I’m a list guy – I like lists…
In high school I remember reading The Book Of Lists. Lists are great because they put things in perspective. Everyone has their own list. Here’s my list of 10 questions that I want the Chiefs training camp to answer.
1-Do the Chiefs have a back up quarterback? I heard I believe Kevin Harlan say that statistics show at least 50% of starting quarterbacks will miss at least one game. I hope one of these young guys step up. Tyler Palko is saying all the right things and seems very mature for his age. But I’d feel far more comfortable if we had a veteran behind Matt Cassell.
Speaking of Harlan. I really enjoy listening to his insight but I lost respect for him during the lockout because he was so over the top in his support of owners. I get that they provide income for him but he was just a mouthpiece.
2-What impact will quarterbacks coach Jim Zorn have on Matt Cassell? I question Jim for taking the Redskins head coaching job from which he was fired. It’s well known that’s far from an ideal working environment. Still I believe he can be an asset to the Chiefs. A lot will depend on how much rope Chiefs coach Todd Haley gives him. If Todd is a micro manager, it will lessen the influence Zorn has. Also Zorn could be an asset to Palko because they are both throw the ball left handed.
3-How will the post lockout work rules impact Haley? This is different for everyone but those who can think on their feet and are prepared will do well. Haley is a strong, hard-nosed coach and I have to wonder if those limitations will impact his coaching. I doubt the Chiefs will be having movie night and letting the players coach.
4-Can the offensive line be as effective and function as a unit? Any time you’re replacing players and putting players in new positions it is going to have an impact. Timing is vital.
5-Where do things stand with Tamba Hali? We have the money. So pay him. Football is an emotional sport. Yes, I know that’s a cliche. But I think we often focus on the schemes and player’s abilities and forget how important emotions are. Tambi needs to be in camp and be totally stoked to run on full throttle. So give him a fair salary.
6-Who else will we sign and when? The when part is vital due to the new rules of the delay between signing and getting players ready and on the field. Past logic shows the later you get to camp the increased chance of injury.
7-What about the nose tackle position? A 34 year-old Kelly Gregg is not the answer. He can be part of the answer, but we need more in this area.
8-Is Haley spreading himself too thin? This is not a question for me, Todd’s the one calling the plays. And if that changes my guess is Zorn will take some of the burden off of him. But the question – especially in this condensed format – is how will all these duties impact Todd’s ability to coach the entire team.
9-Will special teams live up to their potential in field position and scoring? I was so excited last year after pre season and the Monday night game. That we were going to have a huge scoring output from our special teams. But it never really materialized. Part of the problem was Dexter McCluster’s injury. Here’s hoping we can get back on track this preseason.
10-Training camp is exciting because of unknown factors. Who’s going to emerge and who will get injured? I don’t think it has anything to do with training camp but I have a feeling before the season is over Jackie Battle will be a factor on this team.
11-Extra credit question. If Chiefs player Chris Harr threw up on your jersey would you, a) keep it as a souvenir, b) ask him to sign it, c) wash it or d) sell it on Ebay?
How about your list? What unanswered questions are keeping you up at night? Who will emerge? Who do the Chiefs need to sign to complete their roster?
Nice hook.
Lists.
I like it.
smartman will no doubt give us a list too.
I am standing by.
🙂
BTW
Everyone is goin to bust your balls about Clark Judge’s 10 Burning Questions.
There is no such thing as originality, just angles and insight.
I would still steal some of Greg Hall’s angles too, and just fuckin own it.
Kevin Harlan in my grill first thing Monday morning is not a good idea. Pic is very annoying. Solid list, though.
These be the questions make the minds of men itch
1) Re-sign Brodie Croyle…tyra polka & reeky standstill are flotsam & jetsam, by any other name; for that matter, so too is ca$$el…
2) Whatever Jim Zorn might createth, ‘I never played the game’ hailme will ruin nee taketh away, the duffing dip*hit…
3) He’ll shave even less, bathe even less frequently and slur his speech even more grandiosely…
4) It can’t/won’t… for, hailme & egoli canNOT win with just “any 22 from off the street” (they’d need to go 11-5 this year to even match Herm Edwards record through his three years in KC. Get that resume in order duffer; you too clam chowder, post 2012 : )
5) One-trick tamba is a poor man’s derrick thomas (who in turn was a poor man’s Bobby Bell). The one to watch: DEN rookie LB Von Miller – he will surpass anything 358 did in kc.
