The situation: Sometime in the middle of the 4th quarter. The Chiefs defense had just brilliantly stopped Denver on successive possessions and their offense has the ball at midfield.
The Chiefs play: I'm not sure if it was a third down, but it was a critical passing play. Quarterback Brady Quinn passes the ball to super-duper wide receiver Dwayne Bowe who's running a quick in-and-out route covered by a linebacker. The ball just sort of plops off of Bowe's hands. The Chiefs must punt.
The Broncos play: In the ensuing possession, with the ball close to midfield but still in their own territory and about five minutes left in the game, quarterback Peyton Manning throws a perfect strike to his wide receiver, much-less-well-known-than-Bowe Demaryius Thomas who's gotten about a mile-and-a-half separation from his defender, quick Jalil Brown.
Soooo, our play: a supposedly stud wide-out covered by a linebacker: doink. Their play: a supposedly nothing-much wide-out covered by a speedy back gets the clutch catch, easily.
Broncos run clock all the way down to about the Chiefs 10-yard line whereupon they kick a pretty much meaningless field goal with seconds left to seal the game.
Chiefs lose.
The sky is blue, the Pope is Catholic, a bear shits in the woods, all is well with the world.
All we can do is continue our agonizing rumination about why it is all this way. And when I say it is this way I mean it has been this way for years. To review, in order of importance:
1. Our wretchedly poor drafts. Yes even in the last years of the King Carl era we got people like Dwayne Bowe, Tamba Hali, and Derrick Johnson, but we just haven't been able to flesh out our team enough to truly contend. The early-2000's drafts were especially abysmal, and the worst of all of this is in the equally woeful second thing:
2. The Chiefs ineptitude/misfortune/inability/refusal/rottenest-of-Curse-of-Odin's-Revenge-luck in drafting and developing a long-term studly quarterback.
Matthew Stafford, Matt Schaub, Tony Romo, Robert Griffin III, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Colin Kaepernick, Drew Brees. Because of Thanksgiving weekend the television has all the pro football games on, and yes, I do work to avoid watching much of it -- a lot because it is just too freekin' painful. All these guys played quarterback just splendidly for their respective teams Thursday or today, and each one demonstrated that he is about 87,000 times better than anything the Chiefs can even remotely put on the field.
Again, what I said in my last post is something that even my wife said today, "Isn't there some way we can get new quarterbacks?" To reiterate, is there simply no possible way in the entire universe that we could pleeeeeaze unload these guys, all of them, Cassel Quinn Stanzi, the whole bunch and sign three other guys whoever they are -- we have absolutely nothing to lose. WILL this team show us some ganas?
So much more can be said about this even after it seems it's all been said, but ya know? There's another really awful thought that has come screechingly into the picture. That is that
Our receivers may really be much more crappy than we ever thought.
Look at today's game. How many catches did Bowe have? Two? Along with the three or four standard drops? I've also noticed that Bowe just does not get separation from his defender nearly as often as the other team's receivers do, sorry.
Jon Baldwin was invisible again. And he's supposed to be our big strong receiver -- erckk, how many times I see the other team have some big strong receiver eat us alive and I wonder, where's ours? Where on earth is Jon Baldwin???
I don't think the not-Todd-Haley staff here likes Steve Breaston, he hardly plays. The only decent solid catch I remember today was by a wide-out named Jamar Newsome -- who? Where on earth did they get this guy? And there were a couple of catches by Tony Moeaki, a couple I think by Dexter McCluster, annnnd... that's it.
So, yeah, we actually truly in reality not only have a crappy quarterback but crappy receivers too. And this may actually be fixable if we didn't have this third major crappy thing:
3. Our head coach is hapless. That's all. This is not news. But we haven't had even a decent head coach since Dick Vermeil. Extraordinarily excruciating ouch.
We can all see that guys out there can play. Today I liked what I saw from just about every player on defense, especially the regularly solid guys, Eric Berry, Brandon Flowers, Justin Houston. I even liked what I saw in Dontari Poe. Our offensive line was actually pretty great today particularly in light of the injuries and the shifting guys around and the having to start rookies like Jeff Allen and Donald Stephenson.
But Romeo Crennel et al still have us running around like the Keystone Kops -- er -- Cops, you know, the KC -- there is simply so much going on out there that is on the coaching. How many times do I say during a game, "Romeo, that's on you." "That penalty -- Romeo, that's on you." "Calling that totally unnecessary time-out, Romeo..." Whatever kind of metaphor there is for things being on other things works just fine here, but I'm too tired to think of one.
Other things are in the mix too, like Rodney Hudson's crushing injury (again, see last post for more) and our terribly inconsistent defensive line play. But those big three just came smashing through the television set today.
Smashing through, just like the reality of future Chiefs destitution. I mention this at the cost of belaboring the harrowing details, but I knew there was something in that last post that I realized I was simply not fully articulating. You know, the post I wrote about how sure I was of things.
I saved this part for now, because I'm not so sure about it, but if what I think but am not sure about is the way it is actually going to be, then it is truly the most frightening thing of all. This thing was woven through all that I wrote in that post. You could see it in why a Chiefs fan may actually think, "You say the Chiefs folding is the worst thing? No it isn't, this train wreck is the worst thing..."
What would a particularly sensitive and cerebral Chiefs fan do to finish that thought? Why would they even think that it'd be best to put a shotgun to the head of all things Chiefs? Do you know? Have you thought about it? Have you grasped the deepness and darkness of these Chiefs days as the deepest and darkest ever?
What any observant Chiefs fan could perhaps very reasonably say to complete the above thought is:
"...and if it will be this way for many more years then it isn't any worse than mercifully putting us out of our misery right now."
For you see, worse than the Chiefs now, and worse than the Chiefs not being around at all ever more, is quite plainly
The Chiefs being the way they are now for many more years to come.
So yeah, I do know something else for sure, something that could easily be the very worst thing of them all. To echo my thoughts from the last post:
I do know the worst thing of them all is indeed being made a floormat for the AFC West, even the NFL, for the next many years to come however many that is.
