Now THAT Is Chiefs Football!!

Hiya Chiefs Fans!!  Feeling good today?  Empowered?  Excited about the upcoming playoffs?  If your answer is yes, you could be suffering delusions of granduer.  I'll let you look that up if you don't know what it means, but suffice it to say the Chiefs did their best yesterday to snap all the fan bois out of their dream state.  I found this picture of Johnny Unitas showing off the new Alex Smith/Knile Davis football.  Notice the handle.  Unfortunately, even if he'd used this yesterday it wouldn't have helped.

Mystery Solved--The 55% Solution

Howdy Chiefs Fans!!!  How ya doing???  What's with all those long faces and evil looks?  Come now, you didn't really believe this Chiefs team was going to go 16-0 on a march to the Super Bowl--DID YOU?  Sherlock has solved the riddle.  It's all about the 55% solution.

It was pretty easy to predict this down turn would happen if you were actually, you know, honest with yourself about how good (or not) this team really is.  Don't ever lose sight of the fact that this is about being good enough to beat anybody, not just to be 'improved'.  It's not good enough just to get better unless that better is really best.  Ya know?

We've Been Down This Road Before

There he is.  Mr. "Perfect" for Andy Reid's system of football.  Mr. I-will-save-the-Chiefs Smith.  Mr. 9-0.  

It's funny how the excuse machine is operating right now in Chiefs nation.  All the fans are very happy that the team is 9-0, but there is a strange lack of enthusiasm--sort of like when all those Go Chiefs comments end with a period rather than an exclamation point.  It's like some stoner trying to stand up and scream his team on who ends up saying, "Yeah, go, well sure, yeah whatever man", and then sits back down on that couch, hits that bong again and ends with a big inward smile showing approval of whatever red dream the herb helps create for him.

I wonder if DBowe knows that guy? 

Obsession: It's not just some perfume by Calvin Klein

Hello Chiefs fans.  How ya been?  Have you, like me, been enjoying the fact that football has once again graced us with it's presence?  I am very excited for the upcoming season.  Football is my favorite sport and I enjoy this time of year more than any other.  It would be even more enjoyable if the Chiefs could mend their losing ways and field a winner.  Unfortunately in two preseason tries so far this season the Chiefs have only managed two more L's to go with a long line of them.

Is Andy Reid the solution?  While that question remains unanswered, what we saw last night looked familiar to me on more than one front.  The Chiefs losing games is very familiar.  Philadelphia QBs getting bum rushed and rolled over is also a familiar sight from the last couple of seasons, and last night I felt a tinge of that kind of deja vu.

Will Andy Reid's Chiefs put Flounderville In Their Rearview Mirror? Anatomy Of A Breakthrough.

Where for art thou Bewsaf?  Bewsaf was a fairly regular poster over at Arrowhead Pride a couple years ago.  He made some very interesting posts about our offense and it's performance on a weekly basis.  Then Bews started his own website and eventually he sort of disappeared.  I suppose he lost interest, and given the sorry state of this team's win/loss record, can you blame him?

Alas, Bewsaf has abandoned us to our own exploits.  Would that he could give us benefit of his opinion, but it is apparent that Bews, for enigmatic reasons of his own is no more on AP.  I very much enjoyed reading Bews thoughts.  I hope he is ok, somewhere sunny with his favorite beer.  For the rest of us, we can only continue on with the slog of our Chiefs fandom.

Andy Reid, Alex Smith, the WCO and how to make 14 bucks the hard way.

The WCO.  No, that doesn't stand for the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra or the World Customs Organization (both of which, however, show up as possibles if you do a wiki search).  We are, of course, talking about the West Coast Offense.  The very same offense that Andy Reid was supposedly running during his tenure in Philadelphia.  "Supposedly" Aiken?  What in the name of Jerry Rice is that supposed to mean?

Well, let me tell ya.  You all know that Joe Montana is my hero.  Having him play for my Chiefs may just have been the highlight of my fandom to date (this could possibly be eclipsed by the Chiefs winning another Super Bowl but let's not get ahead of ourselves).  I mean, I love the fact that 65 Toss Power Trap won us a Super Bowl but I was a bit too young to participate in those festivities at the time, and since then we really haven't had much to compare to that.  For me, having a Super Bowl winning QB at the helm of my favorite team was better than not having loved at all (Tennyson forgive me for that reference).