6) Only the shadow knows (and he wouldn’t be able to talk because if egoli comes to a quick stop or makes a sharp turn, hailme would break his own neck.)
7) What about it? If they could effectively hide 335 lb. edwards there for several seasons, they can hide an even fatter rolly-polly powe. Upshot: end of games, same result – worn out, the bigger, stronger offensive lines will dominate them – AGAIN – just as in 2010. So, fuggedaboutit.
8) No – but he has been (double entendre) piling himself too high since he got to kcindy.
9) No. kcindy’s ‘special (Olympic fashion) teams’ were anything but last year. They were actually WORSE in both punt & kick returns than they were in 2009, this depsite the OVERhyped deux mc lackluster & javier hiatus. Take away the single rain-soaked monsoon return game one, and they were HORRIBLE overall. As expected, succop too slipped from his aberrant 2009 season.
10) Yes… who will succumb to heat stroke first: gales, po-powe, mims or harr?
11) Place it in a time capsule along with kcindy’s 2-14 to 7-9 tops 2011 season…
(PS) kevin harlan can’t carry Tom Hedrick’s mike (or wayne larrivee’s shoes) but could fill Sherrill Headrick’s hemorrhoid donut…
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And six of one / half a dozen the other to grow on nee ponder:
* Will #29 dinkle-berry ever locate Antonio Gates, Tony Gonzalez, Todd Heap (or any other NFL tight end) in pass coverage?
* Will mutt ca$$el get yanked from games again now that his weiss blankey has been replaced by the unshaven one, hailme?
* Will twiggy charles (all 189 lbs. of him) be snapped in two? Or with more carries, will his fumbles merely match his jersey, #26?
* Will bowe make it two big years in a row? Odds are, no.
* Will mo e. yaki miss more games in 2011 as he did 2010 and in college? He’s off to another nice start, already on the PUP.
* Will attendance continue to decline – not only due economy but due the poor record/results to come, due the big boy schedule 2011 compared the little sisters we beat up in 2010?
___________
FINAL AFC WEST STANDINGS 2011
1 RAIDERS
2 CHARGERS
3 BRONCOS
4 kcindy
* hailme & egoli would need to go 11-5 this year to even match Herm Edwards record through his three years ‘PRE’ KC.
As for ‘IN’ KC, they already fell short: Herm took KC to the playoffs here year one – the only coach in franchise history to do so – hailme / egoli couldn’t match. Herm took vermeil’s two year playoff absence & cured it year one his – did the same in NY aft parcells et al failed x2 years straight – Herm succeeded there too, year one his.
: )
Could someone please translate Kerouac’s tweets?
I have no doubt Kerouac is brilliant. I’m just having trouble translating his cryptic cleverness into English. I bet Chuck could put it in Middle English, ala Chaucer, wan that aprilla wid his shores sota…
K-man–no need to tweet here. Consider long style–we got all the room you need here. The Hailme and Egoli are fun, but getting to be kinda like Kelly Urich’s column, old jokes.
I do like Rick Murphy–he seems to be actually inviting a dialogue with the best and the brightest sports minds here on KCC. I enjoy reading about football. Here. ’cause I have no doubt that if I ever took (m)any of you boys to a game, I would not be allowed to ask any dumb questions. Now I know why you walk into the stadium with that roll of duct tape on your wrist.
I did run into Matt Cassel a month ago–his eyes take in a room at a glance. That’s good. But the man is quite slender. We better pad him up real good. Because Baby Brody Croyle seems ever so delicate as well. OK, I’m done. See, that wasn’t so awful.
And now back to you, boys.
Tracy, its bschloz’s turn I think.
Kerowhack’s cunniform is like the Rosetta stone.