Because we have no quarterback -- not a single one for the future, because we so contemptibly fail to ever get one in the draft, because we may have to resort to picking a quarterback off the rest-of-the-NFL scrap heap yet again, because that 2009 draft made Scott Pioli look like such a choke, and as such
Because the entire league and all pro football anything now looks at us with the lowest amount of respect...
How could a Chiefs fan not see anything else in his/her team's future?
As I said in that post, we can't know that it is this bleak. It sure looks this way, but it is still possible we can have a bit of luck in a draft, get that quarterback, nab a pretty decent head coach.
So there is that still slight ever-so slight sliver of hope.
We'll see. It's all we can do right now. Unless we hoot and holler about it, wear black at Arrowhead about it, put banners behind airplanes that say "We deserve better" and fly them around the stadium about it, or as I can do here, blog about it.
All we can do is wait and see...
_
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Broncos at Chiefs - Week 12 - Record: Most Likely 1-10
I'm getting a head start on Chapter Umpteen of the nightmare that is the Kansas City Chiefs. Yes, the game is Sunday, five days from now, and this is only Tuesday. Only two days ago I'd polished up yet another elaborate piece that comprises the deeply introspective therapy session all of this has become.
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:
Good teams win.
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.
_
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.
_
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Bengals at Chiefs - Week 11 - Record: 1-9
I really don't think there has ever been a darker day for Chiefs fans ever in the team's history.
Yes, there have been the awful playoff losses. But at least we were a good team.
Yes, there have been the awful seasons. But at least there was reasonable hope we could pick it back up for next year.
But now, right now, I just don't know of a time that is more abjectly wretchedly pukifyingly awful as it is right now for Chiefs fans.
And ya know? I have proof.
Today was "Wear Black Day" at Arrowhead. How amazing is that. That enough fans wore black to make the statement, and quite a few did. At one point when most of the fans had gone home, sometime in the third quarter, they pulled the camera back to show the crowd, and it was indeed a sea of black. Well, "sea" is not exactly the word, more like a large pond, but still.
A lot of black in the stands.
Not going to go over all the gory details of the game today. They just weren't a whole lot different than they've been all season -- we weren't in this game and were never going to be. It wasn't even funny -- in fact it has gone way past being funny in any way.
What I'd like to do is just go over two of the most critical things that the Chiefs have got to do to climb out of this abyss, but first, we must face one of those extraordinarily brutal things that makes this time so dark. It wouldn't be so bad if our headlong dive into the first draft-pick slot next April scored us a quarterback that'll be truly fully exceptionally studly for the next fifteen years or so. But we quite simply picked the wrong year to be frightfully bad, by just a single year.
Look at Indianapolis right now. (And I knew this was going to happen.) For eons they had Peyton Manning to get them to playoff glory after playoff glory, including a nifty Super Bowl title. Then last year, for the first time in those eons of years, Manning is gone for the season with a nasty injury, the Colts schlurp, and they get to nab the next Peyton Manning in the draft, Andrew Luck. Luck hasn't been that phenomenal this year, but he has led the Colts to a 6-3 record so far -- and he's still only a rookie. Even if we were the second worst team last year we'd have scored RGIII who's shown he can be especially studly himself.
Meanwhile, look at what us Chiefs have to look forward to in April. Matt Barkley? He looks like a shinier Matt Cassel if you ask me. Geno Smith? He's tanked. Johnny Manziel? Suddenly flashy and popular, but NFL material? Collin Klein? They say he's the next Tim Tebow. (And let's not forget to mention another aspect to this deeply dark day: K-State lost last night after Klein had an atrocious day, pretty much dashing their once very possible national championship hopes.)
I just don't follow college football a whole lot, but there has definitely been a humongous dearth of talk about the next Peyton Manning coming out of college.
Right at the time we so so so so so so so need that guy.
This is precisely why this is the darkest time for Chiefs fans, the darkest, cruelest, meanest, ugliest, and any of hundreds of other such connotative adjectives you can barf up. While we should be at least that little bit gleeful inside about our assured future largesse, we can't even do that.
We're not only bad now, but appears there's only more bad to come.
So what to do.
That first thing to look at is the players. Do we actually have decent players out there or not? I looked at all the draft picks we've gotten in the past three years, all the years after Scott Pioli's first pathetic attempt in '09 when he ridiculously took Tyson Jackson first and then proceeded to select a horde of other dudes none of whom have been even remotely meaningful (except Ryan Succop, but he was just a surprisingly nice very-end-of-the-draft gift).
Here are those players, and I'm only including the ones that are still on the roster (with round and overall pick numbers):
2012
1 11 Dontari Poe NT
2 44 Jeff Allen T
3 74 Donald Stephenson T
4 107 Devon Wylie WR
2011
1 26 Jonathan Baldwin WR
2 55 Rodney Hudson C
3 70 Justin Houston LB
3 86 Allen Bailey DE
4 118 Jalil Brown DB
5 135 Ricky Stanzi QB
2010
1 5 Eric Berry SS
2 36 Dexter McCluster WR
2 50 Javier Arenas DB
3 68 Jon Asamoah G
3 93 Tony Moeaki TE
5 136 Kendrick Lewis FS
Now, you'd think this'd be a great foundation for the future, but here's my question. Are these guys all on the team because they're really that good, or are they on the team because we have no one better?
Did Scott Pioli actually do a splendid job drafting these past three years, or did he do a sucky job of it and we're just playing these guys because they're who we've got?
What's the answer to the question?
I'd say guys like Eric Berry, Tony Moeaki, and Justin Houston make it seem like he scored. But then I'm really not sure about guys like Dexter McCluster, Kendrick Lewis, and Allen Bailey. And guys like Jon Baldwin drive me crazy.
This leads to the second thing.
Coaching.
There is absolutely no question this entire staff needs to go. Too many things to even mention make this imperative. Telling your players "You fumble and you sit" reflects tremendous inability to manage a team -- and that's just one of the lesser problems. I was nervous about Romeo Crennel from the get-go, really hoping that the Chiefs not hire him as the permanent coach after he took over for Todd Haley. What did they do? Went off and hired him.