It just so happens that Joe was running Bill Walsh's version of the WCO when he won those Super Bowls for Walsh and Seifert.  I thought it was about time for a little discussion on this most wonderous and exciting offense along with a look at how Andy Reid and potentially Alex Smith fit under the same roof.  Everyone is so caught up in Alex Smith 'game film' (I mean seriously do fan's actually watch 800 hours of game film to find out that Alex Smith can actually throw a football?--isn't that a QB's job?) that they have given little to no attention to what is really important here--do Reid, Smith and the WCO actually combine to make a Super Bowl winning team a possibility?

Could it be possible that the fact that someone actually felt 800 hours of film study was necessary before giving their approval to our new QB is testament to the fact that statistically he just might not be all that good?  I mean, if a statistical analysis leads you down a road you don't like, what are you to do?  You can either accept those stats and report on same, or, if you have the power of the bully pulpit you do something that you know others simply won't do and then you throw your hands in the air and start speaking in tongues about how the stats LIE.  You see, statistics are merely an attempt to put a players abilities into context so that he can be compared to other players.  Stats can definitely be used to mislead, but over time, stats begin to give a relevant view of a players actual accomplishment on the field.  If you want to watch the film (particularly of that specific players best games of his career), ignore the stats and conclude that the stats simply don't tell the story, you are more than welcome to do that.  The question becomes however, just who are you misleading by doing so?  Homers mislead themselves all the time.  It's a requirement.

While it is my fervent wish that Alex Smith is the second coming of Joe Montana in Chiefs regalia, the truth is that even if that is the case, Reid's recent display of coaching mediocrity has given us plenty of reason to pause before we begin making Super Bowl banners out of butcher paper for the players to run through when their name is called at the big game.

The Achilles Heel

Ah, Greek Mythology.  So many lessons, so little time.  You've all heard of Achilles, yes?  He was a Greek Hero of the Trojan War.  His exploits in and around Troy are the primary concern of Homers llyad.  His feats (no pun intended...ok, so it was) were mighty but his downfall derived from an arrow stiking his heel.  How could one so mighty fall from so small a wound?

The story, which is great entertainment in itself, has become an adage.  We now refer to any such wound to a mighty combatant as such.  As in, 'The glass jaw was that boxers achilles heel.  He just couldn't take a punch".  Of course the Achilles heel, can be any seemingly small problem that given time, becomes a mortal wound.  This can be either literal or figurative.

So, why the history lesson Aiken?  What is this all about?  Glad you asked.  I believe that our new HC, namely Andy Reid, is setting himself up with not one, but several situations that could all prove to be (either singularly or combined) his own Achilles heel.  We've all been discussing them already, but let's take a look at what's happened to date under Mr. Reid's tenure.

Ya Just Gotta LOVE That Andy Reid!!

LOVE that Joker!!  Just like the Joker in the old Batman movie, you just gotta love old Andy Reid!  He's handing out money just like the Joker did, throwing it in bundles off the float in the Gotham City parade.  If you are one of the myriad Chiefs fans that have hated the last few years of low spending on players (maybe even one of those who likes to call the Chiefs the cheaps to define your sufference) you simply gotta love what is happining right now.  Clear the decks, here comes the guy with the  money bags!  Wooooo-hooo!

That is, until you really look around and see just what the money is buying.  If you actually, you know, do that--well, you just might not be quite so happy about it.  In fact, if you look back into Chiefs history a little bit, you just might recognize a time when we did something similar to what's happening now.  The good part is that it led to the most successful five year period in Chiefs history post Joe Montana.  The bad part is that the success of which I speak, that looked sooo promising, led to exactly one playoff game in five years and yes, the Chiefs lost it.

2013 Kansas City Chiefs--Let The Fireworks Begin!!

Fireworks Aiken?  Yep, fireworks.  As this off season has gained momentum, something occurs to me in a bigger picture context--namely that Andy Reid and John Dorsey (at the behest of Clark Hunt) are doing everything in their power to create a winning football team.  Now many of you are going to say, what's so special about that?  Isn't that what they are supposed to do?  Big deal Aiken, big deal.

