Tradition Tuesday: Rumor Mills and Talk Radio Disappointments

It's true that the rough focus of this blog is the rivalry between the Kansas City Chiefs (represented by me) and the Denver Broncos (Cecil and Old No. 7 claim them). It's also true that nine years ago, we started The Tradition, in which we make annual pilgrimages to one another's stadiums for some damn good times. Tradition Tuesday is our weekly state-of-the-rivlary address. In it, we touch on both clubs, but today, I'll barely mention Denver, offering Seven one last shot at touching on the canning of the Rat before it becomes really, really old news.

'Round here, if a guy does the TalkRadios on a regular basis, he usually does this one or this one. It seems to me that older folks tend toward the latter, younger the former. And it seems to me that very few folks do both, though I'm sure there are some. I go the 610 route; always have. A couple of years ago, according to one personality in particular, managment there wanted to "go in a different direction." They made, in my estimation, one long-overdue decision, and a couple of bad ones. Or shall we say that they just weren't Wright. More on that, after the jump.

Briefly, though, I'm a bit pleased to say, that after who knows how many days of speculation, someone finally published some firm "Scott Pioli's in town" news. Lucky as always for Cecil, his favoritest journalist gets the credit. There are also new speculations hovering, ones tied to media functions slated for today, that Carl Peterson will be accepting employment elsewhere, like in Florida. The 610 Web site says the following:

"He's slated to join The Morning Sports Drive on 610 Sports Radio this morning at 8:10and meet the media for the final time in a 330pm newsconference (sic) to be aired live on 610 Sports Radio. This amidst reports that he may not be out of work for long, and that he may be in line for a front office job with the Miami Dolphins."

If that's the case, good for Carl. I wish him the best, and thank him for his contributions to the franchise.

Mr. Nick Wright of KCSP 610 AM, on the other hand, has some retooling to do; the ol' noggin', as it were, has gotten a bit cobwebby. Let's put it this way, his co-worker, Neal Jones (who takes the four-hour slot before Wright), along with most anybody with any intelligence, has been campaigning for Herm Edwards to go, that the new GM can't afford to gamble on another year with him as head coach. Support for the contrary lacks common sense. It really does.

Like most men, on December 23, I started my Christmas shopping. At the time, Jones was on the air, and luckily, I had it done shortly after Wright (not even three hours total) took the mic. I had some time to kill, and decided to pop in to a dive for a beer and a burger, and en route to the joint, Wright offered considerable contributions to my already-alarming road rage. I got to the bar and sat in the parking lot, listening to his sheer idiocy (Editor's Note: For the record, I've heard his program many times before, and don't always find it terrible.). Eventually, I'd had enough, and I went in to place my order: a bacon cheeseburger, a Pabst, a water with no ice, and four blank guest checks; these thoughts had to be penned immediately. Understand, I was mad, and in the haste of the moment, I said some things that weren't nice. What follows is my letter to him.

Nick --

I've been listening to 610 for about five years. The resignation of Chiefs General Manager Carl Peterson has given Kansas City talk radio a plethora of material. Neal Jones has received many e-mails and texts calling him an idiot for his stance on Herm, but I'm writing to say that the idiot is you. There are a few items for which I will give you credit(Note: In hindsight, it may've only been one.), but negative criticism is the majority of what I have to offer your program from this evening.

1) Yes, your interview (Note: Wright interviewed Chiefs defensemen Tank Tyler and Turk McBride; it had been broadcast the previous evening) with Tank and Turk was good, but you ruined most of it this evening by giving yourself props for conducting it in a "well-thought-out, well-researched, felt-good-about-what-I-said" manner. You're an on-air radio personality. You should do that every time you pot up with the 'phones on.

2) Like many media personalities, you insult the listener by assuming you know something they don't. What I mean is that you pretend to know specifics like what coach and/or GM picked particular players in past drafts. Practically in the same breath this evening, you blasted Peterson for the picks of the Vermeil era, then lauded Herm for the selections during his tenure.

This implies that these men have personally told you or a colleague of yours whose pick was whose, and you and I both know that didn't happen in any regard, and never will. It's simply not how the NFL (or its personalities) operates.

3) It takes a lot of nerve to take this mentality to the next level and suggest that there are plenty of other "vacation spots" where a Bill Cowher type would prefer to relocate for employment purposes. Then you backtrack by saying KC is your hometown, you love it here, etc. Real on-air professionals have already touched on this on your station and all of the nationally acclaimed guests interviewed in those slots have agreed that KC is a top-tier attraction for an NFL higher-up.

But on to Herm.

4) You just agreed that 1) Priefer, 2) Solari, 3) (retention of Cunningham), 4) in-game decisions, and 5) clock management are all fair knocks on Herm while the overwhelming argument against his record is not. And that's where you lose credibility. Not matter the stance or the angle you take, this game is about winning on Sundays.

And that, Mr. Wright, is not an accomplishable feat when you make mistakes at all three coordinator positions and simply are incapapble of managing/coaching a game.

(Note: I've said it a million times...) Herman Edwards is a smart man and a good coach. He may be the best of 32 in the NFL @ embodying those two characteristics from Monday-Saturday. Those days, however, are the six of seven in the week that don't matter. Sunday, Mr. Wright, matters. Period.

5) By comparison, Mike Shanahan has been (Note: Naturally, this note was written a week before his firing.) the head coach of the Denver Broncos since 1994. He has accomplished everything a head coach desires, and more. His worst record since assuming that role is 6-10. That means, in his worst campaign, he won as many games as Edwards has in two years. And as you mentioned, you don't count his first year here; Herman Edwards is 6-25 (basically) as the Chiefs head coach.

I don't care what spin he put on it, that 9-7 wildcard spot was a fluke, and a fluke with Dick Vermeil's team. And as we all know, he did the same thing in New York in putting together a "debut season" with Parcells' club; they more or less tanked every season after, and are clearly a better club under (Note: Again, pre-firing.) Eric Mangini. And while it may be a stretch, Tampa won a Super Bowl after Herm was gone and Jon Gruden got things re-tooled.

The fact of the matter remains that Edwards in not a great coach in the NFL, and he never will be. Everyone knows how easy it is to turn things around in today's NFL, courtesy of free agency and the salary cap. Herm is incapable of that task, though.

6) Now, I won't argue staunchly against the belief that he should get one more year, but there are too many intangibles on the line there to take that risk. As Jones puts it, what if you do (keep him around) and he goes 7-9? Are we supposed to believe that they'll go 10-6 in 2010? No. They won't. Not under Edwards.

Finally, you went all-out adolescent by saying that Belichick (were he in Herm's slot these past two years) couldn't even take this team to 15-9 against a Big VII team. And there is where you sound like a fool.

For starters, you take a plausibly easy road by using Belichick. Unfortunately, he's not the best coach in 2008. John Fox, Mike Tomlin, Jeff Fisher, and Tom Coughlin are all better. Why? They have more wins, Nick. More. Wins.

This game is about winning games and if you can't do that, at least play complete games en route to learning how to win. You wanna hang that insufficiency on personnel when you've already admitted that these poor coordinator choices, coupled with the two largest in-game responsibilities an NFL coach has, are all good knocks on Edwards. So, by that assertion, a good company boss can and will be successful by putting the wrong people in place and not knowing what he's doing to gain the edge on his competitors. But he can make quality hires? Can you honestly fail to see the sheer lack of logic and reasoning in this stance you've so boastfully taken?

