Posnanski: These are bleak days for Kansas City

[tk13]

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...fs/9776830.htm

Hey, it's the nicest word we could print to describe this mess

These are bleak days indeed for sports town that deserves better

JOE POSNANSKI


Saw an inspiring sight on Monday. There was a car humming down I-35 with a bright red Chiefs flag on the side. That flag was flapping proudly in the wind. I had to give it to the guy. This was like one of the survivors at Little Big Horn having a “Custer Rules!” flag waving from his horse and carriage.

Yes, you had to admire the man's devotion.

Can you remember a more depressing sports Monday in Kansas City? We stink. At everything. The Chiefs lost at home Sunday to an abysmal Houston Texans team that, at times, did not look like it even wanted to win. We learned that Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil decided to go for it on fourth down before the game even started. What's that? Maybe he can start recording all his coaching decisions on Saturdays and just leave them in a briefcase, like in those old “Mission Impossible” shows.

The Royals returned home to finish off their relentless march to the worst season in team history. How long has this dreary Royals season lasted anyway? Consider this: On opening day, the Royals had Juan Gonzalez and Benito Santiago in the lineup and Brian Anderson was the starting pitcher.

In other words, this season started sometime in 1988.

Kansas football blew a 25-point lead to Texas Tech over the weekend. It would have been a 26-point lead had they kicked the extra point. But coach Mark Mangino looked at the two-point chart that all coaches have (the chart invented, incidentally, by Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil) and decided to go for two. KU didn't make it. Honestly, I didn't even know those two-point conversion charts went up that high.

Naturally, Kansas lost by one point.

Oh yeah, there's trouble everywhere you look. This month, Missouri football lost at Troy. The goalposts came down. Kansas State was blitzed at home by Fresno State. The Darren Sproles Heisman campaign came down. Then, some Texas guy e-mailed that he had been to Kansas City and he “tried the barbecue at Gates and Bryant's and Jack Stack” and that “Kansas City barbecue was absolutely no comparison to Texas barbecue.”

Of course, this man is certifiably insane.

But then it feels as if everybody is kicking us these days.

We deserve better than this, of course. We're good sports fans. The Chiefs sell out every game. The Royals had inspired hope and might have drawn 2 million had they not gone into the tank by April 17. Missouri fans have been kicked in the teeth again and again, maybe more than any school in America, but still they hope. Kansas State fans drive purple cars and love Bill Snyder unconditionally. Kansas fans, it seems, were actually warming up for a little football this year.

And still, it's been almost 20 years since the Royals have made the playoffs, more than 30 years since the Chiefs reached the Super Bowl. Here's just a short list of cities that have had pro championships since Kansas City: Phoenix, Denver, Miami, Baltimore, Cincinnati, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Tampa and Green Bay.

That, of course, doesn't include New York, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta and Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, around here, we had Lin Elliot and the fifth down and the K-State/Texas A&M fiasco and enough heartbreak for four Gwyneth Paltrow movies.

And now, it's just plain dreadful out there. The Chiefs were supposed to save us from all the pain. People, smart people, were picking them to go to the Super Bowl. They didn't seem to mind at all that the Chiefs did not make any big defensive changes or that their receivers were slower than health-care reform or that the Chiefs' schedule looked harder than that mathematical problem Matt Damon solves in “Good Will Hunting.” No, they thought the Chiefs were really good.

Hey, we all did.

They're not good. Not right now. They're losing games and then complaining about the officiating, which is precisely what bad teams do. The officiating in Sunday's game was abysmal. But I don't care if you have pro wrestling officials out there, if you can't beat the Houston Texans at home, you have issues that go way beyond a good or bad roughing-the-passer penalty.

Of course, the Chiefs' season is also just three games old. Teams have come back from this kind of lousy start. Not many. But a few. OK, four in 25 years. The point is, it has been done.

The offense needs to click again. The defense needs to build on some good things from Sunday. The coaches need to quit panicking and acting as if they have to go for every fourth down to have a chance to win.

And we all should take the example of this car riding around with the Chiefs flag. Here's a believer. Here's someone who still has faith in Kansas City, even though so many things have gone bad, even though this town seems jinxed, even though everywhere you looked on Monday there was despair and sad faces.

In fact, I was so inspired I decided to ride up next to that heroic car and give the driver the thumbs up. Only when I got there, I saw something. It wasn't a Chiefs flag at all.

It was a red flag that bizarrely said “Z Power” on it.

So, uh, never mind.

[Rausch]

All this team needs is one win, ONE, to get that feeling back. Once they notch one win a lot of the pressure will be off this team and guys like Trent, Dante, and the defense will stop thinking as much about making plays and just make them...

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Rausch

All this team needs is one win, ONE, to get that feeling back. Once they notch one win a lot of the pressure will be off this team and guys like Trent, Dante, and the defense will stop thinking as much about making plays and just make them...

Spoken like a true homer...love ya. I'm going on record as saying that the Chiefs pull out a win on the road on MNF!

[Warrior5]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Spoken like a true homer...love ya. I'm going on record as saying that the Chiefs pull out a win on the road on MNF!

I'll join you...for no logical reason whatsoever, I think the Chiefs pull the upset in B-more.

[grandllama]

I can't wait until the downtown arena gets built so we can stink all year round...

[FloridaMan88]

Thank God KU basketball starts up in about 2 months

[HolyHandgernade]

Originally Posted by KCChiefsfan88

Thank God KU basketball starts up in about 2 months

I'm with you there! But I think the Chiefs will turn it around as well. I found my lucky Chiefs hat that had been missing since the start of the season. I'm fairly certain that by this science the Chiefs will begin a long winning streak!

-HH