The most important thing the Chiefs must do is to get that great quarterback, but as we've just seen that looks hopeless, at least right now it does. But we can still do something else almost as important and perhaps a bit more within our capacity to get.
First, Chiefs ownership must keep Crennel and company until the end of the season. It just seems pointless to fire him now and then have to go through all the stuff we went through last year all over again. Fire him now and what you get is an interim space-filler guy like Crennel who everyone gets unusually fond of then we end up with him. Don't do it! Just let Crennel finish up this train wreck then we can start brand-spankin' new fresh in January.
Then -- in fact it may go without saying that they should be starting this right now: Seek and find and get the smartest, toughest, keenest, most determined, most thoughtful, most incisive, and simply the best coach that the bazillions of dollars Clark Hunt has on-hand can buy. Find a guy who's all the Bills rolled into one: Bill Walsh Bill Parcells Bill Belichick (I definitely remember writing this already. Guess I have to keep writing it until the Chiefs actually do the thing...) Cripes I think I'd be happy if the guy we get is two of those Bills. No, I'd be happy if he were even one... or wow, even one-half of one of those guys because it'd be infinitely better than anything we've had. And reeelly try to get a sound college guy or the brightest young star in the NFL's assistant coaching ranks -- if we get an NFL retread who's tried head coaching six other teams I'm going to be sick.
You know, I recently watched one of those NFL Network "Ten Best" shows. This one had the ten most motivational coaches ever. You wanna know something wild?
Five former Chiefs coaches were mentioned. Five!
Hank Stram was No. 8, Marty Schottenheimer was No. 5, and Dick Vermeil was No. 2. No. 2! Only Vince Lombardi (of course) was higher. Marv Levy and Herm Edwards were mentioned as "Best of the Rest." As far as Chiefs coaches with any length of service, the only guy not there is John Mackovic.
This made me think. Have the Chiefs ownership/management just not been able to find a good, solid, genius head coach who gets the damn job done and doesn't have to be a big rah-rah guy? I mean, I'm not dissing Hank Stram or Dick Vermeil at all, those guys were super-geniuses. But come on!
When, WHEN are we going to have a coach who just flat knows what the hell he wants to do with our football team and gets it done? And of course I should add, finishes, because as "great" as Marty was he devolved into a waaay below average coach every year after Game No. 16. Every stinkin' year.
Can you imagine it? Really, in your mind, close your eyes, and dream a little bit: Roaming the sidelines... a good, bright, solid, focused, fully integrated head coach. You can see it in his eyes, look there, do you see it? Fully committed to sustained Chiefs success at any price and knowing exactly what to do to get it.
Ahh. Nice thoughts. Very nice indeed.
If we all knew that was a possibility,
A very real true actual possibility
Then maybe this wouldn't be the darkest day ever.
As it is...
::Sigh::
_
Yes, there have been the awful playoff losses. But at least we were a good team.
Yes, there have been the awful seasons. But at least there was reasonable hope we could pick it back up for next year.
But now, right now, I just don't know of a time that is more abjectly wretchedly pukifyingly awful as it is right now for Chiefs fans.
And ya know? I have proof.
Today was "Wear Black Day" at Arrowhead. How amazing is that. That enough fans wore black to make the statement, and quite a few did. At one point when most of the fans had gone home, sometime in the third quarter, they pulled the camera back to show the crowd, and it was indeed a sea of black. Well, "sea" is not exactly the word, more like a large pond, but still.
A lot of black in the stands.
Not going to go over all the gory details of the game today. They just weren't a whole lot different than they've been all season -- we weren't in this game and were never going to be. It wasn't even funny -- in fact it has gone way past being funny in any way.
What I'd like to do is just go over two of the most critical things that the Chiefs have got to do to climb out of this abyss, but first, we must face one of those extraordinarily brutal things that makes this time so dark. It wouldn't be so bad if our headlong dive into the first draft-pick slot next April scored us a quarterback that'll be truly fully exceptionally studly for the next fifteen years or so. But we quite simply picked the wrong year to be frightfully bad, by just a single year.
Look at Indianapolis right now. (And I knew this was going to happen.) For eons they had Peyton Manning to get them to playoff glory after playoff glory, including a nifty Super Bowl title. Then last year, for the first time in those eons of years, Manning is gone for the season with a nasty injury, the Colts schlurp, and they get to nab the next Peyton Manning in the draft, Andrew Luck. Luck hasn't been that phenomenal this year, but he has led the Colts to a 6-3 record so far -- and he's still only a rookie. Even if we were the second worst team last year we'd have scored RGIII who's shown he can be especially studly himself.
Meanwhile, look at what us Chiefs have to look forward to in April. Matt Barkley? He looks like a shinier Matt Cassel if you ask me. Geno Smith? He's tanked. Johnny Manziel? Suddenly flashy and popular, but NFL material? Collin Klein? They say he's the next Tim Tebow. (And let's not forget to mention another aspect to this deeply dark day: K-State lost last night after Klein had an atrocious day, pretty much dashing their once very possible national championship hopes.)
I just don't follow college football a whole lot, but there has definitely been a humongous dearth of talk about the next Peyton Manning coming out of college.
Right at the time we so so so so so so so need that guy.
This is precisely why this is the darkest time for Chiefs fans, the darkest, cruelest, meanest, ugliest, and any of hundreds of other such connotative adjectives you can barf up. While we should be at least that little bit gleeful inside about our assured future largesse, we can't even do that.
We're not only bad now, but appears there's only more bad to come.
So what to do.
That first thing to look at is the players. Do we actually have decent players out there or not? I looked at all the draft picks we've gotten in the past three years, all the years after Scott Pioli's first pathetic attempt in '09 when he ridiculously took Tyson Jackson first and then proceeded to select a horde of other dudes none of whom have been even remotely meaningful (except Ryan Succop, but he was just a surprisingly nice very-end-of-the-draft gift).
