Tribal Warfare
11-22-2008, 02:41 AM
Can History Repeat Itself, Part Two (http://www.bobgretz.com/chiefs-football/can-history-repeat-itself-part-two.html#more-5107)
November 21, 2008 - Bob Gretz |
Wow.
My little piece posted last night about the comparison to the situation that was faced 44 years ago by the Dallas Cowboys to the current Chiefs season caused a reaction. Not only has it come here to the site, but to other sites and outlets as well.
I thought I would touch on some of the things that I’ve read and heard in reaction to what I wrote. I don’t really do that too much and I should probably react to reaction more often. I’m still getting the hang of this Internet thing.
So, let me rattle off some points:
1.) If you’ve read this site at all in its brief lifetime you have noticed that I’m a student of history. I believe in the George Santayana approach that he who does not study history, is doomed to repeat the failures of the past. One of the things lacking from a lot of today’s so-called journalism is context. Context doesn’t look good on TV, so they don’t go after that view. Sports talk radio doesn’t have the time or work ethic to provide context to a situation. Newspapers have the time and space, but nobody reads them anymore and quite frankly most of today’s sportswriters don’t want to be bothered. They are too busy trying to figure out how they can get jobs in radio and television.
I figure that’s what the Internet can bring to the party and that’s something this site will always have: context. I consider myself a student of the game of football and it’s a class that never ends.
2.) I’m angling to get Herm Edwards an extension. Listen, I don’t get a piece of Herm’s contract if he gets one now or in the future. And listen, I’m not sure whether he deserves one. If I owned the team, I wouldn’t make a decision on extension right now. Whether Herm Edwards is good enough to turn this franchise around is something that remains to be proven.
I do believe in what’s going on around Arrowhead with this team. A rebuilding job was badly needed and I’ve got to give Herm credit for the willingness to strip the team right down to the studs and build it back up. He could have pushed for more free agent signings and this team could be 4-6 right now. But that wasn’t going to help in the long run. Edwards took a major gamble going this way. It’s yet to pay off and it may explode on him and cost him his job. If it does, he will go out knowing that he did it his way. I admire that. Can he pull it off? Stay tuned.
3.) I’m an idiot for comparing Edwards to Tom Landry. Nowhere did I compare Edwards to a Hall of Fame coach. I compared the situation the Cowboys faced in 1964 with Landry as their head coach to the one Edwards is currently handling with the Chiefs. Do you think anyone in ‘64 thought Landry was going to be a successful coach? Come on, not with a 13-38-3 record. Only one person had the vision that Landry could become as successful as he was, and that was Cowboys owner Clint Murchison. If the team had continued to lose, Murchison would have looked the dummy for hanging on to Landry, who never would have seen the Hall of Fame without paying admission.
4.) The Cowboys at that time were an expansion team and you can’t compare that to the Chiefs of today. Why not? For all intent and purposes, the Chiefs are an expansion team. Look at the roster this week. There are 20 rookie and first year players on the team right now. There are 17 players on the roster who were not on the roster for the season opener against New England. There are 30 players on the roster who were not with the team at the end of last season. Folks, that’s an expansion team.
5.) I’m just a tool for Chiefs management. What a tired old argument. Let me make this very plain: this website is largely about the Kansas City Chiefs. It is not owned or operated by the Kansas City Chiefs. They do not pay me a penny for what appears on this site, nor do they have any control over its look and content. All of that rests in my hands and my hands only. When you read something here, it’s because it interests me, not because it’s been demanded by the folks at One Arrowhead Drive. In fact, there are more than a few people around Arrowhead that wish this site would go away.
I am paid by the team to write for kcchiefs.com and I’m happy to do so. It’s one of the few sites among NFL teams that provides an inside and outside view of the team.
In the 18 years I was part of the team’s radio broadcast and for the nearly 10 years that I’ve written for the club’s website, I’ve never been told by anyone what to say or what to write. Now, you can believe this or not, but frankly it matters to me not a wit.
6.) Who is Jack Harry? Nothing I read in the last 24 hours made me laugh longer and harder than that question from one of the site’s readers.
