Wait...Is It Football Season?

The recent success of the Kansas City Royals got me thinking about something strange regarding this 2014 Chiefs season. In my limited time as a sports journalist, doom and gloom and disappointment made up at least a slight majority of the job. Despite reaching the playoffs in the first year of the Reid/Dorsey regime in 2013, we all know what happened to end that dream and leave us all with nightmares all through the offseason. At this point, it's too late to go back and reminisce on that historically pathetic defeat, but last Sunday the Tennessee Titans helped to prolong the pang of pain in the gut of every Chiefs fan.

As the Chiefs stumbled out of the regular season gates, I switched back channels continuously to my first place Royals as they held the Bronx Bombers scoreless on Derek Jeter Day. KC won that important series and claimed their first season series win against the New York Yankees since 1999. With the Royals now nearing the middle of September with a great chance to make the playoffs, I started to wonder if all my experience reacting to disappointment and failure would wind up going unused this year. Thanks to our Kansas City Chiefs, I now have no need to worry.

The first half of KC's first game mostly told the story of rust and regression. It all began promisingly enough- Jamaal scampered untouched for a smooth first down on KC's first drive. Dustin Colquitt buried the opposing offense inside their own ten yard-line, as he so often does, and Tennessee's first snap resulted in a false start in front of a wild Arrowhead crowd. Even when Cairo Santos bounced in his first NFL field goal, we thought KC could shake it off and be happy with a slim early lead. The Chiefs did follow this up with a long completion to promising TE Travis Kelce, after all. Then, there goes Santos again for attempt #2...

From that doink on, KC's numerous questionable areas of the roster were exposed. An apparently downgraded secondary eventually gave way to a single touchdown that gave the Titans the lead, if only because of Kansas City's complete failure to reach the end-zone. Chiefs fans had a few positives to take to halftime- most of them being sacks from key defensive stars- but the second half failed to bring amy significant improvement from the offense.

This team isn't as awful as many Chiefs fans will believe following this ugly loss, but there's a fundamental problem with making that argument; I still don't think the Chiefs are good enough to make a playoff run this year. This season's schedule, as we'll review in the coming week, is undeniably harsh, and nobody can seem to find an area in which KC legitimately improved their roster. It's no wonder to me why I keep trailing off mentally during analysis of this blowout to daydream about the next Royals game.

Here's the good news: the Chiefs held a sneaky-good Titans offense scoreless for over thirty minutes of game-time. The bad news was, you know, the rest of the game. The worse news is the terrifying feasibility of the Chiefs falling into a huge hole early this season. Kansas City's next six opponents include five playoff teams from last season and the Miami Dolphins, who just beat New England by double-digits. This goes without mentioning the two awful, season-ending injuries to Mike Devito and Derrick Johnson.

Losing in such an embarrassing fashion surprised many, but to avoid falling to 0-7, the Chiefs have to pull off an equally surprising upset against a superior opponent. So, why not do it next week in Denver? Stay tuned in the next few days for analysis of that upcoming inspirational upset victory/ humiliating bloodbath defeat.

Doug LaCerte operates this blog, writes for Rant Sports and occasionally speaks of himself in third-person for the sake of fake professionalism. Feed his fickle ego by following him on Twitter @DLaC67, troll him on Facebook and add him to your network on Google, because they're gonna make you use that shit, anyway.

Key Players Re-signed, Part 3- The Silent Weapon

Today, we're talking punters. They're weird, they get made fun of constantly, and they look like fifth-graders compared to the other guys on the field. They're also the most underrated player on the team, without question. Furthermore, the one who plays in KC might just be the team's biggest unspoken hero. The Chiefs won't suck this year, but even if you didn't notice (or care), the Chiefs' punting game has avoided sucking for a long time. Actually, it's been an elite punting squad for nearly a decade now, and we have Dustin Colquitt to thank for it. In 8 years with the Chiefs, the Pro Bowler has been consistently clutch, and that kind of performance in crucial situations might give KC the edge they need to reach the playoffs.

Colquitt ranks in the top ten for the last two seasons in net punt yardage. He is also second league-wide in punts within the 20 yard-line and return yards from punts. Statistics can't tell the whole story with a valuable punter, though. It's a very weird, very situational position. Although they're often punchlines in the locker room, a good punter gives his team valuable yardage in crucial moments, every single game of the season. I wouldn't hesitate to call that clutch. In this upcoming year, KC is playing for a playoff berth instead of playing for the sake of avoiding embarrassment. If the season goes well, winning the field position battle could earn them a Wild Card spot. To me, that makes the penning of this 5 year, $18.75 million contract well worth it.

At $3.75 million per year, Colquitt now has the highest average salary of any punter in the league. For the record, that puts his annual wages just a shade above that of backup QB, Chase Daniel. Chase, who has never started a game in his 3 seasons behind Drew Brees, was signed for 3 years/$10 million to almost assuredly hold the clipboard this year, yet Colquitt, the veteran Pro Bowler and special teams MVP, earns about $425,000 more each year. Poor punters.

The Freedom Of An Open Slate

Where to begin? May has been a busy month for the Chiefs front office, and with draft day on the horizon, their work is far from over. It all started with the official signing of Alex Smith (and subsequent release of Matt Cassel.) Following this moment, the entire organization, and its fan base, seemed freed by the shackles of the past and intrigued by the openness of the future ahead. Clark Hunt started dropping serious cash to make the 2013 Chiefs into a serious contender by re-signing vital parts of the team and grabbing talented free agents to fill glaring holes. Less than two months after the Super Bowl, KC has re-signed their top-shelf receiver in Bowe, come to terms with their most important offensive lineman in Brandon Albert, and signed a long-term deal with their most underrated weapon- Pro Bowl punter Dustin Colquitt. The Chiefs also paid big for a CB demanding figures in the “playmaker range”, acquired their first legitimate deep-threat WR in ages, and added tons of veteran talent for the sake of depth and leadership. But, I'm getting way ahead of myself. Clearly, we should be taking things one step at a time.

Late March is never a time when all eyes are on football. The Madness of college hoops takes control of its huge fan-base and delivers approximately a billion exciting moments per day, for weeks. NBA fans have a close eye on professional ball as their teams edge closer to the end of the regular season. The intrigue of the upcoming baseball season and the World Baseball Classic are enough to leave their fans contently tuned into the MLB Network for the entire month.

This March, however, has been markedly different. Even with the constant action from other sports, many Chiefs fans still have football on their minds- and this time, it's for all the right reasons. I'm not sure, but I think that intrigue comes from this feeling of freedom- an open slate, I guess you'd call it.

There's a new coach, a new GM and a new quarterback in town. All the major figures that represented last year's failures are gone now. That feeling of freedom is being expressed by Clark Hunt in the beautiful language of dollar signs. Now that they've begun anew, he is clearly content on spending the money necessary to build a winner here in KC. With input from Dorsey and Reid, Clark's already done major work to fix the ship thank sank so dreadfully last season. So, I guess the first step that I should take has make itself clear-

Thank you, Mr. Hunt, for making me give a shit about the Chiefs- even in the middle of March.

The Report will return two times a week and sort out all these changes as best as possible. This week, I'll start off with the three aforementioned key players that were quickly re-signed, and how keeping them will affect the team. Make sure to tune in Monday, and make sure to leave a comment expressing just how lame/awesome I am. Probably lame. That's fine.