Tribal Warfare
08-04-2010, 12:33 AM
‘Show’ stopper: Bowe needs to concentrate on catching ball, not attention (http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/03/2127265/show-stopper-bowe-needs-to-concentrate.html)
SAM MELLINGER COMMENTARY
ST. JOSEPH | D-Bowe doesn’t work here anymore. It’s just Dwayne now, without the alter ego that he sometimes called “The Show.” That guy no longer exists. You can just call him Dwayne.
This is the new Chiefs policy, official or otherwise, a carefully monitored way of handling their good-natured but too often knuckleheaded receiver: Nobody is to call him D-Bowe anymore. Not coaches, not teammates, and especially not Dwayne.
The intent is clear. Dwayne Bowe needs to concentrate more on being a professional receiver and less on the sideshow that caused one league source to famously call Bowe “the single biggest dumbass in the NFL.”
It’s a good idea. The problem is that old habits are tough to break. Grown men don’t change easily. And so — regardless of team rules — Dwayne’s inner D-Bowe makes occasional guest appearances during training camp here, most recently on Tuesday after making a jumping catch during a drill.
“Y’all like that, huh?” he says to a small group of fans. “I’ll put a show on today because y’all are my people.”
The line gets some laughs from the fans, which is all Bowe wants, and all the rest of us need to be sure that separating D-Bowe the caricature from Dwayne Bowe the receiver is very much still a work in progress.
•••
D-Bowe took years to form, so it will take time to undo. The current Chiefs leadership — whose emphasis on scholars and team captains means they never would’ve drafted Bowe — is following the previous Chiefs leadership that helped cultivate the alter ego.
Before, then-coach Herm Edwards gave public permission for what became known as “The D-Bowe Show,” even saying Bowe would be counted on for a certain kind of leadership.
Now, coach Todd Haley is trying to reprogram the receiver he refers to as “Dwayne,” and relying on others such as Matt Cassel and Chris Chambers to provide Bowe with leadership.
The first-round talent is still there, but so are too many first-class mistakes. Like the four-game suspension for a failed drug test, which he blamed on his confused grandmother picking the wrong pill out of her medicine cabinet. Or the “importing” interview with ESPN The Magazine, which he apologized for while referring to himself in the third-person.
There are some encouraging signs. Cris Carter and Michael Irvin reportedly gave Bowe some “tough love” over the summer, hinting that the tail-kicking was approved by the Chiefs. Bowe handled it like a pro — like an adult — and even earned praise from Larry Fitzgerald over Twitter.
But there is more to it. This is not a neatly wrapped story of redemption. Not yet, anyway. There are layers to Bowe’s journey, tendencies he still must control.
Even as Haley and Chiefs players mostly talk nice about Bowe’s maturity, there are glimpses of D-Bowe, of a well-intentioned but misdirected young man still hungry for attention and prone to the kind of distraction that so far has contributed to him underperforming with his talent.
Like when he takes his jersey off and runs by fans. Or when he’s the one making rookie Eric Berry carry his pads. Or when he races by Brandon Carr for a long catch — Carr’s been getting beat like pizza dough, by the way — and then poses for a few seconds in front of fans.
These are the scenes that will continue to aggravate Chiefs coaches and executives.
•••
It’s impossible to know what Bowe himself thinks about this, because he hasn’t spoken to reporters since apologizing for the importing interview.
Officially, the Chiefs say that was Bowe’s decision, that he wants to be about football only. But if that was the case, he wouldn’t be talking to fans in the middle of practice, especially not just minutes after running the wrong way during a previous drill. More likely, the directive came from one of Bowe’s bosses and he’s being a good employee.
That in itself is a positive step, and the best thing for both the team and player. But it’s still an artificial cover-up for an issue that won’t go away immediately — no matter how often the Chiefs talk about a “maturity” that so far is more myth than reality.
If that’s as far as this went, it would be a fascinating character study and the kind of thing that would carry many Kansas City conversations into next year. But this is a football issue, too, because Bowe is a central figure in a supporting cast the Chiefs need to help Matt Cassel earn his $63 million contract.
Even missing four games for the suspension, Bowe had the most dropped passes for a team that dropped the most passes in the NFL last year. Bowe’s mistakes have always been more mental than physical, more bad routes and broken concentration than insufficient talent.
The connection to Bowe’s alter ego is too easy to make. Suppressing “D-Bowe” becomes not just good for everyone’s sanity, but also good for the bottom line.