Frankly, I hope it's been worth the few ego strokes you've gotten; I hope the ratings ploy has been a success. This Chiefs fan, however, hasn't been fooled. I'll likely continue to tune in on occasion, solely for the sake of how this KC Chiefs decision plays out, and for the sake of knowing I have a better understanding of the NFL than a trained, learned, and paid professional claims to.

Sincerely,
Bankmeister

P.S. You thought that "Freaks Come Out At Night" was by Michael Jackson? Dude...

Mr. Wright's opinions on the coaching genius known as Herman Edwards can be read here.
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Monday Mystification: The Ugly, The Fugly, and the Chris Fuamatu-Ma'alafugly

When attempting to tackle a problem of this magnitude, the angle, the focus, the crux all slip in and out of visibility, like tailbacks in the seams of lines. Yesterday at Arrowhead Stadium, the Kansas City Chiefs had more points scored on them than in any other game in franchise history. There are more parcels of what's wrong with this team than there are gifts under a Mission Hills Christmas tree, but considering that this football club has been around for almost half a century, that simply has to be the beacon in this bog of murk. Both columnists from The Kansas City Star brought up a few good points in today's paper and we'll touch on those later. This drubbing, however, that occurred at the hands of the still-last-place Buffalo Bills yesterday, is a symbol of the gaspingly ugly Kansas City Chiefs of the Herman Edwards era.

To put what this team is or isn't doing into perspective, let's have a look at all 10 head coaches in Kansas City Chiefs history.

1) Hank Stram began as an assistant football coach at Purdue, then held the same positions with Notre Dame, SMU, and Miami. To begin his pro coaching career, he won three AFL championships, 87 contests, had six post-season appearances (with a 5-1 record), all of which will forever be AFL bests. In the NFL, he had two Super Bowl appearances, won one of them, and posted a 131-97 regular-season, a 5-3 post-season, and a 136-100 overall record, netting a winning percentage of .576.

2) Paul Wiggin was his replacement. Prior to becoming the Chiefs second head coach, he was an assistant on the San Francisco 49ers staff. He went 11-24 in less than three years with KC, a .314 percentage of games won attached to his tenure.

3) Tom Bettis, as interim coach, went 1-6, a meager .143. In hindsight, neither were good replacements for Stram.

4) Marv Levy was assistant football coach at Coe College, head coach of the University of New Mexico, Cal, and William & Mary, before becoming the coach of the kicking team of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1969. The following year he was the special teams coach of the L.A. Rams, followed by a head coaching stint in the CFL, which lasted five seasons, and earned his team three Grey Cup appearances and two championships. His runs as head coach in Kansas City and Buffalo combined yielded a 112-70 regular-season, an 11-8 post-season, and a 143-112 overal record, for a winning percentage of .561 and four AFC championships.

5) John Mackovic was the offensive coordinator at San Jose State and at the University of Arizona, then assistant head coach at Purdue. Next he was the head coach at Wake Forest, then the assistant head coach for the Dallas Cowboys before a brief stand as head coach of the Chiefs. Since leaving the NFL, he has returned to coaching in college, where he has a 94-78-3 overall record. His pro record, however was 30-34, a winning percentage of .469.

6) Frank Gansz replaced him and went 8-22-1 in two campaigns with the Chiefs. He had previously been the Chiefs special teams coach. His record produced a .258 winning percentage.

7) Marty Schottenheimer came next. He was a linebackers coach with the Giants and later defensive coordinator. With the Lions, he was also a linebackers coach before becoming the defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns. In 1984, he became their head coach, and later coached Kansas City, Washington, and San Diego. His regular-season record is 200-126-1, while going 5-13 in the post-season, making his total 205-139-1, garnering him a .594.

8) Gunther Cunningham replaced him. Prior to his promotion, he was an assistant coach with the Raiders and the Chiefs' defensive coordinator. In two seasons as head coach, he went 16-16 for a .500.

9) Next came Dick Vermeil. He was head coach at Stanford, special teams coach with the L.A. Rams in '69 (replaced of course by Levy) for one season, as he accepted an assistant-coach position with UCLA, but then went back to the Rams until '74. Then he went back to UCLA, where in two seasons, he went 15-5-3, won a conference championship, and a Rose Bowl. His next return to the pros was as head coach of the Eagles, then the St. Louis Rams, and finally the Chiefs. In total he went 126-114, boasting two Super Bowl appearances with two different teams, one of which he won. His winning percentage checks in at a cool .525.

10) Finally, Herm Edwards. Edwards was a defensive assistant at San Jose State, then a scout and defensive backs coach with the Chiefs. Next came another defensive backs/assistant head coach job with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Despite never having previously held a head coach or a coordinator position, the New York Jets hired him in 2001. As head coach of the Jets and Chiefs combined, he has gone 53-70, and 2-4 in the post-season, and 55-74 overall, which earns him a .426.

Now, let's look at those winning percentages from best to worst:

1) Marty Schottenheimer: .594
2) Hank Stram: .576
3) Marv Levy: .561
4) Dick Vermeil: .525
5) Gunther Cunningham: .500
6) John Mackovic: .469
7) Herm Edwards: .426
8) Paul Wiggin: .314
9) Frank Gansz: .258
10) Tom Bettis: .143

Of course each tenure is unique. Some have had greater successes than others; some have been short-lived. But, if we take this set of hard numbers, we ascertain that Herman Edwards doesn't even make it in to the top two-thirds of the winningest head coaches in Chiefs history; he is only better than the the three coaches who were in office on a short-term basis. Wiggin was not given three full seasons. Gansz served one full season and one strike-shortened season and saw his tenure come to an end with the end of Jack Steadman's run as general manager/president of the organization. Tom Bettis was not even given half a season. The man on the list above Edwards never went on to coach in the pros again, but managed to put together a better percentage than Edwards, and a .546 as a collegiate head coach. As it stands today, Gunther Cunningham won more football games as Chiefs head coach in two seasons, than Edwards has in three.

Now, there are various positions of the football team to analyze, but in strictly playing-to-win-the-game discussions, Edwards lands at spot seven of 10 in the books, a spot that clearly lends itself to not winning the game very often.
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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.
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Friday Fiction Fix: "The Boy Who Had Never Seen the Sea"

In the October 27 issue of The New Yorker, the fiction selection by author Jean-Marie Gustave (J.M.G.) Le Clezio personifies the sea in a way somewhat similar to the way Chiefs Head Coach Herman Edwards does to the NFL shield. Daniel, the protagonist, possesses very limited social skills and speaks of the sea as if it were the holy grail. Today, in this House of Georges, Daniel is Edwards; the sea is the shield. More on that in a minute.

Since Le Clezio's heritage is French/British, I should technically hate him. Given that he occasionally resides in Albuquerque, I should really hate him. Unlucky for me: he's a great writer and the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature. His extensive anthology, as it were, has won numerous awards, and many of them have been translated (36 different languages) from French to English. This piece was done so by the magazine's Fiction Editor Deborah Treisman.

There are other articles in this piece that resemble something else, and I'll explain as we go, but I must first flesh something out. The shield is the symbol of the National Football League, and it represents the highest form of American football in the world. Guys grow up dreaming of one day playing in it, and yearning for a championship. Other, less physically gifted guys grow up dreaming of one day seeing their team win a championship, much like my now-invisible colleagues did two times in a row 10 years ago. The point is that the shield is the Lombardi trophy, and vice versa. Keep that in mind.

"He was called Daniel,



but he would have liked to be called Sinbad,



because he had read about Sinbad's adventures in the big red leather-bound book he always carried with him...



...He never joined the conversations of others, unless the discussion involved the sea...But this boy, Daniel -- it was as if he belonged to another race...It was as if he were sleeping with his eyes open.

