Tradition Tueday: The Self-Destruction Will Be Televised

The rough focus of this blog is the rivalry between the Kansas City Chiefs (heralded by Bankmeister) and the Denver Broncos (championed by Cecil and Old No. 7). It may seem unfair that it's two versus one, but once KC gets that second Super Bowl win we'll even out the delegation.

Seven years ago we started The Tradition, in which Bronco fans travel out to the Truman Sports Complex with their team, and Chief-lovers return to the Rocky Mountains with theirs. We tailgate, we talk massive amounts of shit, our wives are occasionally assaulted by rival fans, and we almost always watch the visiting team lose. It's grand old time.

Here at the HoG, we're going to keep The Tradition going with Tradition Tuesday--a weekly state-of-the-rivalry address.

Let’s start this edition of Tradition Tuesday with a simple observation. The Denver Broncos look like shit. I know it, you know it, Mike Shanahan knows it. I’m sure these aren’t happy times at the Bowlen Center For Advanced Totally Legal Blocking Technique in Dove Valley, Colorado. For more of the X’s and O’s on the plight of the local pigskinners, please tune in to Cecil’s excellent preseason NFL series.

While we’re assessing non-meaningful games, I’ll happily note that the other half of The Tradition’s rootership is equally depressed about their club’s August output. The Kansas City Chafes are a miserable 0-3 in exhibition games, and pretty boy Brodie Croyle has thrown himself out of any meaningful playing time this season.

Does this mean anything? Maybe, and then again perhaps not. I’m sure every fan of both franchises has memorized this fact: The Indianapolis Colts went 1-3 in the preseason last year, and they finished the campaign in a shower of confetti. Preseason doesn’t mean shit, unless it does. We’ll find out real quick whether either of these teams are legitimate.

But that’s reality, which bruises the soul and hurts the bones. A much more palatable diversion is reality television, which subdues the intelligence of the mob. And the surprise runaway stars of reality TV this summer have been Herman Edwards, Boomer Grigsby, Tim Krumrie and Kelli Croyle. Their names appear on the marquee of that HBO smash sensation Hard Knocks: Training Camp With The Kansas City Chiefs.

There are many things that I like about Chiefs fans. The most important is that they make me feel really smart and well-groomed. We are, on the surface, the same. We both like football and red meat and large-breasted women. It is only through the prism of Hard Knocks, a detailed anthropological study of the guts of this NFL franchise, that I am able to see the fundamental differences between Bronco fans and our low-altitude brethren of the Plains.

Unfailingly, every Chiefs fan I’ve come across loves Hard Knocks. They are so happy and proud to be featured on this program it makes me blush. I’m sure people who appear on The Price Is Right and American Idol feel the exact same way, up until the moment it’s televised. Then and only then does the truth become apparent.

You look like fucking idiots.

If you are on reality TV, you’re a dope. You come off as a simplistic moron with basic, childish motivations. Because of the lack of context in any situation, we the viewers dissect your actions and judge you, and the judgements are harsh indeed. If you talk about your contract, you look greedy. If you talk about your draft position or your playing time or your dorm room assignment, you look petty and selfish. And all this is well and good for horny kids on The Real World, because no one gives two shits about those clowns anyway. But Hard Knocks is a massive distraction away from what ought to be the sole focus of the Kansas City Chiefs, which is football.

As Herman says, You Play To Win The Game. I can only assume by the way that KC has performed thus far this year (and, for that matter, last January…playoffs?), he means regular season games. I do know for a fact that Herman and GM Carl Peterson and every single Chiefs fan on Earth desperately wants to go further into the postseason. But how far is far enough?

In the brilliant first episode of Hard Knocks, King Carl laid down the goals for the season, Chief among them the desire to win the Lamar Hunt Trophy. Not the Lombardi, mind you, but the one they give out to the AFC representative in the Super Bowl. Now I’ll bet that unless you grew up as a fan of the Chiefs, Broncos or Bills, you had no God damned idea what the Lamar Hunt Trophy was. In Denver and Buffalo, we got sick of that piece of shit following repeated hoistings of it followed by failures in The Big One. I can’t imagine, for a team that’s any better than the Detroit Lions, an ultimate aim other than winning the Super Bowl. Yet Carl wants the Lamar Hunt Trophy. How do we know this? Because Carl put his team on a reality TV show.

Later, in the most recent edition, Herman is leading his team in a two-minute drill just before the boys break camp in River Falls. He concocts a hypothetical situation for effect, just as every kid does in his backyard. Only Herman’s scenario is the final drive of…the AFC Championship Game. Now I remember sandlot games that we pretended were the seventh game of the World Series, but never once did we think to make up the League Championship.

Look, I’m sure that decades of being pretty good makes a franchise and a fan base hungry. I just can’t see being hungry for anything other than the best. Trust me, Kansas City, there’s no glory in making the Super Bowl if you fucking lose. It’s an asterisk on your career. Ask Jim Kelly.

And so, for the life of me, I can’t see how having my team on a circus sideshow like this is anything but an embarrassment. But who am I? Just another asshole fan of a cheating team with a dick coach that only cares about rings. Don’t worry about me, enjoy your TV show. Just know that on November 11 I’ll be in your town looking for the only thing that matters, which is a win. Don’t miss it—it’ll be on TV.