Who is Jack Harry? He’s nothing. I shouldn’t have wasted that sentence and this paragraph on a tired old TV fool, but then again, it’s my site. In this case, the editor failed miserably.
November 21, 2008 - Bob Gretz |
Wow.
My little piece posted last night about the comparison to the situation that was faced 44 years ago by the Dallas Cowboys to the current Chiefs season caused a reaction. Not only has it come here to the site, but to other sites and outlets as well.
I thought I would touch on some of the things that I’ve read and heard in reaction to what I wrote. I don’t really do that too much and I should probably react to reaction more often. I’m still getting the hang of this Internet thing.
So, let me rattle off some points:
1.) If you’ve read this site at all in its brief lifetime you have noticed that I’m a student of history. I believe in the George Santayana approach that he who does not study history, is doomed to repeat the failures of the past. One of the things lacking from a lot of today’s so-called journalism is context. Context doesn’t look good on TV, so they don’t go after that view. Sports talk radio doesn’t have the time or work ethic to provide context to a situation. Newspapers have the time and space, but nobody reads them anymore and quite frankly most of today’s sportswriters don’t want to be bothered. They are too busy trying to figure out how they can get jobs in radio and television.
I figure that’s what the Internet can bring to the party and that’s something this site will always have: context. I consider myself a student of the game of football and it’s a class that never ends.
2.) I’m angling to get Herm Edwards an extension. Listen, I don’t get a piece of Herm’s contract if he gets one now or in the future. And listen, I’m not sure whether he deserves one. If I owned the team, I wouldn’t make a decision on extension right now. Whether Herm Edwards is good enough to turn this franchise around is something that remains to be proven.
I do believe in what’s going on around Arrowhead with this team. A rebuilding job was badly needed and I’ve got to give Herm credit for the willingness to strip the team right down to the studs and build it back up. He could have pushed for more free agent signings and this team could be 4-6 right now. But that wasn’t going to help in the long run. Edwards took a major gamble going this way. It’s yet to pay off and it may explode on him and cost him his job. If it does, he will go out knowing that he did it his way. I admire that. Can he pull it off? Stay tuned.
3.) I’m an idiot for comparing Edwards to Tom Landry. Nowhere did I compare Edwards to a Hall of Fame coach. I compared the situation the Cowboys faced in 1964 with Landry as their head coach to the one Edwards is currently handling with the Chiefs. Do you think anyone in ‘64 thought Landry was going to be a successful coach? Come on, not with a 13-38-3 record. Only one person had the vision that Landry could become as successful as he was, and that was Cowboys owner Clint Murchison. If the team had continued to lose, Murchison would have looked the dummy for hanging on to Landry, who never would have seen the Hall of Fame without paying admission.
4.) The Cowboys at that time were an expansion team and you can’t compare that to the Chiefs of today. Why not? For all intent and purposes, the Chiefs are an expansion team. Look at the roster this week. There are 20 rookie and first year players on the team right now. There are 17 players on the roster who were not on the roster for the season opener against New England. There are 30 players on the roster who were not with the team at the end of last season. Folks, that’s an expansion team.
5.) I’m just a tool for Chiefs management. What a tired old argument. Let me make this very plain: this website is largely about the Kansas City Chiefs. It is not owned or operated by the Kansas City Chiefs. They do not pay me a penny for what appears on this site, nor do they have any control over its look and content. All of that rests in my hands and my hands only. When you read something here, it’s because it interests me, not because it’s been demanded by the folks at One Arrowhead Drive. In fact, there are more than a few people around Arrowhead that wish this site would go away.
I am paid by the team to write for kcchiefs.com and I’m happy to do so. It’s one of the few sites among NFL teams that provides an inside and outside view of the team.
In the 18 years I was part of the team’s radio broadcast and for the nearly 10 years that I’ve written for the club’s website, I’ve never been told by anyone what to say or what to write. Now, you can believe this or not, but frankly it matters to me not a wit.
6.) Who is Jack Harry? Nothing I read in the last 24 hours made me laugh longer and harder than that question from one of the site’s readers.
Who is Jack Harry? He’s nothing. I shouldn’t have wasted that sentence and this paragraph on a tired old TV fool, but then again, it’s my site. In this case, the editor failed miserably.