I’ve been accused frequently of displaying an overabundance of negativity in my articles. Today I’ll do my best to shed that label. Instead of focusing on the negatives of a degrading loss to a team whose erstwhile head coach has a single winning season (2001) in his NFL career, I’ll look at what the Chiefs did right.

Tamba Hali sacked Buffalo’s no name quarterback twice, Brandon Flowers caught a pass from said no name quarterback, and Jamaal Charles made a lot of fantasy football owners by gaining 181 yards from scrimmage.

Now nobody can try to accuse me of not trying. (more…)

On November 6th, 2005, Larry Johnson permanently took over starting duties from Priest Holmes. He had three prior spot starts, but his field time had been limited otherwise. Johnson set the tone for the next year and a half by putting up a command performance against a struggling Oakland team, gaining 107 ground yards and another 16 on three receptions.

Today, November 15th, 2009, Jamaal Charles permanently took over starting duties from Larry Johnson. He had four prior spot starts, but his field time had been limited otherwise. Charles put up a command performance against a struggling Oakland team, gaining 103 ground yards and another 14 on four receptions. (more…)

It’s a rare sight to see the fan base for a sports franchise in a celebratory mood 24 hours after a loss. With half the season behind them and only one win visible in the rearview mirror, the natural emotions should be disappointment, dejection, and possibly even depression. So why are Chiefs fans dancing like Rosie Perez in the opening credits of a Spike Lee film today?

It’s because they got their wish. Over the past week, fans numbering in excess of 35,000 signed an online petition requesting that GM Scott Pioli not allow Larry Johnson to break Priest Holmes’ franchise rushing record. The petition was pedestrian in wording and held no great swaying power of its own, but it didn’t need to. Fans are forgiving, but far too often Johnson’s behavior was unforgivable. His final offense, a homophobic epithet and a knock on his head coach’s credentials, was in itself far less egregious than many of his prior transgressions, but it was enough in the eyes of his employers to merit dismissal. (more…)

In my April 24th article Things We Lost in the Fire, I stated that I could not decipher the direction Scott Pioli and Todd Haley were taking their team. Four months later, I am no closer. The 2009 Kansas City Chiefs 53-man roster is not the type that inspires confidence in fans. Certain elements probably don’t inspire much confidence in teammates either. As the depth chart presently reads, there are six new starters on offense, eight on defense, and two new specialists. Some are markedly worse than their predecessors (Sean Ryan replacing Tony Gonzalez, for instance), but none are markedly better.

To say I see no improvement would be facetious. This is a tougher team, no doubt. Furthermore, if a team is properly coached (I stress the word ‘if’, because we have yet to see this team actually play), the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts. Therefore, the dearth of obvious talent does not indicate certainty of an impending failing season.

Having said that, I won’t be cashing out my savings to bet on them beating Baltimore next weekend. (more…)

John Welbourn had one great game in 2007. In Week 15, the failing lineman briefly reverted to his former self, offering Chiefs fans one final reminder of what their front five had been only two years before. He paved lanes for Kolby Smith, who gained 82 yards on 18 carries, and he helped keep Brodie Croyle upright all day against a potent Tennessee defensive line. That game, however, proved to be the exception, not the rule. Welbourn, who never fully recovered from a knee injury suffered in the first game of his rookie year, spent most of the season showing his age.

Mike Goff had several good games in 2007. He had several more in 2008. Goff has never been as good at Welbourn at his best, but he’s also never been as bad as Welbourn at his worst. That, at least, has been my evaluation of him thus far in his 11 year career. I may reevaluate my position after Friday’s debacle. Goff played nearly as poorly as I’ve ever seen a RG play (excepting Wade Smith, of course), and he was simply abused by Minnesota’s second string defensive linemen. (more…)

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about watching preseason, it’s never to take for granted that a player’s play will win him a starting job or even a roster spot. The first time that point was really driven home for me was in 2003, when Joe Hall clearly outplayed Omar Easy. Easy got the nod and continued to disappoint for another two seasons.

It was inconsequential in 2006 that incumbent starter Lional Dalton plainly outplayed underweight career reserve James Reed. Dalton was humiliatingly demoted by coach Herm Edwards to scout team right guard, then eventually cut. It was inconsequential again in 2007 when Casey Printers outplayed both Damon Huard and Brodie Croyle. Printers was cut in favor of Tyler Thigpen. Sometimes, as was the case with Justin Phinisee, it doesn’t even matter that there is no real competition on the squad. Phinisee was cut in favor of Detroit castaway Eddie Drummond. As we all know, if there’s any such thing as a benchmark for proof of quality, that mark is being cut by the Detroit Lions. (more…)

American tycoon Clark Hunt has emerged as a frontrunner for a shock takeover of West Ham United.

Hammers owners, CB Holding, have begun negotiations for a potential £120million buyout by Hunt who owns Major League Soccer clubs Columbus Crew and FC Dallas.

CB Holding is 70 per cent owned by Icelandic bank Straumur plus several other financial institutions and all are suffering in the credit crunch.

The company took West Ham as part-payment of £350m debts built up by Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson.

CB Holding produced a two-year plan to stabilise West Ham but in June, Straumur spokesman Georg Andersen, said: “Every club is for sale at the right price. With the market right now it will be difficult to find the right value.

“I’m not going to pretend we are going to own the club for ever.”

http://bit.ly/er9lR

I don’t spend a lot of time talking about my personal life in my articles, but the past seven weeks for me is an adventure worth sharing. At age 16 I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, which is an inflammatory disease of the digestive tract caused by a bacteria related to tuberculosis. The bacteria creates scar tissue, which in turn leads to partial (and eventually complete) blockage of the intestine. Fun stuff. My terminal ileum (the joining of the small and large intestines) was nearly fully blocked, which made eating a meal incredibly painful. I’ve been in sometimes severe pain from the disease since well before I was diagnosed, but this pain was virtually crippling–I had days where I could not walk simply because I had chosen to eat.

The cure for the blockage is surgical. They open you up, cut out the diseased portion of the intestine, and sew you back together. Based on scans of my innards, the initial goal was to make a laparoscopic incision and remove about five inches. They got the scope inside of me and found that the damage was far more extensive. They stapled the initial incision and instead cut me open from the bottom of my ribcage down to my pant line, then proceeded to remove a full fifteen inches of intestine. Also fun stuff. It takes considerably longer to recover from a full incision, so basically I was a cripple for a little over three weeks. It’s demoralizing at my age to depend on my elderly father for something as simple as walking my dog, but 90 pound labrador mixes don’t mix with ten inches of staples across your midsection. (more…)