Last year, the Chiefs were a Cinderella team. Fueled by hopes and dreams, along with a cupcake schedule, they surprised everyone but themselves by going 3-0 out of the gate. After a year of solid, mistake free football, everything imploded all at once. One week, they looked like the belle of the ball against the Tennessee Titans, then midnight struck and they lost their glass slipper. No, screw that, it was more like the pumpkin exploded in their damn face. They were brought back down to reality ferociously and had to be scraped off of the collective boot of the Raiders and Ravens to end the season. No fairytale ending. It was more like the Brother’s Grimm version, if Cinderella were the one to get her eyes poked out by pigeons instead of the evil stepsisters. Tim Burton would direct.

This year, the Chiefs were considered a contender going into the season, ready to have a fun time at Camp Crystal Lake. A rough looking schedule curbed expectations some, but nothing like getting slaughtered the first two games did. The beginning of the schedule was supposed to be the easy part, just playing grabass with the other camp counselors, so why did it feel like they were getting chased through a corn field by an unnatural behemoth with a hockey mask and a machete? All they could do is watch their comrades get mangled as their odds of survival slimmed. (more…)

On paper, 83 yards rushing doesn’t sound bad. Top 10 rushing teams average 125 yards a game or better. Most teams run some form of a two-man platoon at tailback these days, so if the top dog pulls down 83, his backup only needs 42. Any additional ground yardage from reverses or broken pass plays is icing on the cake.

When the starter needs 22 touches to get that 81 yards, however, it doesn’t sound good.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Thomas Jones. He’s the third best skill position player on Kansas City’s offense right now. I’m just not sure why he’s starting. He doesn’t move the chains the way a starting running back should. First string tailbacks usually average a 1st down every four carries–25%. Jones’s career average is 19.4%. Jamaal Charles’s, on the other hand, is 27.6%. That disparity, applied to a starter’s workload of 300 to 350 carries, equals 24 to 28 1st downs over the course of a season. That’s far too many to leave on the bench. (more…)

Every year, it never fails. I always end up watching at least one preseason game on tape delay. My two poor, beleaguered VCRs are challenged with the task of making sure I don’t miss the action. I trust neither of them, however, so I always end up with two copies of any game I miss.

Yes, that’s correct. I am the proud possessor of not one, but two copies of the Green Bay Squeakby. What will become of them? They’ll probably be recycled to catch bits and pieces of regular season games. Even though it was a victory, and victories have been few and far between over the past few seasons, I don’t see any pressing reason to relive this one after I’m finished re-watching it tonight. (more…)

To begin, I want to touch on something I touched on briefly in a mid-week article last season. Football players are on performance-enhancing drugs. Let’s not kid ourselves into believing the NFL’s testing policy works. The average playing weight at most positions has increased 30-50 pounds in the last three decades. A large part of that is the result of advancements in sports nutrition and physical training, but it’s also because players are on performance-enhancing drugs. When talking about concussions, we talk about changing the rules and designing better helmets, but we skirt around the major factor at play: these guys are really big, and getting hit by someone large is more painful than getting hit by someone small. This might not have been a major factor in Cameron Sheffield’s or Maurice Leggett’s injuries, as in both cases the collision was with a running back of similar size, but it’s a subject that definitely warrants much more open dialogue than is presently exchanged.

I’m curious to hear from my readers whether they think the defense’s success says more about Kansas City or more about Philadelphia. I myself am at a loss. I see few, if any, parallels between last night’s game and the game six days prior. Did the unit turn the corner sometime last week, or is Tampa Bay with their backup quarterback a more formidable offense than Philadelphia with their starter? I hope it’s the former, but I’m far from convinced. (more…)

Yet again I’m dispensing with the cute titles and semi-obscure musical references. They’ll return with the regular season. For now, I’m just gonna talk football. The second preseason game is my favorite of the four. The starters play the full first half, which means it looks something a bit like a regular season game. In the second half, the scrubs get probably their best chance to audition for the coaches. Thus, there are really two separate games taking place. Accordingly, I’ll evaluate each half individually.

FIRST HALF

I have no choice but to admit this–Matt Cassel had an okay game. Whereas his passes generally range from questionable to bad, tonight they ranged from good to questionable. He kept the ball in the hands of his receivers and out of the hands of the Buccs’ defense. He amassed two successful scoring drives. Better yet, he improved dramatically on last week’s paltry average of four yards per completion. This is undoubtedly partly attributable to improved playcalling from the sideline. Charlie Weis might not be much of a college head coach, but it’s hard to deny that he has a bit of a Midas touch with an NFL offense. (more…)

Folks, there’s no clever title this time around. No clever introduction either. I’m going straight to analysis.

If I had to sum up the Chiefs’ performance on Friday in a single sentence, that sentence would be this: what happened in the middle of that starting defensive line was a travesty. I could leave it at that and feel satisfied with the quality of my article. After all, it’s not the size of the ship, right? That wouldn’t be fair to Javier Arenas, however, so I’ll write a little more. (more…)

Eric Berry gets 6 years $60 million max with $34 guaranteed from the Chiefs – highest paid safety in NFL history

Twitter–Jason La Canfora

Peter Steele, singer and bassist for the band Type O Negative and onetime Playgirl centerfold model, died last month of heart failure. Afterward, I made my customary dead celebrity jokes, none of which were in good taste. I did the same when Michael Jackson died a year ago. This deeply offended a few of my acquaintances. I was unfriended on Facebook by two people over a remark about Jackson looking at the man in the mirror and seeing dead people. This time around, there was no outrage (or faux-outrage, as I’m positive the majority of the offended hadn’t listened to the King of Pop at any point in the decade prior). Reactions ranged from indifference to amusement.

So what’s the moral of the story? If you want complete strangers to feign sorrow of your passing, don’t write borderline unlistenable goth metal.

What does any of this have to do with Kansas City football? Nothing, aside from the fact that the title of one of Steele’s better known songs made a good title for an article about Dwayne Bowe. Unsuccessfully Coping With The Natural Beauty Of Infidelity was written from the perspective of an individual whose significant other is unable to control his/her hormonal inclinations. Perhaps, then, I should have gone with Ludacris’s Hoes In Different Area Codes instead. (more…)