Here are those players, and I'm only including the ones that are still on the roster (with round and overall pick numbers):
2012
1 11 Dontari Poe NT
2 44 Jeff Allen T
3 74 Donald Stephenson T
4 107 Devon Wylie WR
2011
1 26 Jonathan Baldwin WR
2 55 Rodney Hudson C
3 70 Justin Houston LB
3 86 Allen Bailey DE
4 118 Jalil Brown DB
5 135 Ricky Stanzi QB
2010
1 5 Eric Berry SS
2 36 Dexter McCluster WR
2 50 Javier Arenas DB
3 68 Jon Asamoah G
3 93 Tony Moeaki TE
5 136 Kendrick Lewis FS
Now, you'd think this'd be a great foundation for the future, but here's my question. Are these guys all on the team because they're really that good, or are they on the team because we have no one better?
Did Scott Pioli actually do a splendid job drafting these past three years, or did he do a sucky job of it and we're just playing these guys because they're who we've got?
What's the answer to the question?
I'd say guys like Eric Berry, Tony Moeaki, and Justin Houston make it seem like he scored. But then I'm really not sure about guys like Dexter McCluster, Kendrick Lewis, and Allen Bailey. And guys like Jon Baldwin drive me crazy.
This leads to the second thing.
Coaching.
There is absolutely no question this entire staff needs to go. Too many things to even mention make this imperative. Telling your players "You fumble and you sit" reflects tremendous inability to manage a team -- and that's just one of the lesser problems. I was nervous about Romeo Crennel from the get-go, really hoping that the Chiefs not hire him as the permanent coach after he took over for Todd Haley. What did they do? Went off and hired him.
The most important thing the Chiefs must do is to get that great quarterback, but as we've just seen that looks hopeless, at least right now it does. But we can still do something else almost as important and perhaps a bit more within our capacity to get.
First, Chiefs ownership must keep Crennel and company until the end of the season. It just seems pointless to fire him now and then have to go through all the stuff we went through last year all over again. Fire him now and what you get is an interim space-filler guy like Crennel who everyone gets unusually fond of then we end up with him. Don't do it! Just let Crennel finish up this train wreck then we can start brand-spankin' new fresh in January.
Then -- in fact it may go without saying that they should be starting this right now: Seek and find and get the smartest, toughest, keenest, most determined, most thoughtful, most incisive, and simply the best coach that the bazillions of dollars Clark Hunt has on-hand can buy. Find a guy who's all the Bills rolled into one: Bill Walsh Bill Parcells Bill Belichick (I definitely remember writing this already. Guess I have to keep writing it until the Chiefs actually do the thing...) Cripes I think I'd be happy if the guy we get is two of those Bills. No, I'd be happy if he were even one... or wow, even one-half of one of those guys because it'd be infinitely better than anything we've had. And reeelly try to get a sound college guy or the brightest young star in the NFL's assistant coaching ranks -- if we get an NFL retread who's tried head coaching six other teams I'm going to be sick.
You know, I recently watched one of those NFL Network "Ten Best" shows. This one had the ten most motivational coaches ever. You wanna know something wild?
Five former Chiefs coaches were mentioned. Five!
Hank Stram was No. 8, Marty Schottenheimer was No. 5, and Dick Vermeil was No. 2. No. 2! Only Vince Lombardi (of course) was higher. Marv Levy and Herm Edwards were mentioned as "Best of the Rest." As far as Chiefs coaches with any length of service, the only guy not there is John Mackovic.
This made me think. Have the Chiefs ownership/management just not been able to find a good, solid, genius head coach who gets the damn job done and doesn't have to be a big rah-rah guy? I mean, I'm not dissing Hank Stram or Dick Vermeil at all, those guys were super-geniuses. But come on!
When, WHEN are we going to have a coach who just flat knows what the hell he wants to do with our football team and gets it done? And of course I should add, finishes, because as "great" as Marty was he devolved into a waaay below average coach every year after Game No. 16. Every stinkin' year.
Can you imagine it? Really, in your mind, close your eyes, and dream a little bit: Roaming the sidelines... a good, bright, solid, focused, fully integrated head coach. You can see it in his eyes, look there, do you see it? Fully committed to sustained Chiefs success at any price and knowing exactly what to do to get it.
Ahh. Nice thoughts. Very nice indeed.
If we all knew that was a possibility,
A very real true actual possibility
Then maybe this wouldn't be the darkest day ever.
As it is...
::Sigh::
_
Monday, November 12, 2012
Chiefs at Steelers - Week 10 - Record: 1-8
Thank goodness for this blog. Ahhh, some more therapy.
Would you believe that as we started our overtime drive, I actually thought, "Hmm, we haven't had a single turnover tonight! Yowza!" (Well, I didn't say "Yowza" in my head, but I did think about how neat that was.) Then, of course, after conjuring some splendid last-ditch-final-drive-in-regulation magic to get us into game-tying field goal range, Matt Cassel turned back into
Matt Cassel.
His first typically wounded-duck pass dropped right into the hands of a Steelers dude after which Pittsburgh summarily kicked the game-winning field goal.
Eeee-yeah. That's nice.
Well, look at it this way. We're still on track to get the top studly QB in the draft.
Otherwise, a final valiant attempt to win the game does not erase the contemptible embarrassment that is this Chiefs team. It isn't just that we drop easy passes and get stupid penalties or even that we look like we drop passes and get penalties because we're so bad. (I counted three different times we were penalized on plays replays showed just really weren't penalties.)
It's that we're an embarrassing team.
Now, first remember, that I love my Chiefs. I will always love my Chiefs. I will root whole-heartedly for all Chiefs things. Always and forever. I could sing the song right now but won't because this is a blog post. With only writing, no sound. And good thing because I'd embarrass myself. Anyway...
I have to confess I was really embarrassed to be a Chiefs fan tonight, just because of our insipid behavior, displayed in bright colors for a whole national television game-watching audience to behold.