Even when we talked about the sea, the conversation didn't interest him for long. He'd listen for a moment, ask a question or two, then realize that we were talking not about the sea but about swimming or deep-sea fishing, about beaches or sunbathing...That wasn't the sea he wanted to hear about.



He was interested in a different sea -- we didn't know which one, but a different one...

...He left in the early days of winter...We said only, 'Hey! Daniel is gone!,' without being really surprised, because after all we must have suspected this might happen.



None of us said anything else, because no one wanted him to be found and brought back."

Le Clezio then uses the interesting technique of switching settings and (sort of) narrative voice.



"Surely it was night when Daniel arrived, on board a freight train that had been travelling day and night for a long time...



...The sea! The sea! Daniel thought, but he didn't dare say it aloud...To himself, Daniel repeated the lovely word over and over. The sea, the sea, the sea...His head was full of noise and vertigo. He wanted to speak, to shout, even, but his throat would not allow his voice to pass."

And Kansas City Chiefs fans thought:

"The sea was far, at the other end of the field...It shone in the light, its color and appearance changing...Daniel didn't realize how far it was."

"But Daniel was not afraid...He had thought of this moment so many times, had so often imagined the day when he would finally see it,



not in a photograph or in a movie but in reality, the sea itself, enormous, exposed...He had longed for this moment with such intensity that he was suddenly weak, as if he were about to die, or at least fall asleep."

Daniel, having taken up his new residence, makes a home for himself.

"Then he went farther out, all the way to the end of the field...Because that was where his octopus friend lived.



Daniel had known the octopus since he arrived at the sea, had met it even before he knew the seabirds



and the anemones...



...'Hello, Wyatt,' Daniel said. The octopus was called Wyatt, though of course it did not know its name. Daniel spoke to it in a low voice, so as not to scare it. He asked it questions about what happened at the bottom of the sea, what one could see from beneath the waves. Wyatt didn't answer..."

Le Clezio's story about Daniel is a strange, compelling tale. What becomes of Daniel remains to be discovered.

"For us here, far from the sea, everything was both impossible and easy. All we knew was that something strange had happened.

It was strange because there was an illogical aspect to it that contradicted what the serious people were telling us...perhaps it was just the dream that began, quite simply, one morning, when we opened our eyes..."

Many of J.M.G. Le Clezio's books can be purchased here.
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Ultimate Peterson Apologism

The Kansas City Chiefs fell to 1-5 yesterday, losing at home to the still-unbeaten Tennessee Titans. They narrowly avoided being shutout in consecutive games for the first time in 48 years, and they narrowly avoided being outscored 68-0 in those games, tallying a meaningless touchdown and field goal in the final three minutes of play. This team is past trouble. This team is beyond terrible, and (most of) the members in this organization can no longer even smell the waning whiffs of determination that once fragranced the feasts of Kansas City Chiefs football. There are many reasons why this is so, and a number of things that must happen in order to make things bad. Yes, bad. Bad would be an improvement for a team that goes from first and goal at the two, to second and goal at the six, to third and goal from the 10 late in a game in which they're about to get blanked. Bad would be a Godsend for a team that has to settle for a field goal on that play, after missing two earlier attempts that the other 31 NFL kickers would almost certainly have made.

The hub of all of this is Chiefs General Manager/President/CEO Carl Peterson, and the perspective of it must be an historical one. The factors that descend from both include championships, win-loss records, coaches, personnel, and the business side of NFL franchises, too.

Championships

This is the easy part. Though the franchise had much success in the formative years, and saw a lot of winning seasons and AFL championships in the early and mid 60s, that's not really what we want to focus on. The team has made two Super Bowl appearances, gone .500 in those contests, and not been back to one since. After their Super Bowl-winning season, the Chiefs posted three consecutive winning seasons, followed by six losing, and one .500 campaigns. That only brings us to 1981. For the eight subsequent years, they would post two (barely) winning seasons until Peterson's arrival in 1989. After his hiring, Kansas City posted nine consecutive winning seasons, the 10th being (former) Head Coach Marty Schottenheimer's last. Since his departure, the team has produced four winning seasons of eight.

Win-Loss Records

In 48 seasons, this franchise has posted 26 winning seasons. Carl Peterson has been around for 18 complete campaigns; 13 of those have been above .500. That translates to 72 percent of his tenure producing winning seasons.

Coaches

The Schottenheimer hire was clearly a home run. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was a ground-rule double, since no championship was won. Since leaving Kansas City, Marty's post-season woes have followed him, so perhaps the best that can be said was that Peterson's first head-coach hire was at least successful in restoring the franchise to winning ways. Promoting Gunther Cunningham from defensive coordinator to head coach was a gamble. Schottenheimer believed in the defense-wins-championships mantra, and Cunningham no doubt is part of that same fabric. He had large successes as DC, and perhaps it was thought that his fieriness could transcend the defensive unit to the entire squad, and produce something special. He wasn't given much of a shot though, going 16-16 in two seasons, relieved of his duties via the GoreTubes, when Peterson finally coaxed the man he wanted over Schottenheimer (in '89) out of retirment.

It would be unfair to say that the Vermeil era was an improvement over Cunningham's, as he was given three extra seasons to produce, and left of his own accord. Vermeil's Chiefs put together the most explosive offense in franchise history, and perhaps the worst defense to go along with it. And it as at the end of this regime where things get fuzzy. Herm Edwards played for Dick Vermeil's Eagles. Carl Peterson also knew Vermeil from days in Philly, and California prior to that. Vermeil made no secret of his fondness of Edwards, and hey, he happens to be from California as well. Fuzzy, in this instance, is synonymous with good-ol'-boy. Peterson made the decision to hire Edwards as Vermeil's successor, and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Vermeil suggested to Peterson that Edwards be his man. Hell, Edwards already had a previous stint with Kansas City during the Schottenheimer era. Either way, the five-year Vermeil era is where the Peterson wheels officially loosened.

It would be absurd to say that Peterson should've left when Schottenheimer did. You don't produce as much success as he did in a decade, and call it done after one head coach. Peterson rolled the dice with Cunningham, and ran him out to put Vermeil in place. Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe Cunningham needed that token third year to get things rolling, even though he was clearly going insane under pressure and a a self-imposed need to be an all-out dictator. Putting together the lush compensation package that Peterson did for Vermeil seems odd in retrospect. The guy had to be pleaded with to come out of retirement to coach this team that clearly lacked direction since Schottenheimer's departure. Vermeil went all out, loading the team with veteran free agents, and ultimately, not drafting all that well. Forever attached with the Vermeil regime is the proverbial window of opportunity associated with the aged roster, the slim moment of time in which to get it done, and get it done they did not.

Vermeil retires, Edwards comes in and guts the roster of its age, re-stocking it with new, the polar opposite of what Vermeil attempted. And it looks worse than ever. This is not to say that the effort won't be successful, but its impossible to see any shred of potential success right now, making the entire organization look inept.

The Kansas City Star's Jason Whitlock continues to devote his column space to calling for Peterson' ousting. This tired topic is something he's been doing for several consecutive years, and has, in recent weeks, said that he will not stop until it's happened. He's even admitted to begging his sports-writing peers in other networks, other mediums, to do the same. I suggest that 10 out of every 10 Chiefs fan asked would say he/she agrees with Whitlock.

