Well…what exactly can you say at this point? I didn’t think that we would be here this early in the season but we are. Phrases such as “what’ve we got to lose?” “it
doesn’t really matter,” and “at least we’ll get a high draft pick,” that are
usually reserved for late season futility are already being thrown around
Kansas City with reckless abandon. This
is quite the unfortunate scenario we have here in KC as Chiefs fans.
Looking back at my Chiefs fandom I have found myself
incredibly heartbroken over the years.
We don’t need to go back into all of the major heartbreaks (playoff
losses and missed field goals). I have
also had many season of slowly induced pain, 2001’s 1-6 start and 6-10 finish
in the first year of the Dick Vermeil era, 2004’s underwhelming 7-9 record
after a spectacular yet incomplete 13-3 season the year before, and the 5-35
stretch that went from the last nine games of 2007 all the way to the final
game of the 2009 season. Yes, lots and
lots of pain as a Chiefs fan, but I don’t know that I have felt quite like this
before.
It is a feeling of hopelessness as a fan with a team in this
situation. Ravaged by injuries and
seemingly ill-prepared, this team looks as though it might be beyond help. We pride ourselves as fans with the ability
to be armchair or Monday morning quarterbacks, coaches, and GMs. We all pretend to have the ability to see
what the Chiefs are doing wrong and what they need to do better. Yet, we as fans don’t seem to be able to find
a way to fix this. It’s not something as
simple as “fix the defense” or “get Matt Cassel more weapons” or even, “get rid
of Matt Cassel,” this issue seems to be an epidemic that is sweeping through
the organization and there seems to be little help in sight.
The question isn’t about how to help this team win, it’s
simply a question from a disarray standpoint of, what is this organization
going to do? It’s a wait and see type of
situation that this organization hasn’t been through in a long, long time. It is a tough scenario we find ourselves in
here in KC.
Recently, there has been a lot of touting of the “Suck for
Luck” campaign, in which people in KC are pushing for the Chiefs to win as few
games as possible in the hope that they would get the overall #1 pick in next April’s
draft and be able to select All-American Andrew Luck, who is the consensus best
QB to come out of college in a long time.
Luck is undoubtedly a special talent and would be a welcome addition to
KC, but at what cost?
Admittedly, for the Chiefs Super Bowl hopes, having a poor
year and getting a franchise QB is better than going 6-10 and drafting whatever
LSU player at #8 the Chiefs deem worthy.
However, this is a conundrum that many fanbases have found themselves in
before. Do you lose or root for your
team to lose on purpose? I am not sure
if the Lions fans in Detroit turned on their organization and rooted for them
to go 0-16 in 2008, but if they hadn’t done that bad, maybe they wouldn’t be
sitting there today with a soon to be elite QB named Matt Stafford who is
primed to have a career season.
While I would be lying if I said that it isn’t the best thing
for the Chiefs to be in a position to draft Andrew Luck, am I to erode my
fandom by clearly rooting against this team?
The team that this city has lived and died with for the last 50 years is
on life support and the teams fans are contemplating pulling the plug as
opposed to hoping they come out of the coma.
Pulling the plug might give some closure and allow us to move on to next
year and possibly a new era with a new head coach and a new franchise QB, but
with pulling the plug and ending our fandom this season, as the 2011 season
dies, so will a little piece of our fanhood.
Fans don’t have to be eternally optimistic, rather, it is
important that fans are eternally realistic and the reality of this situation
is that the Chiefs are not going to be good this year. However, while fans should be realistic, they
should also eternally be fans, and root for this team no matter what. Royals fans are excited this year due to the
fact that, despite the win-loss record, there are many things to be positive
about. This is where the Chiefs season
will be headed, with a lot of young players and a lot of situations where new
players can shine. While the record
might not be much to look at we will have to look at positives that are grown through
THIS team during THIS season.
Instead of “Suck for Luck” the Chiefs need to do the
equivalent of what the Royals did in 2011 with Kyle Davies and others, cut bait
and let their young guns sink or swim.
The Chiefs need depth and they need to fill holes, and it’s time to
figure out how many holes they really need to fill this offseason. Shut down Kelly Gregg and let Jerrell Powe
(who hasn’t suited up yet), see if he has a future on this team. Decrease the role of Thomas Jones and see if
Leron McClain has what it takes and if Dexter McCluster truly is a viable
option. Let Casey Weiggman take a seat
and throw Rodney Hudson in there to see what he’s got.
Ultimately, if the Chiefs have nothing to lose, then they
have a lot to gain. I know I will be
rooting for more to gain, while I have craved a franchise QB in KC my whole
life, I know that I will keep rooting for this team to figure things out and
get better, if that costs us a chance at Andrew Luck, then so be it, I am with
this team no matter what the scenario. Who
knows, they may find themselves at the end of the season in a better position
than they thought and wind up looking forward to 2012.
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