Another red jersey team won a big-4 professional sports team championship.
Last night the Toronto Raptors concluded a 4-2 NBA Finals run against the dynastic Golden State Warriors, sure enough wearing their bright red jerseys. They almost looked like the home team Chiefs out there. This coupled with the Washington Capitals win on the NHL hockey ice last year, and we've got a string of red jersey champions going.
The one for the Chiefs is coming up next!
It is quite obvious the excitement for Chiefs success this season is the most pronounced as it ever has been, and it isn't just because we wear red too. The Raptors demonstrated in this series that they were a very good team. Kawhi Leonard was unstoppable. Their two guards shot the lights out. They also had the length and size in the paint to disrupt the Warriors vaunted passing game.
It looks just as bright for the Chiefs this season. No one can deny that the Chiefs have assembled a very good team, and while anything can happen to a professional sports team in any given game, the likelihood you'll be successful comes with having the goods to begin with. This is why even with properly tempered expectations -- easy, Chiefs fans, easy -- there is no reason we shouldn't be as optimistic as we are.
As for these slow days of early summer, things are indeed looking good, here in recent OTA and minicamp activity. My work colleague came in and shared that the Chiefs are taking care of business, locking up everyone they need to ensure there are no meddlesome contract issues. I did see that they inked kicker Harrison Butker for five years, great move. He is so good he could have slipped away after next year -- why worry about it? Let's keep him. I do know they haven't inked Chris Jones to that hefty long-term deal, but we're all confident Brett will get that done soon.
The main concern, though, is again, the Tyreek Hill situation. He is still prohibited from engaging in any Chiefs activities, and yet the NFL and the Chiefs have got to make a decision soon about his status. Official training camp is just around the corner, and it is imperative Hill be out there for that.
What is so aggravating is that so many things are coming out that indicate that, really, there is no reason to further keep him off the practice field, and no justification for even any penalty. Since the last time we bantered about all of this, it was revealed that not only has the case been closed for some time now, but the police have stated they firmly believe Hill did not injure his child. That is quite an admission. There has also been evidence that Hill's girlfriend is a bit unbalanced, and yeah, while we all wonder why he has still had any relationship with her, having a crazy girlfriend is not a crime. And yes, she is the mother of his child, so the priority here is to see that they are getting the help they need to manage their lives and especially the life of their boy.
There is word that the NFL and the Chiefs are holding out because they want to see what the child services office concludes to resolve their situation, yet I can't help but think of the other reason they are refraining from taking care of business and confidently proclaiming to all that there really is no reason to keep Hill from playing football with the Chiefs this year. It is simply that
The TMZ-presided court of public opinion is one massively ugly bastard.
Really, please. Tell me I'm wrong about this, really. The NFL and the Chiefs are so afraid that if they were to allow Hill on the practice field -- no penalty, no suspension, no anything -- they fear there'll be some number of ding-dong Keith Olbermann-types who'll summarily screech so loudly about how misogynist or insensitive or dismissive or outright criminal the NFL or the Chiefs are, that they believe they may lose some substantial measure of support. Especially because the Chiefs do not have the protections of a big-market, media-darling team, they feel susceptible to the consequences of these rabid virtue signaling pundits seducing so many to believe the Chiefs organization is somehow more evil than anyone else.
For every day the NFL and the Chiefs do not get their top personnel up on that podium to make the announcement regarding their plans for Tyreek and the truth that backs their actions -- extraordinarily confident because again there is nothing he's done for which they can justifiably punish him (again again, sounding like a creep in a phone conversation is simply not a crime) -- for every day they do not stand by Hill, it is another day you wonder how much courage they have to stand up for what is right and true. If they do end up giving him some penalty -- or worse, dismissing him from the team -- it will be very sad, because it will prove that they've bent over backwards to appease those few in the jeering crowd.
We'll see. Still waiting...
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