During halftime of yesterday's CBS broadcast, Dan Marino, Boomer Esiason, Shannon Sharpe, and James Brown had many a chuckle at the expense of the Chiefs. They were awed by Tennessee's first-half production, but quick to asterisk it with lines like, "but look who they're playing: the worst team in football, without a doubt." These guys have no problem saying that about these Chiefs, even with Seattle looking as bad as it does, the Rams not looking much better, and the Lions still without a win. Steve Tasker and Gus Johnson, the in-game commentators, went out of their way to make the point that you don't change head coaches at this juncture; that typically results in two steps back instead of the desired step forward. They added that a change at head coach might generate a win or two, but ultimately things will regress to beyond bad again.

Personnel

It's impossible to see that there is talent on this team. The offensive line cannot protect any quarterback, and almost never open up running holes for the ground game. Larry Johnson continues to perpetuate the locker-room-cancer syndrome, and has again gotten himself in trouble in his personal life, which only adds to the problems created by his de-activation for yesterday's game. Kolby Smith and Jamaal Charles will never see success running behind an inept line, and without a running game, there's no passing game, which means it's pointless to examine the wide receiver position.

The defense, Herm Edwards' bread and butter, is atrocious. The front four generate zero pressure on opposing quarterbacks, all but giving other teams the green light at a balanced run-pass attack. The linebacking crew constantly misses on tackles, making them just as responsible as the secondary for giving up big plays and getting dominated in every aspect of the game.

The special teams offers things that no team desires. The kicking game is ridiculous, but no team wants a good kicking game anyway when touchdowns are the goal. The return game is better than average, but that's pointless when the offense can't move the chains, leaving a great punter as the highlight, and the last thing any team wants to do is punt.

The Business Side

I'll defer to this tidbit from Arrowhead Pride. Essentially, it states that the net value of the Kansas City Chiefs franchise has risen in recent years, regardless of the fact that the team has gone from middle of the road to beyond bad. It also suggests something greater: When Peterson signed a contract extension a couple of years ago, he told Clark Hunt -- and Hunt told the media -- that he intends to retire at the end of it. Now, everyone wants to make a big deal out of Hunt's recent interview with the Star's Adam Teicher. In that interview, Hunt did what any owner or president would do in the middle of a current season, and that is to ruffle no feathers, and shake no aspect of a locker-room foundation.

I'm certain that Hunt is aware of falling attendance -- the Kansas City market narrowly avoided a televised blackout of yesterday's game -- and the growing frustration among the Chiefs' fan base. I'm also certain that he will address any and all problems with the club at season's end. If there's any truth to that Arrowhead Pride link, then Peterson will likely shorten his role of GM/President/CEO to two titles instead of three, and make Vice President of Player Personnel Bill Kuharich or Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Denny Thum the new GM, and Peterson will be kept on as president, CEO, or both. Ultimately, that means Peterson will still have his hand in things in a way that most KC fans will not appreciate.

The X-Factors

Peterson made a massive mistake when he was hired in 1989 by telling the press of his infamous five-year plan to take this team to the Super Bowl, and it will never be forgotten. What is seldom remembered however, is that in that fifth year, KC was past halfway to to nine consecutive winning seasons, and one game removed from the Super Bowl in that post-season. His era also restored the winning ways of the franchise, and brushed away the sentiment summarized by NFL Films Steve Sabol, who has said that, when filming games in the early 80s, his crews were asked to not tape high passes so as to avoid revealing how empty the stadium consistenly was in those days.

With not even two complete coaching regimes under his belt, Peterson brought in the guy he wanted in 1989, and it is no secret that Vermeil went about certain things the wrong way by heavily favoring offense, and constantly battling the quickly closing window of time he had with an aged roster. In his defense, he was trying to put together a Super Bowl run for his longtime friend and partner in Peterson, who went out of his way to coax Vermeil out of retirement with a huge compensation package. When Vermeil realized he wasn't going to get it done, it's possible that he suggested Edwards as his successor, the same Edwards that played for Vermeil's Super Bowl Eagles. Vermeil and Peterson knew each other from those times, and prior in California, the state from which Edwards also hailed. All of that adds up to the good-ol'-boys network associated with this franchise.

In the mix of the Vermeil-to-Edwards transition, the team's founder/owner, Lamar Hunt was fighting a quick-and-losing battle with cancer. His son Clark stepped in, and cautiously, perhaps intelligently made no efforts to shake up what his late father was obviously proud of: Peterson's success at managing the business side and putting winning teams on the field. Clark Hunt has not yet been in charge of this franchise for two full calendar years, and it's possible that the changes he must eventually make will not be drastic ones.

Edwards' approach to re-shaping this franchise is the right one, and that's about the only thing that's right with this team in its current state. Perhaps Peterson should've retired with the end of the Vermeil era, and perhaps the two should've retired prior to Vermeil's last extension, but it didn't happen and things have gotten ugly.

It's easy for fans to suggest Schottenheimer for GM/Bill Cowher for head coach, or some similar combination because those two have affiliations and experience with this franchise. That would only make it good ol' boyer. It's easy for the media (Editor's Note: In this instance, "media" means Whitlock.) to continue calling for Peterson's firing because what's on the plate now is not even appetizing to vermin. The truth of the matter, though, is that Edwards isn't going anywhere soon, and when Peterson's near-20-year stretch at the helm ends, it will only continue in some other form.

It's true that Kansas City has never drafted and developed a quarterback in Peterson's era. They've addressed the role of quarterback in the various phases of this team's history, which has seen some successes and some failures. Steve de Berg did some decent things with what he had to work with. Joe Montana took KC to the AFC Championship game. Steve Bono, among many other acquisitions did very little. Trent Green set many Chiefs' passing records and was responsible for a large part of many of the wins in the Vermeil era. It's now certain that drafting Croyle was "a bit off the mark" as my colleague said here, and the Chiefs likely didn't draft any quarterbacks since taking Croyle in the third round of '06 so as to instill confidence in him and his development. Though the position is much more important, the same decisions were made with the place kicker. Lawrence Tynes got traded, Justin Medlock was drafted, and Edwards didn't bring anybody in to compete with him. He proved to be unfit at the professional level; Tynes went on to win a Super Bowl. And now the decision to not bring in another quarterback has proved more costly than most anything a fan could finger in recent Chief years.

It's also true that Kansas City hasn't won a playoff game in 15 years, and it's also true that there are worse stretches than that around the league.

Finally, it's true that the state of the Kansas City Chiefs right now looks hopeless and irreparable. The answers as to how they climb out of this mess seem galaxies away, and if recent ownership trends continue, there will be very little that's different in the front office in the years to come.

Clark Hunt is in charge of this franchise and it would seem that he will keep Carl Peterson around in some fashion, and there's nothing the fans can do about it, so why fight it. With all of the aforelisted categories considered, he gets not only a passing grade, but a likely better-than-average mark as well, especially considering the business side. His father Lamar told an interviewer late in his life that it was absurd that a (then) growing sentiment suggested that it was more important to sell tickets and make money than to win games, and ultimately championships. I don't doubt the sincerity of that statement, given all of the fondess of games/hunger for competitiveness forced upon us in remembrance of Lamar.

I can't forget that this business of owning an NFL franchise is just that, though: a business, and businesses want one thing, and that thing is profit. Carl Peterson has delivered an admirable mix of generating profit and at very least looking like winning football games is important to the franchise and its ownership.

The truth of the matter is that from the winning side of that mix, things have never looked so glum, so hopeless, so terrible. There are so many areas of this football team that need fixting, and it all rests in the hands of Clark Hunt, who like his father, probably appreciates the good job that Peterson has done being profitable and overseeing winning seasons. If this form of atrocious football continues through the end of the season and into the next, and nothing is done with the position of head coach, then nothing ever will be until the franchise is owned by a different family.

