Chiefs Chronicles: NFL Week 9
Doing stuff is hard, Chiefs vs Tyreek in Frankfurt, a Fantasy Football betrayal paid back, thoughts on Rich Eisen and the NFL Network booth, and more NFL (and other types of) randomness
I’m not going to lie to you- starting this post (which, at this moment, is supposed to be delivered to you in a little under 13 hours) has been hard. The act of writing anything is a leap of faith. Faith in yourself, faith in your abilities, and faith that the people who will be reading it (that’s if you actually show it to anyone) will like it. That’s a lot of faith on a lot of fronts, and I’m just a Chiefs fan who fancies himself a writer, not an actual writer. There’s been one thought bouncing around in my head for the last few days: Can I do this every week?
That doubt was weighing me down and the recently diagnosed ADHD (I swear I’m not lazy- the struggle is real) was making it hard to do literally anything. But then I thought of the video (⬇️below⬇️) that I took on December 10, 2017, right before Alex Smith and the Chiefs beat the Raiders yet again (apologies for bringing that up to my Raiders fan relatives and friends). I was taking in the pre-game Arrowhead atmosphere with my family (you can hear my sister-in-law Alex asking who the guys playing catch are) and noticed that the 1st round QB that I’d never heard of, and whom the Chiefs had traded up for (a lot of “experts” thought this pick was a HUGE mistake- hahaha, dummies!), was playing catch with Alex Smith. I thought it would be cool to capture the moment, because this kid might eventually end up being a decent QB. He had loads of potential, a cool haircut, and a crazy voice.
It’s an understatement to say that I underestimated the moment and “the kid.” He turned out to be pretty good, and life as a Chiefs fan has never been better. You know what he has done for this franchise, so I won’t list it (we’ve all looked at that list in wonder), but you can read it all again here if you’d like. Can you believe it’s already year 7 of the Patrick Mahomes Experiment? Who else suddenly has the urge to start a band called The Patrick Mahomes Experiment? To demonstrate where we’re at as fans: The Chiefs are currently 7-2 and we’re all freaking out about the offense and wondering what’s wrong with the Chiefs. These aren’t real problems. These are rich people problems.
All of that is just a long way of saying that even though I’m probably never going to be the Patrick Mahomes of writing, there’s a chance everything will turn out just fine. Who knows, maybe better than fine. (Note: I’m reading this from the future while looking at my Pulitzers, Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and flying car)
I don’t know about you, but this game felt like the Chiefs versus Tyreek Hill to me- the rest of the Dolphins were an afterthought. We’ve all seen what he can do to pretty much any secondary, so I knew I’d feel anxious every time the ball went his way. Plus, the way he keeps waffling in the media blaming the Chiefs for his departure and talking smack, then saying it wasn’t the Chiefs; it was his agent or the lack of taxes in Florida or a bluff for more money scheme dreamed up by his agent. Make up your mind, man. This back and forth is getting old. You’re hurting your legacy with the Chiefs and doing a lot of damage to your relationship with Chiefs fans. And you know how they are when they get angry. I’m looking back over my game notes, and there are quite a few Tyreek mentions throughout. I really sound like I want him to fail. Here are a few of them:
“First to Tyreek… stuffed!”
“Justin Reid perfect tackle on Tyreek!”
“Tyreek maybe not going to do his TD celebration? Love Tyreek, but I love that he fumbled more!”
Notice all the exclamation points I used? So this is what schadenfreude feels like… By the way, I’m extremely happy that I got to use a German word in this post. Now I know how that ref (I’d look up his name, but he’s a ref and those guys are terrible) felt on his first penalty call. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one more instance of schadenfreude I experienced. Every NFL Network talking head picked the Dolphins over the Chiefs, except the always awesome Chiefs homer Kimmi Chex. I hate to repeat a childish insult from earlier in the post but, just like the “Mahomes was a mistake” people, the NFL Network Pregame crew also look like a bunch of dummies. The NFL Network echo chamber forgot how good the Chiefs D is playing right now. We know that if it were the Ravens or Steelers they were discussing, the tough defense is all they would be talking about (no links there- we’ve all heard it). Don’t lean on what you always say, year after year. Do your research about what’s happening now! And what’s happening now is the Chiefs defense is one of the best in the league.