You spend a lotta time finding out Egyptians don’t know shit about the NFL.
He has the order wrong.
His team, San Diego Chokers should win the division, the Chiefs 2nd, the Raiders third and the Broncos 4th.
Tough to predict a lot this year, this early.
San Diego drafted all special teams guys and they kept Weddle.
They don’t seem all that interested in Malcolm Flloyd, which to me is weird, but…, AJ Smith thinks he is a member of the fuckin Illuminatti and can do no wrong.
We’ll see.
There are 7 to 10 teams substantially better than the Chokers, so they won’t go any further than the Chiefs did last year in the playoffs, if they make it.
Ryan Matthews is a bust, Vincent Jackson and Phillip Rivers are major studs, but that ain’t enough to beat the Steelers, Patriots, Colts, Jets, Ravens or pick a surprise team, in teh playoffs.
When Kerowhack talks about his San Diego Chokers, I always think of the way Herm destroyed them with Chad fuckin Pennington and then I think of Jim Mora.
Last year when San Diego was doin its usual early season fade, I kept wanting some reporter to ask Norv – the entire Vietnam War was fought on my face- Turner about the playoffs.
“Playoffs!!! Playoffs!! Playoffs!!! U tube that Mora thing, it is so fuckin hilarious, and it is so San Diego Choker.
No Here Comes The Judge
Unaware of nor have I read Judge’s burning questions. That being said it wasn’t an orginal idea. Inspired by USA Todays five questions and knowing Mike and Mike are getting ready to do a five question training camp thing.
Kerouac Porn
Listen Jack you can’t love the Chiefs and Raiders– mathematically it just doesn’t work……(yeah Teddy The Stork was one my favorite players ever but I still hated him as a Raider)
Why be down on Haley / Pioli all I see is Winship? Guess some people can never get over the fact that there exists a lucky sperm club? Is it Haley’s fault that he’s Dick Haley’s son … I mean the guy only built the fucking Pittsburgh Steelers. Nice role model, no?
Stud at QB..nice backfield….improvement at WR …Cassel can move the ball. Zorn is going to be a plus. I have no real idea of who all these rookies and journeymen are. I do have a pretty good idea that if they played the Chargers at Arrowhead tomorrow Chiefs would come off -2.5…..right?
Here you go…..keep the change.
http://wn.com/1969_Kansas_City_Chiefs_Season
This 2011 season breaking news just in
In ‘lame man’s terms, i.e., so simple even a caveman (or chuckie cheese lowe) can understand it:
This… BALT 30 @kcindy 7 (-23)
And this… OAK 31 @kcindy 10 (-21)
But best of all perhaps… @SD 31 kcindy 0 (-31)
My fourth fave didn’t do so bad either, Superbowl… GB 31 PITT 25
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Tracy, quit hittin’ on me – especially if you’re from Texas – the only things they got down there are steers and- well, anyway – don’t encourage me – limited internet paper/bandwidth & lack of impetus only prevent me from web-penning an literary opus about the Chiefs that were or the ones now are, or the memories another Tracy I knew so, so long ago.
Perchance to dream, back to a time when the CHIEFS were #1, the coach was more than a weekend duffer & a future owner was already kicking soccer balls in lieu football (well, 2 outta 3 ain’t bad): #9 on the US charts & #4 the UK November 1969 – ‘TRACY’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj2Vo8QYny4
_____________
Better this bubble gum than the utter CR*P (like football) that passes for music, 2011.
OH, AND ANOTHER THING…
“Listen Jack”
– why, you gonna light one up again narratively speaking (or otherwise)? If so, you’d better warn/clear the blog.
“you can’t love the Chiefs and Raiders– mathematically it just doesn’t work……(yeah Teddy The Stork was one my favorite players ever but I still hated him as a Raider)”
– BS – I can love whatever/whomever I want – and do/did. When he wasn’t beating our KC brains in as THE most feared QB of THE most feared team in all of pro football, Daryle Lamonica ‘The Mad Bomber’ was revered by yours truly – the epitome picture perfect motion. God, he and the Raiders were scary.