Herman Edwards is responsible for the current demise of this club, and Carl Peterson is responsible for Herman Edwards. This team finds itself in a pickle because firing him now would help very little. This family has Peterson in place for a reason, and he's met their expectations. For my money, he should've stepped down one Vermeil extension sooner. Had that happened, Kansas City would not be without a kicker, a quarterback, an identity. They would not be dealing with veteran Pro Bowlers that want out, and a fan base that's dying by the hundreds, by the minute.
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Late-Night Lambasting: Our Very Own Unsolved Mystery

And there you have it. The Chargers won, and have eliminated their win-column goose egg, leaving the Chiefs with the Browns, Bengals, Rams and Lions as the really bad teams in football. Know what? It's time to call Robert Stack. We've got a mystery to solve here in Kansas City. I'm hear, with the help of some other bloggers, to tell you all about it.

It was indeed a manic Monday, in that I probably got online 47 times today, all in an effort to ease the pain. Each time, I was checking for news. A shred, a morsel, anything to make this deep, dark pit of awful seem shallower. Here, in no particular order or relevance, are some of the scraps I uncovered:

We'll start with Browns Gab, who reported that Kansas City called Cleveland to inquire about the services of the most overrated quarterback in Notre Dame history. Arrowhead Addict tells us that the Browns allegedly want two first-rounders and two seconds. Un. Real.

Then there's our other Chief friend, Arrowhead Pride. They've linked to this Pro Football Weekly story. AP boxed this quote exactly, but it's pertinent enough to do the same here:

“He’s an awful evaluator,” said one veteran pro evaluator with firsthand knowledge of Edwards’ personnel acumen. “First of all, he can’t stay awake long enough to watch the film. He’s one of those guys that can watch 15 snaps and then go off for a half hour about what the guy could or could not do for him in his system.”

Other key excerptions from the piece:

"Said one veteran NFL evaluator a few days before the Chiefs’ 38-14 shellacking by the Falcons: 'When you are sitting on the five-yard line and you cannot score against New England (in Week One), and then you get whipped by an organization as dysfunctional as Oakland (in Week Two), I don’t know how you could have any hope.'"

"Chiefs head coach Herm Edwards continues to put up as good a front as he can in his exchanges with the media...'We’re building,' Edwards said earlier this week. 'I’m going through it with everybody else, and I don’t like it. But it’s the best thing for this organization.'...What might not be the best thing for the organization, according to some sources close to the scene, is for Edwards to have any significant input in the team’s personnel decisions."

Warpaint Illustrated also weighs in on things with news that Brodie Croyle is likely out eight weeks (Editor's Note: A tentative return date is set for October 19 when the Chiefs host the Tennessee Titans), and the suggestion that KC actually pull the trigger on a Quinn deal if it actually exists. They further suggest that the Chiefs, after giving Cleveland a first for Quinn, should send a second to Arizona for Anquan Boldin.

Not that it's a difficult task, but Michael Lombardi from SI.com has added his opinion to our NFL's worst by actually eliminating the two Ohio clubs from the mix, and saying that the Chiefs, Rams, and Lions are the three bottom feeders. He simply calls the Chiefs "bad TV."

SI also throws in a tidbit about some more Mile-High home cookin'. Apparently, Sean Payton has a beef with an offsides non-call (pictured below and courtesy of Pro Football Talk) that would've kept a New Orleans drive alive.



But that's not important right now. What is is that there's a cat named Jim Barton who blogs here. He wrote this post over a year ago, and -- surprise -- it's about Herm Edwards being a bad football coach. Highlights include the following:

*Why in the world is Herman Edwards still a coach in the NFL? He is without a doubt the most overrated field general in the history of the game. What in the world has this chump ever accomplished?

*...Herman Edwards is a terrible and tremendously overrated football coach.

*...I am convinced that Edwards is the football equivalent of 'jumping the shark': after hiring him, successful teams just go down the tubes.

*He has a history of taking good teams and running them into the ground. Let’s look at Mr. Edward’s career. He was hired as head coach of the New York Jets the season after the Jets went to the AFC Championship game under Coach Bill Parcells. With a veteran team in place, this was like handing Edwards the keys to brand new Cadillac, which he then promptly wrapped around a telephone pole. Sure, the Jets headed back to the playoffs under Edwards, but that was more a result of his having a very talented team than his coaching ability. In the end, Edwards spend five years with the Jets, compiling a less than stellar record of 39 wins and 41 losses. In his last twenty games as Jet’s coach, he guided them to a dismal record of five wins and fifteen losses...To Kansas City headed Edwards, once again inheriting a talented team that had gone 10-6 in the season prior to Edwards’ arrival. Not just any ordinary team, mind you…one that had one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL under former coach Dick Vermeil. What did Edwards do in his first season as coach? Well, he wasted no time in bringing the team record down a notch by going 9-7 in his first campaign. This season? They’re already 0-1, after losing on Sunday to the woeful Houston Texans by a score of 20 to 3. The joke now is that the best way to stop the high-powered Chiefs offense was to hire Herm Edwards as the head coach.

*He does a poor job preparing his team before the season. With the exception of the 2004 New York Jets, no team coached by Edwards has EVER had a winning record after six games. That is abysmal.

*He’s not qualified to be a head coach. Of the 32 coaches in the NFL, all but three spent some time prior to their head coaching jobs as either and (sic) offensive or defensive coordinator. In fact, Edwards has never been a coordinator at any level of football. Incredibly, he has even admitted in an interview that he never wanted to be a head coach: 'There’s no way I wanted to be a head coach. I just wanted to coach my eight or nine guys. I don’t want that head coaching stuff.'"

Guess what, Herm? Neither do we, bro. Neither do we. Thus, it's a mystery. What will the Chiefs do to make this pile of terrible diminish? Sign another unproven schlep to take snaps? Relieve Coach Edwards of his duties? Dump a bunch of future picks for other teams' property?

I dunno, but the Broncos will be in town in six days, and if the Chiefs don't act fast, they might beat us by 60 points. No foolin'.
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Monday Mourning: Bring Out Your Dead

Week three of the 2008 NFL season won't be complete until the San Diego Chargers host the New York Jets this evening, but it may as well be. The only reason to mention that is because it's possible that the Kansas City Chiefs could have more company by night's end. I doubt they will, but as it stands, their (winless) peers are the likes of the Houston Texans (who are clearly better and have had a bye), the Cincinnati Bengals, the Cleveland Browns, the St. Louis Rams, and the Detroit Lions. Think about that: the Browns, Bengals, Rams and Lions are the clubs with whom we lump the Chiefs. There are reasons cited to prop up any argument, or debate. There are statistics that can be listed. There are defenses to counter each angle. The truth of the matter is, however, that the Kansas City Chiefs are a really bad team.

Now the Lone Reader has asked for some sort of defense of Head Coach Herm Edwards' "handling of the QB situation in the past 12 months."

I don't even have the slightest clue what that means. I don't think that I've ever defended Edwards on any ground whatsoever. In fact, when it comes to TLR's Chiefs rants, I spent considerable time defending (former Offensive Coordinator) Mike Solari under two premises: a) give him a chance, and b) his boss is Herm Edwards/what do you expect? I will say this for starters: Read this Bob Gretz article.

From it, we learn that Herm Edwards has made 15 starting quarterback changes in 51 NFL games.