Speaking of the Chiefs D, I’m beyond satisfied with what Spags’ defense did to the Dolphins in general and Tyreek in particular, not to mention everything else they’ve done so far this season. More on the defense next week. And maybe this week, too. You never know with me. This video sums up my writing style (and general approach to life) quite nicely:
Now for a few words on fantasy football (⬅️please follow this link- so funny) and the risks of betrayal in fantasy football decision-making. If you’re getting ready to skip this section, I ask that you please just hang out. This should be fairly painless (⬅️also a hilarious link).
Some quick setup: I’m a total Chiefs homer in fantasy, so every year my team is positively loaded with Chiefs (with the bye, this week is going to be a little tricky). Also, I change my fantasy football team name every week because it amuses me and sows confusion amongst my enemies. I mean opponents. Here are some memorable team names from this season:
The Rice is Right (with a pic of Bob Barker from Happy Gilmore)
One All-Beef Patrick (with a pic of Patrick counting his fingers- he had beef!)
Stone Cold Hunger Strike (with a pic of CJ95- I wasn’t going to stop eating until the Chiefs got him back in the fold)
Now that you have the background info it’s time for specifics. My team name last week was:
Obviously this was because I have Colts RB Jonathan Taylor (who I picked up with Alvin Kamara in a crazy two trade sequence) and, beyond that, the team name writes itself (Google it, kids). My best WR (my team is fairly weak in that area) is Jaylen Waddle. Are you starting to see my dilemma? Start my best WR against the Chiefs and feel like a traitor, or bench him and risk a fantasy football loss. The old me (by which I mean the young me) would’ve benched him and chanced the loss. The current me was/is sick of losing. It’s not really a betrayal, I told myself, it’s just for fantasy (AKA fake) football. So, I started him. He got me a whopping 10.65 points. On my bench was Texans rookie WR Tank Dell. He had a pretty decent game. Would the 20 or so extra points he scored have gotten me the win, though? No, because all of my Chiefs players (except for the defense) underperformed horribly. But that really isn’t the point. I would have felt better as a fan and less like a Benedict Arnold. A good lesson learned.
BTW, this week’s team name is: Tank You Veddy Much. It works on so many levels.
Ok. It is now 2 in the morning and I probably need to sleep at some point (“I’ll try and write next week’s post over the course of the week,” he said, knowing that it won’t happen that way), so let me do a quick review of the Rich Eisen/Devin McCourty/Dan Orlovsky NFL Network booth:
Loved them! (and I’m not the only one)
Well, maybe not that quick. Been a long-time Rich Eisen fan, not since his days with KRCR in Redding, CA (I used to live in Redding- if you don’t like it hot, don’t live in Redding. I don’t like it hot.) but since his Sportscenter with Stuart Scott days.
Since then he has become the face of the NFL Network, has a fantastic show of his own, and runs the 40 at the combine every year for charity. Plus, he just seems like a nice, genuine human being (don’t watch this one unless you’re in a place where you feel comfortable crying).
Getting back to the NFL Network Booth, I thought it was fantastic. Some of the notes I took on it:
“Love Rich Eisen calling the game”
“Eisen and “the Buttkicker” call on the PAT😂🤣😂”
“This booth isn’t bad”
“He made a Plinko reference!”
“I’m scared McCourty is going to flash us” (I can’t have been the only one who was thinking that with the trench coat he was wearing)
“Now is the time in Germany when we dance.”
“Can’t say it enough: as terrible as the pregame picks were, the booth of Eisen, McCourty, and Orlovsky has more than made up for it.”
“Orlovsky doesn’t know Benny Hill?!? Get some culture, man! It doesn’t have to be classy to be culture does it?”
Since it’s past 4 AM, the Benny Hill chase and credits scene seems like a pretty good stopping point for this week. Apologies for the abrupt ending, but I’m really tired. Let me know if I missed anything in my final read-through.
See you next week for another meandering post full of whatever my brain comes up with to write about at the last minute and tons of links to videos that amuse me. Goodnight.
I love the Simpsons references 🤣 snort laughed at the spiders.