Tradition T-Thursday: Calling Out Pro Bloggers

The mighty forces of the Deadspins posted this Kansas City Chiefs "preview" yesterday. While funny, packed with detail and tremendously long, it previewed zero in regards to the upcoming 2007 Chiefs campaign. It did, however, offer a funny snippet that, for those of you that don't feel like reading Dostoyevskyesque shpeels in the morning (or ever), I'll share with you in a moment. Suffice it to say that the gist of the thing was to re-cap the awesomeness of Kansas City miraculously reaching the post-season last year, a feat that Chiefs fans "deserved," says the preview's author.



Yeah. Deserved. Albeit, he meticulously threw in all of the Chiefs' token moments of misery dating back to those last, now-archaic 1993-94 playoff victories, he failed to analyze this season and instead re-capped one bizarre 2006 day of the professional football. The day (New Year's Eve) required: a Chiefs victory over Jacksonville; a Titans loss to New England; a Cincinnati defeat at the hands of Pittsburgh; and an evening demise of the Denver Broncos via the San Francisco 49ers. Tall order to say the least. When three of four had happened, the token, and arguably most far-fetched, match was viewed by anxious Kansas City fans and likely confident fans of Bronco Nation. Thus, the peak of said preview:

"Two giants felled, one to go. The biggest, nastiest, smelliest giant of them all - the hated Broncos, led by the Ferret himself, Mike Shanahan. The most heinous bunch of illegal-cut-blocking, salary-cap-skirting, John-Elway-worshiping dirtbags ever assembled. We hate these guys even more than we envy their two Super Bowl wins. And now all they had to do was beat a second-division team from the NFC at Mile High (did I mention their unfair home-field advantage?) and they'd once again walk off with their arms around our dream.

"Yeah, we don't like those guys."

Good times. Only it wasn't over there. Said previewer rambled on and wrapped up without the most miniscule of mention of either of the following: Croyle/Huard; the return of the Priest; Larry Johnson's holdout; Jared Allen's (redacted) suspension; the sleeper defense of the conference; a virtually impossible to decipher offensive line; a first-round-draft-pick, badly needed wide receiver without a contract; and a bloach loaded with good intentions but suspect in actions and words.

This is a team that's tough to preview. It's easy for Cecil to drop his token annual, now decade-old jokes about whoever our quarterback (especially since he must daily engage in fisticuffs with Old No. 7 over who'll slob the booze-soaked knob of this guy) is. It's typical for TLR to get his pessimistic, armchair-head-coach panties in a bunch over why we should trade LJ, why we should fire Mike Solari. And it's expected of all the four-lettered networks to pick the Chiefs to finish behind the Denver Broncos and San Diego Chargers. It is not, however, professional to not preview a team in a preview.

Allow me to show you a decent preview. Yeah. It's mine, and it's nearly four months old now, but I ain't changin' a thing. The quarterback issue will only be an issue for three more weeks; Herm will know by the end of the second pre-season game that, hey, fuck all this playforthefuture shit, Damon's our guy this year who his gunslinger will be. Peterson will cough up Hunt dollars for LJ; Priest makes the team and contributes; the D is stellar; Bowe will be late and his early-season games will be affected, but he'll come on strong mid-season; the line will be consistent enough to keep Huard healthy; thus an 11-5 record and consequential playoff (playoff?) berth. That's a preview. Put it in your pipe and smoke it, Cheech.