Do the math: that’s a change at quarterback every 3.5 games. We aren’t talking about sending a guy in to mop up at the end of a bad loss or big victory. No, it’s 15 times since the opening day of the 2005 season that because of injury or performance, Edwards has scratched out one quarterback’s name and written in another...Is it the types of quarterbacks Edwards has on his roster? Is it something in the team’s training methods? Is it the water? A simple answer to his quarterback woes evades detection by the head coach.

And that piece was written before Damon Huard got "hurt" against the Oakland Raiders, so make it 16 in 53, or whatever. It's pretty cut and dry in my eyes: Herm Edwards doesn't know what he's doing. His mantra is to build a strong, defensive-minded team that's young, and control the ball and the game clock with that corps. At this point, he couldn't possibly have failed more miserably.

I spent the weekend with Old No. 7, and in his estimation, "the Chiefs don't have a quarterback on the roster that is capable of winning a football game." He has a point, and it's a damn good one. I still think Brodie Croyle is capable of winning a football game. Probably more than one. His fragility, though, is far from a secret, and Damon Huard is 35 years old. I don't care if Tyler Thigpen, at some point in his future career, wins a Super Bowl. Right now he is awful. Pitifully pathetic.

To TLR's point, Edwards had last season, the off-season, and pre-season to figure out what to do with the quarterback position. Given his history, and the stats in Gretz's article, one would think that he would've considered the possibility of injuries, and better stacked the roster with actual NFL-caliber quarterbacks. He didn't, and the Chiefs are atrocious for that very reason. They put 14 points on the board in Atlanta yesterday, which almost matches their offensive output from the first two games. In doing so, Thigpen also threw three picks, and a lot of really, really bad other passes. He. Sucks.

Steve Tasker and Gus Johnson made an interesting point about Thigpen during yesterday's broadcast, and that's this: Thigpen set a bunch of passing records at Coastal Carolina, but that's pretty damn easy to do when you're a starting quarterback in a program that didn't freaking exist before you got there. I initially predicted the Chiefs to win six games this year, and two of those were against the Raiders and the Falcons.

Oops. My bad. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they lost all 16.

Herm Edwards' Chiefs can't control the game clock. They can't stop the run, and they most certainly can't generate any offense, and I'd argue that no team could put points on the board with Thigpen at the helm. Old No. 7 was right when he said that building a winning football team starts at the position of quarterback. This, as history has proven, is Edwards' Achilles. He isn't geared for assessing talent at the position, or estimating who (on the roster) gives the team the best chance to win.

Clark Hunt said in the off-season that renewing Carl Peterson's contract at the end of '08 would hinge highly on whether or not this club is a playoff contender. Clark -- they're 0-3, which translates to not even a regular-season contender. The Chiefs are awful. Peterson put Edwards in charge, and he's not accomplishing anything other than misery for the entire fan base, and every player on the roster. He must be removed. There is no time for ultimatums or hot seats. That time came an went somewhere in the thick of this 12-game losing streak.

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Rush Limbaugh, Herman Edwards: Somebody Please Tell Me the Difference

From 2000-2001, I managed and closed a restaurant at night, and worked with my father in the morning. He'd pick me up around seven a.m., and I'd wearily shower and work my way out to his truck, where he'd always have coffee and the sports page waiting for me. In those two years I got to know my father better than the previous 26 had done for me combined. Our morning routine always consisted of local sports talk radio, followed by Rush Limbaugh. It was also at this time that I discovered what a hard-core Republican my father was, and that burns me to this day. The point though, is that when Al Franken published Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations, I couldn't have been happier.

This is because Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot. Though the two events are unrelated, Limbaugh, after Franken's book was published, underwent heavy scrutiny for things he said and did, and his career was ruined. That's the way it seems to work in America. Sometimes. In the Herman Edwards era in Kansas City, his teams have won 13 games, and lost 22. That includes one fluke playoff appearance -- prior to which the Chiefs benched their hot quarterback, then went deep into the third quarter before getting a first down, and totaled eight points -- a (current) 11-game losing streak, and yesterday. Yesterday was the worst display of professional football I have ever seen in my life.

Let's back up a moment. I've been watching football (mostly Chiefs) since 1980. It's no secret that the early 80s was stacked with a lot of bad Chiefs football, and it's no secret that franchises like the Detroit Lions, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Arizona Cardinals, and even the Oakland Raiders have fielded a lot of terrible teams in the history of pro football. I would argue that each of those teams, however, were good at something. Anything. I don't know what it was they were good at, but I know that the Kansas City Chiefs I watched yesterday were good at nothing shy of sucking down a crate of bitter, moldy lemons. They were awful in every sense of the word. I was embarrassed as a fan, and the pain of their horridness went deeper than I have ever felt, and I have felt it pretty deep (Editor's Note: Sure. Take that opportunity to make some joke about sodomy; I ain't changin' my verbage.).

Lane Kiffin has been in charge of the Oakland Raiders for exactly 18 games. His club went 4-12 last year, and got schooled in their home/season opener against the Denver Broncos. There were allegations that Kiffin was on the proverbial hot seat yesterday, and on the surface that makes no sense. This is his first gig coaching at the pro level, it's only his second season, and he inherited a really crummy team. Lane Kiffin, however, works for Al Davis, so he's got that goin' for him, which isn't really nice at all. Herm Edwards works for Clark Hunt and Carl Peterson, most certainly in that order. Yesterday's display of football, if you want to call it that, was Limbaugh's pill addiction, racial slurs, and overall buffoonery all wrapped into one, yet Herm Edwards still has a job today.

I'm not going to start linking to firehermedwards.com (Note: But feel free to visit the site), or jump on the long-since crowded Peterson-must-go bandwagon. I'm not. It's a tired topic, and I want to keep my naysaying precise and focused: Something has got to change. I still believe that Peterson has done a more-than-respectable job of running the Kansas City franchise since 1989. Would I have liked a Super Bowl championship or seven? Damn skippy. Marty Schottenheimer was a home run of a first hire. He did great things with the Chiefs, but we all know about Marty and the post-season. Gunther Cunningham as his replacement was shocking, but hey -- try something innovative. Dick Vermeil? Another home run. His decision to hire Greg Robinson as defensive coordinator tarnished his stint with disaster. That and Vermeil was 70 years old, a bit tired to say the least.

Then there's Herm Edwards. I've said both of these things before but I'll say them again:

1) Herman Edwards went from a specially created talent scout position with the Chiefs to a defensive backs/linebackers coach with the Bucs to head coach of the New York Jets. That never freaking happens. He easily skipped three, if not four steps in the tenure department along the way. Why? Because he played football and made some crazy interception/touchdown? Big. Deal.

2) Herman Edwards is a smart man. He's a good football coach. He is not a smart football coach. Period.

On the other wing of the House of Georges, there's a guy named Mike Shanahan running the Denver Broncos, and by "running" I mean his title is Executive Vice President of Football Operations/Head Coach. His team was bad in 2007, but only one game below .500 football, which barely qualifies it as bad. Shanahan has an Executive Assistant and an Associate Head Coach. Herman Edwards has a small fleet of assistants, associates, and decision-makers to help him get through four quarters of football every Sunday. I can confidently say "Sunday" too because the Chiefs will at least be a couple of years into a new United States presidency before they see their team televised on a Monday, Thursday, or Saturday. They are that bad.

I'm sad to say that the new "in" thing in the AFC West is Chargers-Broncos. Now, last year, the Chargers owned the Broncos, but those games were somehow exciting to watch because San Diego was really hot on both of those days, and the Broncos were only barely bad. The Broncos then took out their aggressions on the Chiefs, and squashed them both in Denver and Kansas City. And somehow, the Chiefs managed a split with the Chargers. The San Diego/Denver game yesterday was pretty awesome, and I only saw the last four minutes with the sound off. Denver scored 24 points in the second quarter and was dominating, but let San Diego back in, and the game went down to the wire. Shanahan, while executively vice presidenting his football operations, had the gusto and the wherewithal (Note: Cliche, I know. Sue me.) to go for the two-point conversion and the win in regulation, which was of course successful.

