Tag Archives: Kansas City Chiefs

Get real, theorists

Conspiracy theorists, seemingly to a person, seemingly have too much time on their hands.

Thus, they need to find something to occupy their usually vacuous skulls. Absent anything constructive, they are left to concoct idiotic theories that simply defy any sense of what’s real.

Example? The conspiracy theory du jour involves the Kansas City Chiefs, their tight end Travis Kelce and his girlfriend Taylor Swift. The Chiefs and Kelcie are playing in the Super Bowl a week from Sunday. The conspiracists have come up with a beaut, I’m going to tell ya.

Republicans across the land have glommed onto a notion that the National Football League has rigged the Super Bowl to ensure that the Chiefs defeat the San Francisco 49ers, that Kelce will bring his squeeze onto the field to celebrate and that Swift will endorse President Biden’s bid for re-election on the spot.

Supposedly well-informed conservative talking heads are actually breathing life into this nonsense by endorsing the notion they said could possibly be true.

Oh, my ever-lovin’ goodness. The insanity of it makes me want to hurl.

This kind of baloney too often takes on a life of its own. I mean, we do live in an era of social media where such nonsense spreads so damn quickly that the truth never seems to catch up.

I should point out, too, that Kelce happens to be a pro-vaxxer, displaying proudly in recent days a bandage on his arm that reveals his belief in the vaccines that protect him against contagions such as, oh … the COVID-19 virus. That’s anathema to the right-wing MAGA crowd that looks for reasons to despise public figures.

Social media is pervasive to be sure. It produces plenty of good in this world of ours. It also is largely to blame for the nonsense that permeates the atmosphere, which then gains even more traction when ostensibly bright people believe it.

Oops, the Chiefs play in, um, Missouri

To borrow a word … oops!

Someone forgot to tell the current president of the United States that the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs play their football in Missouri, which is across the Missouri River from the city in Kansas that shares the same name.

I am not going to beat up in Donald John Trump too badly over this gaffe, although I likely should.

Hey, the president has told us more often than many of us can count how smart, erudite, worldly he is. He calls himself a “very stable genius.”

It’s just that someone as smart as the president claims to be should know where the professional football champions do their blocking and tackling.

 

Look for big Texas connection to Chiefs’ big win

I am going out just a bit on a limb here, but I am betting that the Texas media are going to find every possible connection between this state and the Kansas City Chiefs’ victory in Super Bowl LIV.

The Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers in a thriller. The score was 31-20, but the game was a barn burner.

The Texas connection? Well, let’s see.

  • Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was born in Tyler, Texas, in the eastern part of the state. He attended Texas Tech University in the western part of Texas. It’s been noted that football-mad Texas now can claim that a pure Texas product has won the biggest pro football game of the year.
  •  The Chiefs were born as the Dallas Texans. A Dallas businessman, Lamar Hunt, created the Texans and joined them with the American Football League. They moved to KC in 1963, changed their name to the Chiefs and won the 1970 Super Bowl against the Minnesota Vikings.
  •  Clark Hunt, son of the late Chiefs founder, is the current owner of the team. Clark Hunt was 4 years old when the Chiefs won their first Super Bowl. He still lives in Dallas.

Do you get where I’m going with this?

Sure, the team plays its home games in far-off Kansas City, Mo. A lot of football fans here in Texas, though, won’t let the Chiefs and their fans know about this team’s roots.

Loving the Chiefs’ back story

I am happy to proclaim that for the first time since I cannot remember I actually have an interest in professional football’s final game of the 2019-20 season.

Super Bowl LIV is coming up. I am pulling hard for the Kansas City Chiefs to win against the San Francisco 49ers.

I have not a single thing against the Niners. They’re a fine team, coming from a fine program. They have wonderful fans; a beloved member of my family is one of them. They have a storied history of winning the Super Bowl.

Which brings me to one of the key reasons why I am pulling for the Chiefs.