About halfway through the third quarter, Dwayne Bowe caught a nice screen pass and ran it in for a score, one that would've given us 17 points. The way our defense was playing that might have been good enough for the win.
But before he crossed the goal line he foolishly held the ball out behind him in the defender's face to show him up. Sure enough, the sports gods duly punished us. Flag on the play, Branden Albert, holding. And no, that wasn't one of those not-a-penalty calls. Albert did hold the guy. So it all comes back, we go nowhere, and Succop misses the chip-shot field goal. Great drive, mindlessly stupid unsportsmanly move, then our due justice: zero points.
That wasn't even the worst of it. When the Steelers got the ball back, backup QB Byron Leftwich threw an incomplete pass on one of those plays where the quarterback gets hammered and loses the ball as his arm is going forward. The whole time it looked as such. But Justin Houston picked up the loose ball and ran it in for a touchdown, upon which the entire Chiefs defense gathers in the end zone to juke and jive with an idiotic looking hip-hop dance, resulting in a very justified flag for excessive celebration. 15-yard penalty.
Upon further review the play is an incomplete pass, but because our team decided to work real hard to be the best in the NFL at embarrassing themselves -- at least they should be good at something -- the penalty was still assessed on the play and Pittsburgh got a very generous first down. Yeah, that's right, we got an excessive celebration penalty on a play that didn't even exist.
This, folks, is the Kansas City Chiefs.
So yeah, Romeo Crennel may be a very nice man. I really don't know the guy, but he does look like a very nice man, he really does. A wonderful, good, fine gentleman. I mean that, I'm not being facetious at all, from what I see I like Romeo Crennel.
But he should be fired right now.
We have fine players out there. Dang, we played even with the Steelers, dang it, even with Roethlisberger in there. We should be better than this, and yet we're thoroughly embarrassing ourselves in every aspect of the game because our coach just isn't doing the job, big-time. Ironic, isn't it, that last year's Chiefs-coach-who-must-be-fired, Todd Haley, now the Steelers' offensive coordinator, was watching on the other sideline. I can't believe he wasn't smiling reeeal big on the inside.
As the season progresses, or regresses as a more appropriate description of this still unfolding train wreck, we'll surely get more into the leadership situation of this team. The more I think about it the more I wonder just how ugly it really is. And I don't think there's a Chiefs fan who hasn't been thinking how far it goes, far past Scott Pioli.
But more on that when I have time. It's late, I've got work tomorrow, so until next time...
_
Would you believe that as we started our overtime drive, I actually thought, "Hmm, we haven't had a single turnover tonight! Yowza!" (Well, I didn't say "Yowza" in my head, but I did think about how neat that was.) Then, of course, after conjuring some splendid last-ditch-final-drive-in-regulation magic to get us into game-tying field goal range, Matt Cassel turned back into
Matt Cassel.
His first typically wounded-duck pass dropped right into the hands of a Steelers dude after which Pittsburgh summarily kicked the game-winning field goal.
Eeee-yeah. That's nice.
Well, look at it this way. We're still on track to get the top studly QB in the draft.
Otherwise, a final valiant attempt to win the game does not erase the contemptible embarrassment that is this Chiefs team. It isn't just that we drop easy passes and get stupid penalties or even that we look like we drop passes and get penalties because we're so bad. (I counted three different times we were penalized on plays replays showed just really weren't penalties.)
It's that we're an embarrassing team.
Now, first remember, that I love my Chiefs. I will always love my Chiefs. I will root whole-heartedly for all Chiefs things. Always and forever. I could sing the song right now but won't because this is a blog post. With only writing, no sound. And good thing because I'd embarrass myself. Anyway...
I have to confess I was really embarrassed to be a Chiefs fan tonight, just because of our insipid behavior, displayed in bright colors for a whole national television game-watching audience to behold.
About halfway through the third quarter, Dwayne Bowe caught a nice screen pass and ran it in for a score, one that would've given us 17 points. The way our defense was playing that might have been good enough for the win.
But before he crossed the goal line he foolishly held the ball out behind him in the defender's face to show him up. Sure enough, the sports gods duly punished us. Flag on the play, Branden Albert, holding. And no, that wasn't one of those not-a-penalty calls. Albert did hold the guy. So it all comes back, we go nowhere, and Succop misses the chip-shot field goal. Great drive, mindlessly stupid unsportsmanly move, then our due justice: zero points.
That wasn't even the worst of it. When the Steelers got the ball back, backup QB Byron Leftwich threw an incomplete pass on one of those plays where the quarterback gets hammered and loses the ball as his arm is going forward. The whole time it looked as such. But Justin Houston picked up the loose ball and ran it in for a touchdown, upon which the entire Chiefs defense gathers in the end zone to juke and jive with an idiotic looking hip-hop dance, resulting in a very justified flag for excessive celebration. 15-yard penalty.
Upon further review the play is an incomplete pass, but because our team decided to work real hard to be the best in the NFL at embarrassing themselves -- at least they should be good at something -- the penalty was still assessed on the play and Pittsburgh got a very generous first down. Yeah, that's right, we got an excessive celebration penalty on a play that didn't even exist.
This, folks, is the Kansas City Chiefs.
So yeah, Romeo Crennel may be a very nice man. I really don't know the guy, but he does look like a very nice man, he really does. A wonderful, good, fine gentleman. I mean that, I'm not being facetious at all, from what I see I like Romeo Crennel.
But he should be fired right now.
We have fine players out there. Dang, we played even with the Steelers, dang it, even with Roethlisberger in there. We should be better than this, and yet we're thoroughly embarrassing ourselves in every aspect of the game because our coach just isn't doing the job, big-time. Ironic, isn't it, that last year's Chiefs-coach-who-must-be-fired, Todd Haley, now the Steelers' offensive coordinator, was watching on the other sideline. I can't believe he wasn't smiling reeeal big on the inside.
As the season progresses, or regresses as a more appropriate description of this still unfolding train wreck, we'll surely get more into the leadership situation of this team. The more I think about it the more I wonder just how ugly it really is. And I don't think there's a Chiefs fan who hasn't been thinking how far it goes, far past Scott Pioli.