And now, the Broncos are 2-0, in first place in the West, and they have two conference and division wins under their belt. The Chiefs are 0-2, and have two conference losses under their belt. This is actually exactly how things started last year. Thing was, even if the Chiefs hadn't crapped their season away and lost nine straight, they opened up with a bundle of conference losses, making even the stubbiest splinter of a playoff picture fuzzy and jagged.

I have never played organized football. I have never been employed in football in any sense, either. I am not, however, an idiot. Tyler Thigpen is not a good NFL quarterback. Not now anyway. There's a reason the Minnesota Vikings cut him, and tried to squeeze him onto their practice squad. One of those reasons is that Tarvaris Jackson was way better than Thigpen, and Tarvaris Jackson is not a good NFL quarterback. Not now anyway. I'm guessing the same is true for Ingle Martin. Marques Hagans, though, is clearly a great choice. According to The Kansas City Star, Hagans is on the roster as a wide reciever, and "was promoted to this past week from the Chiefs' practice squad and took five snaps Sunday at quarterback."

Seldom do NFL teams have success running the football with a committee in the backfield. Some teams try it, and few have success. No teams try quarterbacking by committee like the Chiefs did yesterday. They had three different guys under center, and they didn't succeed one another due to injury or poor performance; they came in for various reasons of mystery. Okay. The Chiefs claim Huard was injured, thus Thigpen came in. I ain't buyin' it. My belief is that Herman Edwards and Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey thought they could fool the Raiders somehow, and that didn't even come close to happening. As a trio, Chiefs quarterbacks went 17-38 for 135 yards, and a solid 110 of those came with less than five minutes left in the game. My estimation is that part of this, sickening as it seems, was the game plan.

Herm Edwards likes to play defensive, conservative football by running the ball, stopping the run, and controlling the clock and time of possession. The Chiefs tried to run the ball 19 times yesterday, and gained 55 yards in doing so. I'm no math whiz, but I think that's less than three yards per carry. Thigpen made many a poor throw, looked textbook confused, and never once demonstrated leadership. Brodie Croyle is hurt, and allegedly so is Damon Huard now, so Kansas City wants to go with a trio of guys that either weren't good enough in the eyes of other clubs, or don't actually play football at that position. Go ahead. Re-read that sentence.

At some point in recent months, amidst all of the speculation that the Chiefs would be a really terrible team this year, I felt bad for Tony Gonzalez and Larry Johnson. Gonzalez will enter Canton as the best tight end to every play the game, and Larry Johnson had to backup Priest Holmes for a few years. He's back from injury and not being featured in the Kansas City backfield. These are two tremendous talents that deserve a shot at a championship, and with yesterday as a specimen, it's clear to me that a Lombardi trophy is not even on a prepped slide, far from ready to place under the Chiefs' microscope. The Chiefs are supposed to be strong on the defensive side of the ball, but yesterday they gave up 355 yards of total offense to Oakland. They did nothing right.

Rush Limbaugh still has a show, and he still floats around in the venues of broadcast and politics. The same can be true for Herm Edwards. The fact remains, though, that Herm Edwards is not going to win any awards, future jobs, and certainly not any championship trophies with this approach to winning football games. Trust me when I say that I call it an approach, because my brain cannot uncover any other type of word to describe the "product" being put on the Kansas City field.
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My Sports Life is a Rock Song: "Good King Wenceslas"

When we kicked off this feature, I wanted to make it clear in the introduction to the debut installment, that "Rock" as part of the title only exists for the sake of a good-sounding name. So, yeah. Christmas songs count, too. Now, as we approach the boundary waters of NFL training camp days, I'm not feeling too terrible about the Chiefs this year. That is, I know they're not going to be great, and I know they won't lose 16 games. I also know they won't be good, per se, but don't really think they'll be all that bad. What I mean is, I think there will be some positives to the game they put on the field, but beyond that, I have no idea what this team will look like. So I'm throwing out this wintry classic by John Mason Neale about the one-time king of Bohemia who was killed by his brother, whose name was Boleslaw. Ouch.

Av'rage Coach Ed-wards looked out,
On the eve of the season.
A match with the Pats left want for shout,
Good fortune he was teasin'.
The crystal ball clutched in his palm,
Repeatedly looked foggy.
Most of his young players did not look calm,
leaving him quite groggy.

Herm he placed a trepid call,
to his GM's chambers.
"We gonna win some games this fall,
Show them all we gamers."
"Best be true lest we be axed,"
Was King Carl's answer.
"Clark's good fan base has been taxed,
They'll skewer us like a lancer."

"Fret not Mr. Pet-er-son,
Have ye faith in Herman.
I'm the man to get it done,
I preach quite a sermon."
"Save your words for the 'morrow,
Kindle up some spirit.
From Belichick's book I hope you borrow,
Save SpyGate 'cause I fear it."

"Carl you know I'm not a cheat,
That just ain't my sty-le.
I've trained these kids to not be beat,
They've run six scores a mi-le."
"Beat these guys, nee, beat them all,
My crave is for Lom-bar-di.
A bust of me should grace the Hall,
I've felt since days of Mar-ty."

"Fear not o proud boss of mine,
I'm certain you will be proud.
On KC the sun will shine,
Our home again shall be loud.
Prom-i-ses of void I'll not,
I'll leave you free from sha-ame.
Or Herm Edwards my name is not,
We play to win the ga-ame!"

So, yeah. Chiefs Nation has the certainty of mock Christmas tunes in the department of faith going for it. Which is nice.

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Friday Morning Fracas

It's time to examine a few recent examples of buffoonery in the sporting world. We pledge to make this a regular Friday morning feature here at the House of Georges, one that might span perhaps the entire week, instead of today's narrow-minded slant on sports that I somewhat pretend to follow. This debut, however, promises to cover cities nicknamed after engines, Asians, mullets, and more. Sounds like a heckuva deal. Join us, after the jump.

Yesterday, the hipsters over at Deadspin predicted the "unpossible" advancing of both the Detroit Red Wings in the NHL playoffs, and the Detroit Pistons in the NBA playoffs in the same night. Lo and behold, it happened. If I didn't know any better, I'd suppose those guys were credentialed sports journalists. But I do. Lucky guess from random guys on their FaceSpaces and MyBooks.

What I want to know is, did the losers in these series have side bets going on who could underperform against their respective opponents? I mean, the Colorado Avalanche, albeit outskilled and overmatched, had a chance to not get broomed by the, in all likelihood, soon-to-be Stanley Cup Champion Red Wings (Editor's Note: Shoot me now; envision a downed horse with a broken leg. I beg you.), at home, and they just got smoked. I know the Avs are old and facing lots of injuries, but who's not at this point in the season? The Pistons, on the other end of the spectrum -- that's somehow code for also on the road -- of all things Motown, made easy work of eliminating the Philadelphia 76ers in a 100-77 blowout. Feel free to visit more professional NBA sports blogger sites for a re-cap of that titillating series.

In other NHL playoff news, the New York Rangers Jaromir Jagr helped his teammates pretend for a minute that they have a chance to overcome their three-games-to-one deficit against Jagr's former club, the Pittsburgh Penguins. This just in, buddy: pack it in. You no longer have a mullet, Mario is now on the other end of your dreams, and he's got a young, quick club that will hold true to the stat that no club has ever come back from being down 3-0. Don't waste anymore of your off-season; your goosage beith cooked.

