Monday Miscellany: Snapping the Streak

Through the lenses of red-and-gold glasses, it is indeed a glorious, glorious day, a Monday morning feeling of spectacularity that ChiefsNation has not felt in a long, long time. The Kansas City footballers have gotten themselves off of a 12-game, 11-month schneid, and done so at the expense of the Denver Broncos. Sweet, illustriously good times. That said, there were a few bad notes to Sunday's festivities, and we'll touch on those, as well as the good, after the jump.

As always, Tradition Weekend was a pretty good God-damned time. It's never as good for the fans of the losing club, as a loss overshadows many laughs, good eats and champion adult-beverage consumption. It's still a blast, however, to hang, and talk football-related smack (to an intelligent degree, and amongst non-strangers).

I'm certain that the Iron Triangle set a Tradition-weekend record for minimal amounts of invested time in the shut-eye category; it was an amazing feat that there was no snoozing done at the Head of Arrow. In fact, it was semi-miraculous that the Triangle was able to converge, as Old No. 7 equalled his December '07 traveling woes, topping snow-laden, trailer-in-hitch mountain-pass highway accidents with smashed $8000 storage-facility gates, fictitious tales of itinerary details, and hagglings of many a stand-by variety.

But he was there, nonetheless, in time to consume smoked-meast sandwiches, and even take the mound for the first pitch of backyard beer-can baseball, which sort of turned out to be a double-header. So, going on a mere two hours rest, the HoG staff matriculated its way to the Truman Sports Complex, perhaps more confident than ever, that the home team would not in fact win. Upon arrival, we made scraps of efforts to sell House of Georges merchandise (Editor's Note: Get your Hank Stram t-shirt today only for the we-broke-the-12-game-losing-streak discount price of $10.99!), and fed our guts with more vittles, and a few cans of Wisconsin-brewed pilsner. It should also be noted that the newest, most envy-invoking article of tailgating supplies was on display in large varieties on this day, and that is none other than the individual shitter tent, a mechanism that is in fact a small tent, tall and lanky in nature, that serves the purposes of avoiding long lines and lost drinking time at the parking lot johnnies. Quoth the Hootster: "We will have one of those for next year."

Inside the stadium, we enjoyed the contest from the club level, and watched as the Chiefs took an early 6-0 lead. Having received the opening kickoff, the home team put three on the board, which was mildly disappointing in that it was not six. The ensuing Denver possession, though, resulted in a fumble that the Chiefs recovered, and conservative-as-always Herman Edwards elected to kick instead of trying for a touchdown from fourth and a short goal. I confidently expected the Broncos to then score a touchdown, and easily eliminate a difficultly acquired Kansas City lead. And they did, but Kansas City was not interested in packing it in early this year, at least not on this day. They were able to put a touchdown of their own on the board with a one-yard Larry Johnson score. Denver then tied the longest field goal ever kicked at Arrowhead with a 56-yarder. Halftime score: 13-10 Kansas City.

In the second half Denver notched another three-pointer, and Kansas City answered with one of their own. There was then a Jay Cutler interception, followed by a Larry Johnson fumble, followed by another Cutler interception, which was funny, obnoxious, and confusing for all parties in a very short span of time. A little later, Damon Huard hit the greatest tight end of all time on a touchdown pass, putting the Chiefs up 23-13. Denver answered with another tres, and Kansas City did the same, and then the Broncos, again kicked another, 26-19.

Late in the fourth, however, Larry Johnson would seal the victory with another KC touchdown, for a final of 33-19, Kansas City.

In the midst of these field goals and touchdowns, were some interesting events. "Interesting," of course, is a poor choice of words, but Father Time insists that I return to reality, and punch the work clock. More on Tradition Weekend, Installment One, 2008 later today. For now, though, we'll relish the rest of the morning knowing that we can at least say we're as good as the Raiders, and better, if only slightly, than the Rams. This of course does not translate to good times, but I'm happy to say that it's not awful times...