But more on that when I have time. It's late, I've got work tomorrow, so until next time...
_
Sunday, November 04, 2012
Chiefs 2012 Mid-Season Muddling
Sad. Very sad. Even the other Kansas City football team can't escape the Curse of Odin's Revenge when it comes to first playoff games. Today the pro soccer team Sporting KC lost to their awful nemesis, this Houston team that I'd read they just can't seem to figure out. Apparently I guess (because I just don't follow soccer at all) they've got to take down Houston something like 57-0 in the next game to have hopes of moving on. Yeah, here's this splendid KC football team THE NUMBER ONE SEED IN THEIR CONFERENCE/DIVISION/REGION whatever-it-is GETTING BEATEN RIGHT OUTTA THE GATE IN THE PLAYOFFS.
DOES THIS SOUND ALL TOO FAMILIAR?
Okay, I'll stop yelling with the text here.
So let's talk Chiefs. Mid-season, 2012, a presidential election year. You know I thought, hmm, we really really sucked in the last presidential year, too. So I thought, hmm, how do we do in election years? Yep, for the most part, we suck.
Look at their records with a bit of commentary when needed: (Not counting '60 because we were the Texans then. Sorry. Not the Chiefs.)
'64 7-7
'68 12-2 One of two of these kinds of years we made the playoffs. 12-2 is great until you remember we got pasted by the Raiders 41-6 right outta the gate in the playoffs. Sorry, but awful awful awful.
'72 8-6 This year we started the season with the first game ever at Arrowhead, a loss to the eventual undefeated Dolphins, in the very next game after we lost to them on that awful Christmas day. Awful.
'76 5-9
'80 8-8
'84 8-8 A bunch of records close to 8-8 through our history kept us mediocre enough to never get great high draft picks, yet great teams in the 1960's and 1990's kept us having an overall winning record. Swell.
'88 4-11-1 A Frank Gansz year. Ick.
'92 10-6 The other time we made the playoffs, but we barely got in when we should've romped in, and outta the gate we got shutout by San Diego. Wretchedly awful.
'96 9-7 Probably the worst year of the bunch. Don't let the winning season throw you. We were 9-4 after beating Detroit on Thanksgiving then went in the tank. I mean we went in at warp speed.
'00 7-9
'04 7-9 This ugliness was sandwiched between two fine winning Vermeil years. Hey, presidential election year. It's meant to be.
'08 2-14 The worst Chiefs season record ever.
'12 1-7 The soon-to-be worst Chiefs season record ever.
I was going to count this all up to get an overall presidential election year record, but I don't want to. You get the idea. Doesn't really mean anything except that it's yet another way to look at the abyss of Chiefs stuff through history and think that our luck just has to change. But the way Sporting KC got beat today, I'm not so sure. Hey even K-State Heisman candidate Collin Klein got some weird still undisclosed injury last night that may help derail the Wildcats' shot at a spot in the national championship game.
The Curse of Odin's Revenge I tell you. It is really, really shitty.
Before I get into my thoughts about our team, I'll tell you what I'm going to do in a minute, some other things about the insanity of that last stat from Thursday night's game. Oh it isn't any less horrific, but some things to know I have to make you suffer through also.
Looked up that game, the last one a Chiefs-drafted quarterback won, Todd Blackledge over the Chargers, September 13 1987. Did you know he went 6 for 15 with one interception? For 79 total passing yards? Even this was pathetic. We only won because Christian Okoye had a nice TD run and Paul Palmer ran back a kickoff. After that game we lost eight straight. Nice.
I thought I'd agonize myself even more by looking at Dan Marino's game that day. He threw three touchdown passes in a loss to New England. Oh, whew, at least his team lost. But it isn't just that Marino won a bunch more games for Miami after that, but think of all the playoff games he won with them. At least two of them were against the Chiefs. Niiiice.
Oh, and yeah, one more Blackledge note. He is the only Chiefs-drafted quarterback to even play in a playoff game for the Chiefs. '86 against the Jets when his last-ditch attempt to show he could play NFL football was a predictable disaster.
As for now? I'd heard after Thursday's game that Philip Rivers had the fifth best completion percentage game in NFL history with 90%. So much for the one thing I thought was good about our team, the D-backfield.
Well, let's get to what I'd been thinking.
Ownership, management, coaching -- that ugliness has to wait until the end-of-the-season wrap-up. For now, the players. I've just been thinking about which players on our team are actually any good, and yes, this is not pretty. But just to give the best to some of our better players, I've ranked them and put a percentage next to each as to how far they have to go to be a full-on Pro Bowl quality player. I really don't think we have any really Pro Bowl players, but a few are close. We'll talk about all that, but again, the percent next to each reflects how much farther of their "100%" do they need to go to be that Pro Bowler they can be, in my opinion.
Here're the top ten ranked Kansas City Chiefs today, with comments.
1. Dustin Colquitt. 15%. Oh how insane is it that our best player is, yes, our punter. But it is true. It is quite disturbing that this is pretty much the same as it was in '07 to '09. Anyway, Colquitt is amazing at getting the ball down inside not just the 20 but the 5. He doesn't get the full "100%" because he shanks about every tenth punt.
2. Eric Berry. 25%. The San Diego game got me to put him higher on the list. He was the only good Chiefs thing about that game. The key is that, as everyone knows, for him to be as studly as he should be he's got to look a lot like Troy Polamalu out there, and he just hasn't been looking that way. That was until Thursday, when he was finally flying all over the field. Maybe he's just got to get back from that injury, and maybe just maybe in a miserable campaign as this has been, this is a solid glimmer of hope for us.
3. Dwayne Bowe. 30%. A traditional Pro Bowler he's only at 30% because he still drops passes he should catch. Otherwise he is still runs great slant routes, and is probably the best sideline catcher there is. Something should be added here that I think all Chiefs fans know, and that is that a lot of why Bowe isn't going off is because of two critical deficiencies, quarterback and coaching. Yeah, no kidding.