You know perhaps already that I am a staunch American Football Conference fan, owing to my previous allegiance to the American Football League, of which the Chiefs are a charter member, although they did enter the AFL as the Dallas Texans; the Texans moved to KC in 1963.

The Chiefs have played in two Super Bowls, the first one and the fourth one. They lost the initial AFL-NFL World Championship Game — which wasn’t even yet called the “Super Bowl” — in 1967; the Green Bay Packers beat the Chiefs 35-10. Ahh, but the Chiefs came back in 1970 to defeat the heavily favored Minnesota Vikings; the score was 23-7.

So, it’s been 50 years since the Chiefs lined up in the Super Bowl. Fifty years! The 49ers have been to six of them. What’s more, the 49ers have won five of their Super Bowl games. Do you get where I’m going with this?

The Chiefs are long overdue to play, let alone win, this media extravaganza that now masquerades as a football game.

Do I care about the halftime show? Or the commercials? Maybe the halftime show; I mean, who can look away from Shakira and JLo, eh? The commercials … not so much.

I am intently interested in the behemoths who’ll be beating the daylights out of each other during the game.

So, there you have it.

Pass the popcorn.

Milking the D/FW connection for all it’s worth

I cannot help but chuckle at the Dallas-Fort Worth media’s concentration on a certain aspect of the American Football Conference champion Kansas City Chiefs, who are heading to the next Super Bowl next month in Miami.

It’s the Dallas connection that gives me a giggle or two.

The Chiefs came into being in 1960 as the Dallas Texans. Then the owner of the franchise moved the team to Kansas City, where they became the Chiefs. The owner was Lamar Hunt, a young Dallas business mogul. He went on to build the Chiefs into an American Football League powerhouse.

The Hunt family has retained its Dallas roots. Lamar Hunt is now deceased. His son, Clark, runs the Chiefs. Clark Hunt still lives in Dallas.

The media are all over the Dallas connection and keep reminding viewers and readers that the Chiefs are actually direct descendants of the team that was born in Dallas but gravitated a bit north nearly 60 years ago.

It’s OK. You have to look for ways to retain interest among viewers and readers. The media here are doing their level best in that regard.

Hoping the KC Chiefs bring home Lombardi Trophy

I have a clear favorite among the eight teams still vying for a chance to play in the Super Bowl next month in Miami.

It is the Kansas City Chiefs. Why the Chiefs? Here we go.

I am a longtime fan of the former American Football League. The Chiefs came into being as the Dallas Texans, one of the charter franchises in the AFL in 1960. The Texans packed up and moved to Kansas City and became the Chiefs.

With that all said, I will now ignore the National Football Conference playoff lineup. I don’t care about any of the teams in that “other” conference.

The Chiefs and the Tennessee Titans are the two original AFL franchises still in the hunt. However, I remain profoundly angry that Bud Adams, the owner of the Houston Oilers, decided to move his team to Nashville because Houston wouldn’t build a stadium with luxury boxes. Hey, the Oilers played in the Eighth Wonder of the World, the Astrodome. That shoulda been good enough for the Oilers. It wasn’t. Adams got greedy and bolted for Grand Ol’ Opryland.

The Baltimore Ravens? Pfftt! They once were the Cleveland Browns, one of three old NFL teams that moved into the AFC when the AFL and the NFL merged in 1970.

The fourth AFC team is the Houston Texans. That franchise is new to the NFL, having been created after the Oilers left the Bayou City. They don’t count, either.

In all my years watching the Super Bowl, I have rooted for one NFC team to win the Lombardi Trophy. That would be the New Orleans Saints in 2010. They beat the Indianapolis Colts. Two factors came into play for that Super Bowl. First, New Orleans needed a lift after the 2005 devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina. Second, the Colts have no AFL history, as they were among the NFL teams moved into the AFC when the leagues merged; the third team to join the AFC, by the way, was the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Chiefs played in the very first Super Bowl, losing 35-10 to the Green Bay Packers in 1967. Then they came back in 1970 to beat the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV, pummeling the heavily favored NFL rep 23-7. That was the final Super Bowl before the leagues merged.