With Biletnikoff (poetry in cleats), Wells, Cannon, Dixon and the rest, they literally OWNED us for years. #16 Lenny Dawson was and remains my fave player ever, but truth be I wondered what it would have been like to see Daryle & Otis Taylor (the most graceful WR ever, along with Paul Warfield & Lance Alworth) hooking up for some long bombs – the Chiefs actually were interested in trading for Lamonica in 1974, but by then he like the Chiefs were kaput. He was also named “most vain football player in America” by a female scribe back then, but, that’s another story.
“Why be down on Haley / Pioli”
– arrogance, OVERhype, the deceitful means clerk & by which egoli & hailme entered/Edwards left, their modus operandi to date vis a vis super-secret double handshake methodology employed. If (LOL) they ever won a Superbowl here or even three consecutive, I would deride them; I look forward to their sooner than later dismissal. When I have more time, I’ll let you know how I REALLY feel.
“Stud at QB”
– missed it by thaaaaaaat much: a pie nee building a ca$$el in the sky: he’s a DUD…
”I do have a pretty good idea that if they played the Chargers at Arrowhead tomorrow Chiefs would come off -2.5…..right?”
– no monsoon, all players healthy both sides, Chargers win by no less than 6, and probably 17…
NEXT!
Kevin Harlin Is A Talent!
Kevin without doubt one of todays best cover guys. I enjoy his game coverage as much as anyone out there. He might be the best right now period. I like him better than Bob Costis. He has come along way, still loves KC and the Chiefs, seems like a great guy. One of the few media people from KC I don’t really know, I don’t think we have met, if so, maybe once. Enjoy his work very much.
Not a ?
Not a question of talent but a question of bias.
AGREED
Biletnikoff one of the best.
So Tracy you saying me and Cassell look alike?
Kerouac like your top ten answers.
To answer Rick’s question…
Well, I’ve met you both, and you both have snake eyes…
So yes, you look alike.
Careful what you ask for!!!
Hey, Kerouac, thanks for the link to my hit song from 1969
What freaked me out was…I started humming that brain worm while waiting for it to load on YouTube, and I was in the correct key! Even tho I don’t have perfect pitch, despite being a former violist in the symphony with a music degree. Ah, the Cuff Links. Thanks, Kerouac, and glad you had a good memory of another Tracy.
I’m just glad to be reading along with you guys, learning. I mostly enjoy football. A little basketball. Never baseball. Or those other sports. So I’m getting excited for September. But since we don’t play the Raiders till Oct. 23, and then the Broncos Nov. 13 (and yes, I did have to consult the magnet schedule on the side of my fridge, thanks Maggie Miller at Prudential), I’m afraid we will be so behind by that time that I will be multi-tasking while watching the Chiefs games in my kitchen. As in…chopping veggies, and listening to Len explain it to me, and then sometimes just watching the instant replays.
I’m sure you guys who bet serious money watch every little thing, and know every detail. Which is why you want us girls to STFU. I’m more into watching the momentum. Football is one big drama to me.
Hey, Rick–I like your posts so far. And the way you invite sharing and dialogue. I would sometime like to read about Man Caves–exactly what routines and environments, lucky shirts, boxers or briefs, hats, shaving, required foods and drinks, our boyz insist on…when they watch the Chiefs.
Do you ever watch the Chiefs in the nude? That’s basically what I wanna know. And do you, like me, ALWAYS change the last line of the national anthem???
When Roger Williams played piano concerts, (he was on Ed Sullivan, and his Dad was pastor at St. John’s Lutheran in Des Moines, so I know this) he had a “lucky routine” which he never violated, including eating a chicken sandwich on white bread, before each concert. No crusts! So that’s my request. ..but let’s do a new post for that one.
In the Buff Football
In this heat when I come home I like to reduce as much clothing as possible. But football in the buff? No unless I’ve slept in. As far as man cave stuff. Can’t really answer. I like to really focus on the game so I try to avoid watching with other folks which can be a distraction. Call me a hermit. But if I stay with KCC we might do some things with the readers at sports bars etc.