4. Jamaal Charles. 35%. Another player who is made worse because we have no real coaching, no quarterback to take much of the offensive load off, and an inconsistent offensive line. Otherwise, like Bowe, this guy is a pro football stud.
5. Brandon Flowers. 35%. I'd have him higher but I just don't think he does very well against big receivers, and there are just too many of those in the league now.
6. Justin Houston. 45%. I had him higher earlier until I started seeing him simply not do very well pursuing runners in the open field. As a pass rusher he can be deadly, but he's simply got to be a better complete linebacker to rank higher.
7. Derrick Johnson. 50%. He's still there to make tackles and keep the opponent from scoring too many points. But then, not much difference between losing 31-13 and 48-13. Occassionally he does make that spectacular play, but I think his age is making it so there are fewer and fewer of those.
8. Tamba Hali. 80%. He has definitely slowed some. Either that or teams have just figured him out, or he's just getting older, or something. But he is way not the factor he has been in the past.
9. Jon Baldwin. 90%. The only reason this guy is so high is because he is a phenomenal physical talent. He can make amazing catches. He is big and strong and as such can make a D-back look silly trying to cover him. But the obvious problem is that he just has no connection with the quarterback at all. He looks lost running his routes, every other pass play he looks to be somewhere he's not supposed to. If this guy really went to work and learned how an NFL passing game goes, he'd be a superstar. Maybe when we get our whole new coaching staff and our brand spankin' new highly drafted quarterback it'll be wonderfully different.
10. Dexter McCluster. 95%. I've always thought of him way higher, and even so I still really like this guy. But I'm sorry I'm tired of the whole not-finding-a-place-for-him, I'm tired of the fact that our coaches still haven't figured out how to get him untracked, although it looks like he can run the wildcat with some effectiveness. And too often he doesn't seem to know how to really get those pass routes figured out.
Players who could be up there in the top ten do include Ryan Succop (he's very good but getting field goals when we need touchdowns makes him just not much of a factor), Tony Moeaki (still trying to get going after his knee injury), and Peyton Hillis (who's also had injury problems keeping him from finding his place on this team). TE Kevin Boss and C Rodney Hudson could be there too but are out indefinitely.
Otherwise, we've got quite a lot of roster spot holders. Some are better than others, but one reason we're 1-7 is that we just don't have all the talent we need.
The worst of this is that there were three kinds of players that didn't crack that top ten, and all Super Bowl contending teams must have at least a few in their top ten. Did you notice their absence?
No offensive linemen. Funny, I'd heard somewhere that our O-line was one of the highest ranked in the NFL. But inconsistency and very bad offensive coaching has belied that hopeful situation. Sure Erik Winston came highly touted. Sure young Branden Albert and Jon Asamoah are great hopes for us. But it just isn't showing up. Remember the days when Willie Roaf and Will Shields would be way at the top of the top ten Chiefs? Ahhh...
No defensive linemen. Jackson and Dorsey are still huge high-draft-pick busts. Poe is too young to show us anything right now. Every other D-lineman is just a fill-in. This Ropati Pitoitua guy has looked good for a few plays, but that's it. Remember the days when Dan Saleamua and Neil Smith would be way at the top of the top ten Chiefs? Ahhh...
And of course...
No quarterback. This is the biggest killer of all.
But then why belabor that point.
(Except if you want to, I get into it all with The Quarterback Project. It's all there in its resplendently atrocious atrociousness.)
_
DOES THIS SOUND ALL TOO FAMILIAR?
Okay, I'll stop yelling with the text here.
So let's talk Chiefs. Mid-season, 2012, a presidential election year. You know I thought, hmm, we really really sucked in the last presidential year, too. So I thought, hmm, how do we do in election years? Yep, for the most part, we suck.
Look at their records with a bit of commentary when needed: (Not counting '60 because we were the Texans then. Sorry. Not the Chiefs.)
'64 7-7
'68 12-2 One of two of these kinds of years we made the playoffs. 12-2 is great until you remember we got pasted by the Raiders 41-6 right outta the gate in the playoffs. Sorry, but awful awful awful.
'72 8-6 This year we started the season with the first game ever at Arrowhead, a loss to the eventual undefeated Dolphins, in the very next game after we lost to them on that awful Christmas day. Awful.
'76 5-9
'80 8-8
'84 8-8 A bunch of records close to 8-8 through our history kept us mediocre enough to never get great high draft picks, yet great teams in the 1960's and 1990's kept us having an overall winning record. Swell.
'88 4-11-1 A Frank Gansz year. Ick.
'92 10-6 The other time we made the playoffs, but we barely got in when we should've romped in, and outta the gate we got shutout by San Diego. Wretchedly awful.
'96 9-7 Probably the worst year of the bunch. Don't let the winning season throw you. We were 9-4 after beating Detroit on Thanksgiving then went in the tank. I mean we went in at warp speed.
'00 7-9
'04 7-9 This ugliness was sandwiched between two fine winning Vermeil years. Hey, presidential election year. It's meant to be.
'08 2-14 The worst Chiefs season record ever.
'12 1-7 The soon-to-be worst Chiefs season record ever.
I was going to count this all up to get an overall presidential election year record, but I don't want to. You get the idea. Doesn't really mean anything except that it's yet another way to look at the abyss of Chiefs stuff through history and think that our luck just has to change. But the way Sporting KC got beat today, I'm not so sure. Hey even K-State Heisman candidate Collin Klein got some weird still undisclosed injury last night that may help derail the Wildcats' shot at a spot in the national championship game.
The Curse of Odin's Revenge I tell you. It is really, really shitty.
Before I get into my thoughts about our team, I'll tell you what I'm going to do in a minute, some other things about the insanity of that last stat from Thursday night's game. Oh it isn't any less horrific, but some things to know I have to make you suffer through also.
Looked up that game, the last one a Chiefs-drafted quarterback won, Todd Blackledge over the Chargers, September 13 1987. Did you know he went 6 for 15 with one interception? For 79 total passing yards? Even this was pathetic. We only won because Christian Okoye had a nice TD run and Paul Palmer ran back a kickoff. After that game we lost eight straight. Nice.