It’s been 50 years since the Chiefs played for the pro football championship. It’s their time … I hope.

How ’bout them Chiefs?

OK, here goes my selection for the next National Football League championship.

I am pulling hard for the Kansas City Chiefs to win the Lombardi Trophy at the end of Super Bowl 53 (or is it LIII?).

They play the New England Patriots next weekend for the AFC championship. They’ll play it at Arrowhead Stadium in KC. The NFC championship will be decided between the Los Angeles Rams and the New Orleans Saints; I don’t care about that one, because I have been a long-time AFC fan.

My cheering for the Chiefs stems from the fact that they last played in the Super Bowl in 1970. That was 49 years ago, man!

Those Chiefs defeated the heavily favored Minnesota Vikings 23-7. They manhandled the Purple People Eaters. Their coach was a guy named Hank Stram, who crafted something called the Offense of the 1970s. He was a dapper dresser who strolled the sideline with his plays written on a rolled-up sheet of paper he carried with him.

The KC Chiefs had the misfortune, too, of playing the mighty Green Bay Packers in the very first championship game. The Packers won that game 35-10; it wasn’t even known yet as the Super Bowl.

The Chiefs represented the American Football League against the powerhouse NFL titans from Green Bay. They got thumped, but then in the final game representing the AFL, which merged with the NFL, did their own thumping three years later in Super Bowl IV.

That was too long ago. The Patriots have been to many Super Bowls over the years. They’ve won their share of them, too. Sure, whoever wins the AFC title game must play the NFC winner at the Big Game.

This is the Kansas City Chiefs’ time. At least I hope it is.

What to call college football's big game?

I might be breaking some new ground here, but a thought occurs to me regarding the Big Game set for Monday night to determine the best college football team in the country.

The game doesn’t have a catchy name. You know, like the Super Bowl?

My Oregon Ducks are going to play the Ohio State Buckeyes in the first-ever college football playoff championship game. It needs something catchy.

Let’s flash back for a moment to the first Super Bowl, played in 1967. It wasn’t even called the Super Bowl. It carried the clunky name of “AFL-NFL Championship Game.” The American Football League champs that year were the Kansas City Chiefs; representing the National Football League were the Green Bay Packers.

The Pack won 35-10 at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, which was about two-thirds full for the biggest game in pro football history.

The AFL and the NFL played three more interleague championship games before the leagues merged in 1970. But someone came up with the name “Super Bowl” in time for the 1968 game between the Packers and the Oakland Raiders.

I’m open for suggestions on what to call the college football equivalent of the Super Bowl.

Heck, college basketball has its March Madness and its Final Four; Major League Baseball has its World Series; college baseball has its College World Series; hockey fans know the title series of their sport simply as the Stanley Cup.

The NCAA has come up with a marketing winner with this college football playoff. It figures to smash TV-viewing records Monday night.

So … let’s give college football’s big game a name to make it — and us — all proud.

Oh, before I forget: Go Ducks!

 

What's wrong with Chiefs?

I am OK with changing the name of the Washington Redskins.

Who, after all, ever uses that term other than in a derogatory context? The name ought to change.

Now comes this bit of conjecture: Will the Kansas City Chiefs’ name also come under attack?

I hope not.

http://msn.foxsports.com/kansas-city/story/redskins-indians-will-native-americans-target-the-chiefs-next-062514

Given that I’m not a Native American — even though I was born in the United States to first-generation Americans — perhaps I don’t get what’s so objectionable about the name “Chiefs.”

I’ll concede that the Chiefs long have been one of my favorite pro football teams. I was delighted beyond belief over their dismantling of the Minnesota Vikings in the fourth Super Bowl ever played. But I digress.

To this white man’s way of thinking, “Chiefs” shouldn’t be seen as offensive to Native Americans. By definition, the term identifies the leader of a Native American community. He is the most exalted member of that community and is treated with utmost respect, even reverence.

“Redskins” is another matter altogether. Let’s stop there. Leave the Chiefs’ name alone.