Remaking The Kansas City Chiefs--Tenacity Or Temerity?

Tenacity is normally thought of as a desirable quality. Tenacious people, it is thought, generally get what they want because they just keep trying.  They don't get put off or discouraged no matter how many failures they encounter along the way.

Temerity, on the other hand is generally viewed as rash contemptuousness.  It's essence is that of foolhardy contempt for the consequence of a decision or action. Notice the use of the word contempt.  This is not the same thing as taking a well intentioned but uneducated swing and striking out.  This is when you intentionally piss into the wind knowing full well you're going to get it right back in your face--and still you do it anyway.

Dwayne Bowe Gets Too Little Respect

Do you see what Mr. Bowe is doing in the picture above?  I'd characterize what he's doing as scoring points.  In ways that the vast majority of NFL wideouts can't.  The man is a major talent in this league, yet many Chiefs fans want to see Dwayne cut loose.  Why?  Well, ostensibly because they say, Dwayne wants to get paid and he ain't worth it.  

All I can say to that is, "If you were Dwayne Bowe, wouldn't you want to get paid?".  I have written a long piece on another website called Arrowhead Pride that discusses the comparison of Dwayne Bowe and the player known as Megatron.  You can find that article here.  I'm not going to rehash all the information in that piece, but suffice it to say there is considerable reason to consider DBowe as an elite option in this league.

Bob Sutton--Right Now He's a Fifty/Fifty Shot

So, Chiefs fans, how ya feeling about ol' Bobby Sutton?  Anybody ready to give him the keys to the city?  No?  How about declaring him master of all he surveys?  Not there yet either huh?  I can understand it if you are somewhat puzzled about the direction of the Chiefs defense for 2013.  Sutton has very little to hang his hat on at this point and if you do a little digging, you can find some not-so-complimentary stuff about his time as a New York Jet.

I've said already that I believe that the KC fans acceptance of Andy Reid has been a bit luke warm.  I had another poster take issue with my characterization, but if you look at the polls on another well known blog about the Chiefs, you'll see that the folks that were 'very happy' with the Andy Reid hire was only in the 60 percentile range.  Now, I don't know about you, but given an extremely well known name like Andy Reid as your new HC, I'd think if the fan base was beside themselves with glee that number would have been much higher.  

Maybe Reid's choices of assistant coaches is one reason that number is a bit low.  In my opinion, the Choice of Bob Sutton as DC is one that is high risk/high reward.  It's Reid swinging for the fences with his first choice out of the box.  If it works, he'll be a genius.  If it fails, it'sgonna be the first dominoe to fall.  Let's take a look at Mr. Sutton so you can see what I'm talking about.

The Case For Keeping Matt Cassel

I know, I know.  Everybody wants him gone.  Maybe not in the same way that they wanted Pioli gone (you know, in a puff of smoke), but gone just the same.  It's true that Matt has under performed his last couple years as a Chief.  Some of it was due to injury and some of it was due to the inability to execute, but Matt is the only QB in the NFL that I can think of right now that would actually inspire fans to clap because he was concussed.  That was totally uncalled for and should not have happened.  In fact, I think it's adding insult to injury, both literally and figuratively.  Why?  Please Lucy, let me splain.

Andy Reid--Can He Really Walk On Water?

So Andy is the new man in KC.  Ok, fine.  I think Andy is about 1000 times better and a definite trade up from what we just had to suffer through with Romeo Crennel.  What concerns me though, is the way the fans are damn near drooling over the choice at the moment.  Come on people!  He's a football coach for crying out loud and he will make mistakes.

Welcome to my Blog!!

Welcome to the inaugural post to Aiken_Drum's new blog!  If you are reading this, I thank you for coming by.  

The reason I started my own blog to discuss the Chiefs was because I got so damned tired of the mewling mouth pablum pukers on other blogs that so arrogantly kept telling me how I should say what I want to say rather than tell me what they think in regards to what I say.  If I say something to you that does not represent what you meant, then tell me that.  Don't revert to crying about how I said what I said, ya know?