I thought I'd agonize myself even more by looking at Dan Marino's game that day. He threw three touchdown passes in a loss to New England. Oh, whew, at least his team lost. But it isn't just that Marino won a bunch more games for Miami after that, but think of all the playoff games he won with them. At least two of them were against the Chiefs. Niiiice.
Oh, and yeah, one more Blackledge note. He is the only Chiefs-drafted quarterback to even play in a playoff game for the Chiefs. '86 against the Jets when his last-ditch attempt to show he could play NFL football was a predictable disaster.
As for now? I'd heard after Thursday's game that Philip Rivers had the fifth best completion percentage game in NFL history with 90%. So much for the one thing I thought was good about our team, the D-backfield.
Well, let's get to what I'd been thinking.
Ownership, management, coaching -- that ugliness has to wait until the end-of-the-season wrap-up. For now, the players. I've just been thinking about which players on our team are actually any good, and yes, this is not pretty. But just to give the best to some of our better players, I've ranked them and put a percentage next to each as to how far they have to go to be a full-on Pro Bowl quality player. I really don't think we have any really Pro Bowl players, but a few are close. We'll talk about all that, but again, the percent next to each reflects how much farther of their "100%" do they need to go to be that Pro Bowler they can be, in my opinion.
Here're the top ten ranked Kansas City Chiefs today, with comments.
1. Dustin Colquitt. 15%. Oh how insane is it that our best player is, yes, our punter. But it is true. It is quite disturbing that this is pretty much the same as it was in '07 to '09. Anyway, Colquitt is amazing at getting the ball down inside not just the 20 but the 5. He doesn't get the full "100%" because he shanks about every tenth punt.
2. Eric Berry. 25%. The San Diego game got me to put him higher on the list. He was the only good Chiefs thing about that game. The key is that, as everyone knows, for him to be as studly as he should be he's got to look a lot like Troy Polamalu out there, and he just hasn't been looking that way. That was until Thursday, when he was finally flying all over the field. Maybe he's just got to get back from that injury, and maybe just maybe in a miserable campaign as this has been, this is a solid glimmer of hope for us.
3. Dwayne Bowe. 30%. A traditional Pro Bowler he's only at 30% because he still drops passes he should catch. Otherwise he is still runs great slant routes, and is probably the best sideline catcher there is. Something should be added here that I think all Chiefs fans know, and that is that a lot of why Bowe isn't going off is because of two critical deficiencies, quarterback and coaching. Yeah, no kidding.
4. Jamaal Charles. 35%. Another player who is made worse because we have no real coaching, no quarterback to take much of the offensive load off, and an inconsistent offensive line. Otherwise, like Bowe, this guy is a pro football stud.
5. Brandon Flowers. 35%. I'd have him higher but I just don't think he does very well against big receivers, and there are just too many of those in the league now.
6. Justin Houston. 45%. I had him higher earlier until I started seeing him simply not do very well pursuing runners in the open field. As a pass rusher he can be deadly, but he's simply got to be a better complete linebacker to rank higher.
7. Derrick Johnson. 50%. He's still there to make tackles and keep the opponent from scoring too many points. But then, not much difference between losing 31-13 and 48-13. Occassionally he does make that spectacular play, but I think his age is making it so there are fewer and fewer of those.
8. Tamba Hali. 80%. He has definitely slowed some. Either that or teams have just figured him out, or he's just getting older, or something. But he is way not the factor he has been in the past.
9. Jon Baldwin. 90%. The only reason this guy is so high is because he is a phenomenal physical talent. He can make amazing catches. He is big and strong and as such can make a D-back look silly trying to cover him. But the obvious problem is that he just has no connection with the quarterback at all. He looks lost running his routes, every other pass play he looks to be somewhere he's not supposed to. If this guy really went to work and learned how an NFL passing game goes, he'd be a superstar. Maybe when we get our whole new coaching staff and our brand spankin' new highly drafted quarterback it'll be wonderfully different.
10. Dexter McCluster. 95%. I've always thought of him way higher, and even so I still really like this guy. But I'm sorry I'm tired of the whole not-finding-a-place-for-him, I'm tired of the fact that our coaches still haven't figured out how to get him untracked, although it looks like he can run the wildcat with some effectiveness. And too often he doesn't seem to know how to really get those pass routes figured out.
Players who could be up there in the top ten do include Ryan Succop (he's very good but getting field goals when we need touchdowns makes him just not much of a factor), Tony Moeaki (still trying to get going after his knee injury), and Peyton Hillis (who's also had injury problems keeping him from finding his place on this team). TE Kevin Boss and C Rodney Hudson could be there too but are out indefinitely.
Otherwise, we've got quite a lot of roster spot holders. Some are better than others, but one reason we're 1-7 is that we just don't have all the talent we need.
The worst of this is that there were three kinds of players that didn't crack that top ten, and all Super Bowl contending teams must have at least a few in their top ten. Did you notice their absence?
No offensive linemen. Funny, I'd heard somewhere that our O-line was one of the highest ranked in the NFL. But inconsistency and very bad offensive coaching has belied that hopeful situation. Sure Erik Winston came highly touted. Sure young Branden Albert and Jon Asamoah are great hopes for us. But it just isn't showing up. Remember the days when Willie Roaf and Will Shields would be way at the top of the top ten Chiefs? Ahhh...
No defensive linemen. Jackson and Dorsey are still huge high-draft-pick busts. Poe is too young to show us anything right now. Every other D-lineman is just a fill-in. This Ropati Pitoitua guy has looked good for a few plays, but that's it. Remember the days when Dan Saleamua and Neil Smith would be way at the top of the top ten Chiefs? Ahhh...
And of course...
No quarterback. This is the biggest killer of all.
But then why belabor that point.
(Except if you want to, I get into it all with The Quarterback Project. It's all there in its resplendently atrocious atrociousness.)
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