I was a rabid fan for most of my life. I got emotionally invested in the games and yelled and paced and stuff. The first chink in that armor was Greg Robinson's defensive debacles. But even then I cared immensely.

And then there was that horrendous Herm Edwards game against, who else, the Colts. Herm elected to play it conservative and punted to Manning in overtime, with the expected results. That game hardened my heart because I realized that I was rooting for a team that just wasn't very smart. I started to question why I cared. But even then I cared.

This year, it wasn't even about the Chiefs. It was about the league in general and how terrible the product is that they're selling to the public, and how crassly they're using my beloved sport as a mere moneymaking tool. I started feeling really uncomfortable around Week 7 or 8, and in Week 14 I laid out my "Crisis in Faith" thread. I have become determined to bring my level of caring down to a very low level, because it's just dumb to root for different divisions of a nationwide business conglomerate, and that's what we're doing.

It's going to be a hard habit to break, and that's what the NFL is relying on. But they've come out time and time again with messages that their ideal fan is someone who doesn't know much about football and who climbs on bandwagons. If that's what they're gearing their market toward, that's the type of fan we should all become in order to maximize our enjoyment.

If you follow a team through thick and thin, you're a dinosaur. The league is sending that message loud and clear.

Somehow I get the feeling Clark's spies are reading CP today and informing him that it might take a Joe Montana bobble head doll to get some fans back next year. That pisses Clark off - it leaves less cash for the Mrs to buy shoes and she might come home early, so the sluts have to suck, swallow and go, no cuddle time!

I think there's a healthy amount of emotional investment and an unhealthy amount. The gameday threads here on CP could be used as an advertisement for lithium.

A battery? ROFL

OK, Sorry.....

It's really just part of getting older, I think.

But when this team has a legit shot at a Super Bowl...and it will happen, because it's already happened 4 times in my lifetime...we're all going to fall hard again.

I think that's why we can't quit any of this...because at some point the Chiefs are going to give us that feeling we had watching them as kids.

That's the tough thing. Wins are fun.

The other thing that hooks a long-term fan is the fear that they'll walk away and the team will win a Super Bowl the next year. If I take next year off like I'm planning, I have this fear that the Chiefs will go on and win the Super Bowl just to screw me over. But then I remember the 90 year-old Cubs and Red Sox fans who probably thought the same thing before they died.

This is one of your better posts.

This is where I'm at. Desensitized. If the chiefs win a SB in my lifetime, I'll prolly forget to watch it.

I feel exactly the same way.

At some point it becomes more about experiencing the story of your team than actually getting hardcore joy or sorrow from the games.

I mean, I was apathetic over 10-12 of our games this year. I just can't get excited for 17-16 wins over the Texans, or whatever it was we did to the Raiders. Meh.

But I still watched every second, because hey, the Chiefs are doing things and I wanna know what they're doing.

This is my team, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to read the next chapter. Because it might be a good one.

Yeah that's bullshit.

We'll be in the AFC Championship and you'll be biting your fingernails.

If only we could be young again. And I hate that I can't begin to describe, acurately, to my two sons how cool football used to be. Perhaps it was my youth, perhaps it was just that it was before the game went gay, but I swear 60s, 70s and 80s (even the 90s) football was WAAAAY better than what we're seeing these days.

I know there's a concerns for concussions and I can respect that, but the overt protection of QBs (who can run at will but can't hardly be touched), defense being all but outlawed, and the sick desire/mandate for 80-100 points to be scored in a game has made the product just less. I'm sure it's added in some demographic, but not one that ever played IMO.

But I totlly hear what you're saying...

GoChiefs with three straight excellent posts.

I want that Wendler to stick. :p

Too optimistic. In 1994 we were probably the second best team in the AFC. In 1997 we were 1/2 with Denver. But during all those years the NFC was playing at a far higher level than the AFC. We might of had a 15% chance of winning the SB one of those two years. I don't think we were were in the top 2 AFC teams any other year.

(By all those years, I meant before 97).

I felt we had a chance in 1993, 1995, 1997 and 2003.

Maybe we did, maybe we didn't, but the feeling existed within me.

I haven't felt that way since. Hence, not a lot of disappointment.

I agree with all except for 2003. That year I felt like we were really a 9-7 team with a few lucky bounces and Dante Hall getting a few crazy returns thrown in to hide the defensive suck. I did think we would win in the first round of the playoffs, but I didn't expect to go all the way.