It’s just that D-Bowe won’t go away quietly.
SAM MELLINGER COMMENTARY
ST. JOSEPH | D-Bowe doesn’t work here anymore. It’s just Dwayne now, without the alter ego that he sometimes called “The Show.” That guy no longer exists. You can just call him Dwayne.
This is the new Chiefs policy, official or otherwise, a carefully monitored way of handling their good-natured but too often knuckleheaded receiver: Nobody is to call him D-Bowe anymore. Not coaches, not teammates, and especially not Dwayne.
The intent is clear. Dwayne Bowe needs to concentrate more on being a professional receiver and less on the sideshow that caused one league source to famously call Bowe “the single biggest dumbass in the NFL.”
It’s a good idea. The problem is that old habits are tough to break. Grown men don’t change easily. And so — regardless of team rules — Dwayne’s inner D-Bowe makes occasional guest appearances during training camp here, most recently on Tuesday after making a jumping catch during a drill.
“Y’all like that, huh?” he says to a small group of fans. “I’ll put a show on today because y’all are my people.”
The line gets some laughs from the fans, which is all Bowe wants, and all the rest of us need to be sure that separating D-Bowe the caricature from Dwayne Bowe the receiver is very much still a work in progress.
•••
D-Bowe took years to form, so it will take time to undo. The current Chiefs leadership — whose emphasis on scholars and team captains means they never would’ve drafted Bowe — is following the previous Chiefs leadership that helped cultivate the alter ego.
Before, then-coach Herm Edwards gave public permission for what became known as “The D-Bowe Show,” even saying Bowe would be counted on for a certain kind of leadership.
Now, coach Todd Haley is trying to reprogram the receiver he refers to as “Dwayne,” and relying on others such as Matt Cassel and Chris Chambers to provide Bowe with leadership.
The first-round talent is still there, but so are too many first-class mistakes. Like the four-game suspension for a failed drug test, which he blamed on his confused grandmother picking the wrong pill out of her medicine cabinet. Or the “importing” interview with ESPN The Magazine, which he apologized for while referring to himself in the third-person.
There are some encouraging signs. Cris Carter and Michael Irvin reportedly gave Bowe some “tough love” over the summer, hinting that the tail-kicking was approved by the Chiefs. Bowe handled it like a pro — like an adult — and even earned praise from Larry Fitzgerald over Twitter.
But there is more to it. This is not a neatly wrapped story of redemption. Not yet, anyway. There are layers to Bowe’s journey, tendencies he still must control.
Even as Haley and Chiefs players mostly talk nice about Bowe’s maturity, there are glimpses of D-Bowe, of a well-intentioned but misdirected young man still hungry for attention and prone to the kind of distraction that so far has contributed to him underperforming with his talent.
Like when he takes his jersey off and runs by fans. Or when he’s the one making rookie Eric Berry carry his pads. Or when he races by Brandon Carr for a long catch — Carr’s been getting beat like pizza dough, by the way — and then poses for a few seconds in front of fans.
These are the scenes that will continue to aggravate Chiefs coaches and executives.
•••
It’s impossible to know what Bowe himself thinks about this, because he hasn’t spoken to reporters since apologizing for the importing interview.
Officially, the Chiefs say that was Bowe’s decision, that he wants to be about football only. But if that was the case, he wouldn’t be talking to fans in the middle of practice, especially not just minutes after running the wrong way during a previous drill. More likely, the directive came from one of Bowe’s bosses and he’s being a good employee.
That in itself is a positive step, and the best thing for both the team and player. But it’s still an artificial cover-up for an issue that won’t go away immediately — no matter how often the Chiefs talk about a “maturity” that so far is more myth than reality.
If that’s as far as this went, it would be a fascinating character study and the kind of thing that would carry many Kansas City conversations into next year. But this is a football issue, too, because Bowe is a central figure in a supporting cast the Chiefs need to help Matt Cassel earn his $63 million contract.
Even missing four games for the suspension, Bowe had the most dropped passes for a team that dropped the most passes in the NFL last year. Bowe’s mistakes have always been more mental than physical, more bad routes and broken concentration than insufficient talent.
The connection to Bowe’s alter ego is too easy to make. Suppressing “D-Bowe” becomes not just good for everyone’s sanity, but also good for the bottom line.
It’s just that D-Bowe won’t go away quietly.