In Kansas City sports news, Chiefs Head Coach Herman Edwards plans to launch phase two 11 of Operation Let's Give Kids Like Casey Printers A Shot Under Center. Apparently, the Chiefs will bring in former Florida quarterback Chris Leak for a workout. If I ever paid attention to college football, I suppose I would've known that this kid won a championship with his alma matter, and the MVP, to boot. Trouble is, he didn't get drafted and -- hello! -- he was cut by the Bears before the start of the '07 campaign. Everyone knows that the Bears are the NFL quarterback experts. Don't waste our time, Herm.

On the other side of the Truman Sports Complex, er, uh, also known as Arlington, Texas, the Royals wasted another solid Zack Greinke start. The kid punched out nine, walked a goose egg, and only surrendered two runs on four hits. Trouble was -- surprise! -- the Royals gave Greinke offensive support in the form of one run. Kansas City pitching coaches, wizards that they are, continue (Note: Not yesterday.) to try and plug in their Ace-sians from the 'pen. With the Nomo experiment already gone aghast, talks about middle reliever Yasuhiko Yabuta are suddenly turning sour. What? Why? He's only given up 12 runs, 19 hits and nine walks over the course of 13 innings. C'mon! Let the guy hang around through, say, mid-July. He'll get it together.

Finally, Bugs and Cranks offers this pitching tidbit about other baseball wastes of time, while The Big Lead suggests that Eric Gagne's finished wasting everybody's.

That's it for now. We'll wait around for the sports professionals of the world to break more news, so that we can copy and paste it into our sinister blog windows. From our basements, of course.
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My Sports Life is a Rock Song: "Into the Wild"

This week's feature strays a bit from the title; a more pertinent name for the installment would be "My Sports Life is a Motion-Picture Soundtrack." But it works. And I'll explain how. As a refresher, however, the purpose of this feature is to in fact blend a selection of music with the author's current stance on the wide world of sports as he (or she -- in case we ever have a lady on the staff) knows it. In case this piece of information has slipped by anyone, the NFL draft kicks off tomorrow morning, and it promises to be as entertaining as always. It has, via our extended library of reader commentary, come to my attention that certain parties were disappointed over the lack of House of Georges coverage regarding the recent trade of Kansas City Chiefs defensive end Jared Allen to the Minnesota Vikings. It should go without mentioning that this exchange did not slip by HoG headquarters unnoticed. It was in fact discussed at great length, here, in last week's installment of this very feature. Thus, it's time to analyze just what the Chiefs will do with their compensation for Allen, their time on the clock already super-sufficent prior to the transaction. Jump ahead to figure out just what the hell I'm talking about.

I've said it before, but here it is again: Herman Edwards is a smart man, and a good football coach, but not a smart football coach. Carl Peterson, though his head is wanted by many a die-hard Chiefs fan, is not a bad character in my book. I'm not interested in debating this; it's long since grown tiresome. Suffice it to say that for my money, he's done a pretty darn good job running this franchise. Did I say great job? I did not. Great job=championship(s). That hasn't happened, and therefore he tops out at the grade of "pretty darn good job."

Anyway, for much of this weekend's selection extravaganza, the Chiefs will be on the clock. For those that are not familiar with the motion picture "Into the Wild," based on Jon Krakauer's novel of the same name, go see it. I'd offer the always-obnoxious -- though I too have been guilty of it -- "the book was way better" tag line, but I've read roughly .6 books/year over the last decade and this one wasn't one of them. It, the movie, of course, also has a bad-ass soundtrack, all courtesy of Eddie Vedder. Here's how I've morphed the two into this week's selection: The title and score of each track on the album suggest, and, no, I'm not using that word loosely, a personality trait about where the Chiefs have been, where they are, or where they will soon be. Have a look.

Track One: "Setting Forth"

Anyone even remotely familiar with Kansas City Chiefs football knows that Herman Edwards, with Peterson rubbing his back, is committed to building this team through the draft. I, though subject to some controversy, have felt the last two years have been a bit of a success draft-wise (Editor's Note: Mention the words "Justin" or "Medlock" and I sick Humberto on you. For reals.). My offering is this: This is year three of the project that will likely go down as "The Utterly Embarrassing Herman Edwards Experiment." Get. It. Done. Make this the third and final year of building through the draft, and go win some goddamned football games. And by "some," I mean a lot more than four, dicky.

Track Two: "No Ceiling"

This track is a short one, so I'll keep this brief. You have 13 picks, dudes. That is, one more than 12, one less than 14. Find some fucking talent, pick them, sign them, and then play them to sometimes win the game.

Track Three: "Far Behind"

Far behind is exactly where the Chiefs are in the great-and-storied AFC West. This just in: The Raiders don't count. If translation is necessary, that means last fucking place, Mr. "The Key to the Playoffs is By Winning the Division." You've done bragged about how much picking you'll be doing this weekend while the rest of the division will be watching. Don't screw this up.

Track Four: "Rise"

Go back. Re-read the notes under "Track Three" and make the inference, Chiefs Nation. It's time to rise from the ranks of humiliation and defeat, and claim our spot among the elite. Is that wishful thinking? May be. Wanna fight about it?

Track Five: "Long Nights"

Long, oh so freaking long, have the nights been since we were on the doorstep of the AFC Championship? Math was never my strong subject, so I won't tally how many actual nights it's been. That would only be one more statistic with which I might cry myself to sleep each long and painful night that the championship eludes us. Make like daylight savings time, Herm and Carl. Make the nights shorter.

Track Six: "Tuolumne"

I had no idea what this meant, so I looked it up. Turns out, it's "a river, about 249 km (155 mi) long, of central California flowing generally westward to the San Joaquin River." If it hadn't been listed, I was going to offer that it's a beautiful one-minute instrumental piece, which means I must relay the message in terms of majestic glamour.



But if words are the desire, than make the journey toward a Super Bowl victory one that flows westward to the San Joaquin. I don't care either way.

Track Seven: "Hard Sun"

Carl Peterson's contract is up (again) at the conclusion of this season. If things aren't looking up, hopefully Clark Hunt makes the right move. I won't say that the right move is firing Peterson, but if that happens, the final image of dusk from King Carl's Plaza condominium will be one hard sun at which to gaze.

Track Eight: "Society"

This track is best defined by its token line: "I hope you won't be lonely without me, society." I don't mean to prognosticate, but if that's Carl speaking, then, uh, no. We won't. I don't think.

Track Nine: "The Wolf"

This is a brief-but-powerful instrumental that incorporates some chanting into it. Very nice. I'd like a reason to chant, a reason to high-five KC Wolf. And soon.

Track Ten: "End of the Road"

Oh, the euphemisms this ditty could stand for are simply endless. For Carl? For Herm? For Tony Gonzalez? For the sellout crowd streak? For the almost-gone-already Arrowhead mystique? It could be all of the above if this draft, and ensuing season are unsuccessful. I don't count developing our younger players as successful either, Herm.

Track Eleven: "Guaranteed"

This song is a wonderful way to close things out. For the movie, the story within it, the album, and for the expectations that lie on the Chiefs organization as well. If a Super Bowl berth can't be spoken in in terms of guaranteed, it had better be spoken of in a damn convincing fashion. None of this five-year plan shit. Don't get me flustrated, now.

And there it is. Pick the album up. It's worth it. And pick the right friggin' players this weekend, Chiefs front office. We're counting on it.
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