Sunday Sermon: Non-Words, Pronouns, and other Bullshit Musterings

I love the paper, especially The Kansas City Star. Unfortuneately, I can't find any general information on the Star's Kent Babb, but he writes sports for them, and he's done a great job complementing Adam Teicher as a Chiefs beat writer, if you will, since he came aboard. I've got to take issue with his piece in today's paper, though.

There are many reasons why, but the primary one is that, although this is a (conceptually) good piece, something readers and Chiefs fans will hungrily devour, it's inappropriate. Perhaps Babb's editor made the call to run the story today; perhaps he wanted to wait, or perhaps it should've never run. Not in this season. Not when Chiefs fans are already down.

"The Chiefs' third-year coach says progress is being made, and he understands that not everyone has a sideline view. He says the team has done mostly the right things in the first phase of the rebuilding project, and if things continue to go well, Kansas City will be in the playoffs by 2010."

That sentence appears just before the jump, and make it to the jump I originally did not when I first read it, and since this is a blog read by like six people, I'll take an occasional liberty here:

Fuck you, Kent Babb, for writing that. Fuck you, Star editors for publishing it, and last, but most certainly not least, fuck you Herm Edwards for saying it.

In my estimation, third-year coaches who are halfway through their third year are doing one of two things: gearing up for a serious, legitimate playoff push, or readying their resumes for the NFL version of Monster.com. The Chiefs have won one freaking game this year. One. They're likely going to get smoked by Tampa Bay at home today, and they're likely going to finish the season with a worse record than Detroit and Arizona. As Babb writes, they're "on pace to finish with the worst record in franchise history."

My question then, is this: Are you fucking kidding me with this bullshit interview right now? You expect Chiefs fans to take any ounce of solace in the fact that they should be expected to wait two and-a-half seasons to get to the playoffs? Get to them? That, Mr. Babb, Mr. Edwards, and Miss Holly Lawton (Star sports editor) is a slap in the face, and an insult. There isn't a football fan on the planet that doesn't know how long Chiefs fans have been waiting for a playoff win, some real sense of post-season progression. My puppy, the one that hungrily devoured the cat's vomit this morning, knows it.

I've been working in kitchens for nearly 20 years. For the most part, it sucks as a job when you're not in a high-end place where the front-of-the-house staff all takes their jobs seriously. FOH managers are typically slouches, and the service staff is usually lazy and self-centered. Most of the time, that's motivation for us of the chef variety to work even harder than we already do. There is one gripe I've never been able to overcome, though, and that's the massive aberration of pronoun usage that comes from this breed of people. They seldom, if ever, think of the operation as a group effort; they only think of bettering their own schedules and fattening their own pocketbooks. For example:

"Good evening. I've got a Surf and Turf for a special tonight."

What? No you don't. You didn't have anything to do with the preparation of that food.

Or:

"I've got a Hefeweisen on tap this evening."

Not really. You didn't brew that beer. You didn't buy it, and you don't fucking own the place.

Herm Edwards drives me even crazier in this regard. This interview with Kent Babb is no exception.

"This is kind of like when we were in Tampa. It's really the same scenario. We didn't start off real well, and we finally got going, probably week nine, week eight..."

First of all, just shut the fuck up, dude. There is no we that was in Tampa. You were some talent-scout-schmuck that Tony Dungy hired to help his rebuilding process. The entire coaching staff from that Bucs squad isn't here with you today in Kansas City, and if you're speaking on behalf of your wife, well that's real damn gentlemanly of you, but she ain't on the payroll, dude. Those checks are cut, painful as it is to say, to Herman Edwards. Not Lia. Not Herman and Lia. Herman.

He does the same thing when referencing (his tenure with) the New York Jets. And yeah, Dick Curl was there, and who knows who else he dragged along with him, but nobody cares about thos guys dude. You were in Tampa. You were in New York. Now you are in Kansas City. Get it right. Actually, strike that. You know why? Because you shouldn't even be mentioning those jobs.

I've never in my life heard any other head coach so consistenly refer to his previous jobs. Actually, I've just plain never heard another coach do it period. It's like he's got something to prove. Hey, Herm -- remember when you were hired? Remember that "What happened in New York stays in New York/locked the house and threw away the key bullshit" you handed the media in that presser.

And while we're at it, it's "frustrated," Herm. With an 'r'. Not "flustrated." And it's "accolades," dude. Not "ackyoulades." Leave the word makinguppage to me, Broseph.

Back to the Babb bit, though. Honestly, in this day of press-primed, spoon-fed sporting answers, what, Mr. Babb, did you expect Edwards to say? There are about half a dozen examples of fresh, steaming bullshit in the piece, all handily delivered by the Chiefs head coach, but perhaps this one's the best:

"Babb: When you see the future of this football team, is Larry Johnson part of it?
Edwards: Right now, Larry Johnson is on this football team. He's part of it. That's what you look at. You want to answer questions; you want to get an answer for a question that's very difficult to answer right now. I mean, it's not fair to anybody. He's a part of this football team."

Mr. Babb -- you should know better. That was a complete waste of column inches in my newspaper. Mr Edwards -- fuck you. Yes. I know you can't answer that question because all hell would break loose, and a media/blogging whirlwind would spiral out of control, but fuck you anyway. Have some originality or something dude. Jesus. Conjure something that might motivate Larry. Or lie. Shit, you're a master at that.

Anyway, I've covered most of the bases here. Good concept for an article. Horrible time to run it. I've been waiting for the time to make this official; perhaps I waited too long, but it's November now, and I declare this, the second day of November 2008, to be the kick-off to the Herman Edwards Firing Countdown. Oh, no. I don't think it will happen soon. Probably a year from now, when the Chiefs are still as bad as they'll ever be under Edwards' watch. But count it. It starts today.