Some teams run the ball; some teams pass the ball; and some teams punt the ball…ah hem.  In other words some teams like the Saints, Colts, Eagles and Patriots have an identity as a passing team, whereas teams like the Titans, Steelers, Jags, and Miami have established a running team identity.  But do you see a correlation?  The Titans, Steelers, Jags and Dolphins all sucked this year and the other passing teams did very well.

You want further proof that you have to be a passing team in order to win in the NFL?  The top two RBs this season, Chris Johnson (Titans) 2006 rushing yards, and Steven Jackson (Rams) 1416 rushing yards, did not even make the playoffs despite stellar rushing statistics.  In fact, the Titans won eight (8) games and St. Louis won only one (1) behind their league high rushers.  Moreover, the two teams in the Superbowl, The Colts and Saints, were clearly passing type teams with elite QBs and very deep WR talent.

Jamal Charles may currently be our best weapon on offense, but we absolutely, positively should not build our offense around him.  He played very tough this year, but he is no bruiser, and durability has to be a concern going forward.  Jamal Charles has turned out to be quite the stud, (a poor man’s Chris Johnson, if you will) but he should be “icing on the cake” so to speak rather than the cake itself.  You should look no further than to Tennessee’s league leading rusher and their mediocre record for proof.

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Something was wrong with me yesterday.

The day didn’t start out great. I received a call at 7AM. A coworker was sick and I was needed at our other office for the day. This meant instead of going

My porblems yesterday were not the result of too many beers.

to my usual office, tucked nicely in the financial district of lower Manhattan, I had to travel all the way up to mid town, near Grand Central Station, which is not nearly as convenient to my Brooklyn apartment and is a crowded mess of professionals and tourists.

This turn of events, coupled with the minor hangover I had from the previous nights Super Bowl festivities, did not put me in a fantastic mood, I admit. Still, I wasn’t feeling grumpy because of my disrupted routine or the minor headache I was trying to shake off. In fact, I didn’t feel grumpy at all.

I felt, well, sad.

I couldn’t explain it. I just felt, really, really down. I noticed as much around midday, just after a finished compiling a monster blog post about Derrick Thomas and the 10 year anniversary of his death.

“Maybe that’s it,” I thought. “You’re just bummed out rereading all those old articles about Thomas and it made you think about the fragility of life, which always gets you down.”

I assumed the feeling would pass fairly quickly. It did not.

As the afternoon stretched on, it occurred to me that I was feeling bummed out well before I started the piece on Thomas. I decided I just needed to blow off some steam and that maybe banging out an article for Arrowhead Addict would do the trick.

15 minutes later, I was still staring at the blinking cursor in Microsoft Word. I had nothing. Moreover, I didn’t feel like writing.

“Whatever,” I thought, “I got nothing on football today.”

Then it hit me. I had a hangover that had nothing to do with the four six beers I had the night before. I had the Super Bowl Hangover.

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Down 10-6 at the end of the first half, Payton walked to the New Orleans Saints locker room and knew something had to give if his team was going to have a chance to win Super Bowl XLIV. All week, Payton and his coaching staff had talked about being aggressive, no matter what the scoreboard read or the game situation.

Before he even entered the locker room, Payton had made up his mind that on the opening kickoff of the second half, he was going to go against the odds and run an onside kick. It was a decision that would make him a genius or an idiot; there would be no place to land between those options.

A Look Back at No. 44 … Tuesday Cup O’Chiefs

Last week, it seemed that Todd Haley’s coaching staff was set.

Not so fast.

On Monday, the Houston Texans announced that Cedric Smith, the Chiefs strength and conditioning coach for the last three years, has joined the staff of head coach Gary Kubiak.

“I’m extremely excited to be here,” Smith said from his team office. “Knowing Gary Kubiak from being in Denver, I look at it as a great opportunity to be part of something special here, with a team up-and-coming and on the cusp of winning a championship.”

Chiefs Lose Strength-Bobgretz.com

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ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio reports that Denver is one of three teams that have had multiple conversations with the Eagles about the availability of quarterback Donovan McNabb. The other two teams are Buffalo and Cleveland.

Very interesting.

Denver coach Josh McDaniels showed last year he is not afraid to make blockbuster moves and he is open to anything. McDaniels shipped 25-year-old Pro Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler to Chicago last season after he tried to get Matt Cassel from New England.

Denver received quarterback Kyle Orton as part of the Cutler trade with Chicago. Orton was decent last year. He is likely going to be a free agent. This weekend, Denver owner Pat Bowlen said he would like to keep Orton.

ESPN.com

The Cleveland Browns wasted no time today in releasing wide receiver Donte’ Stallworth, who was reinstated to the NFL upon the completion of the Super Bowl.

The team announced that they had terminated Stallworth’s contract in an understated item on the official web site headlined, “Browns make roster move.”

Stallworth was suspended for the entire 2009 season as a result of his DUI manslaughter conviction. He played the 2008 season for the Browns, the 2007 season for the Patriots, the 2006 season for the Eagles and the 2002 through 2005 seasons for the Saints.

Today’s transaction makes Stallworth an unrestricted free agent. It’s unknown whether any team has any interest in signing him.

Pro Football Talk

I venture to guess someone will take a chance on Stallworth. It may not be until training camp but what do you think, Addicts? Will it be the Chiefs?

Chiefs release two players on first day of NFL cuts – LBs Justin Rogers and Weston Dacus

(via @JoshLooney)on Twitter

Terribly interesting? No, not really. We all know the Chiefs need to upgrade at linebacker. The team likely waived the two linebackers to clear up a little space in case they want to take a waiver on any other released players around the league.

No major moved will likely be made until March 5th when the new league year starts.

 
The city welcomes its team home.

You can’t really argue with the results: the Saints were the team of the season, and they deserved the Super Bowl. Personally, I couldn’t be more satisfied with their victory this year — it was almost as if my very own Chiefs won it.

I spent an entire day thinking about why I felt that way. And it’s because this was not just a victory for a football team, and it wasn’t just a victory for a recovering American city. It was a victory for sports.

The sports we care about carry a place in our heart that partly detaches from the everyday events that surround us, but not completely. Professional sports, in particular.

Even during a recession, players get record contracts and franchise owners achieve untold financial success — sure their profits dip, but that’s not going to prevent a new add-on to Arrowhead Stadium, now is it? There could be another terrorist attack on New York tomorrow (God forbid), but that passrushing attack is going to be as lethal next season as ever, and the Giants will still be a good, proud franchise with sell out crowds. The difference between the world of professional sports and our world is profound.

Of course, this has negative effects that can’t be ignored. Players, officials, and coaches occasionally seem tonedeaf to what people who don’t share their lifestyles are like. Players will start feuds with entire cities, coaches will say silly things, all because they can afford to do these things in the bizarre world of professional sports. You can strangle your coach or slap a peer and still keep your job. You can gouge somebody’s eyes and only get suspended one half of a game, and it still won’t hurt your Draft stock in any significant way. Not to mention you can make millions and millions of dollars just because you’re really good at a game, while perfectly talented bloggers (just to throw out some totally random profession) have to work two jobs to make ends meet.

But that same detachment has its merit. It can be a wonderful distraction. Cramming themselves in that Superdome and cheering for a wonderful, almost-perfect offense and a opportunistic defense (as resilient as New Orleans!) gave people much-needed-and-rarely-awarded time to forget about the piles of wreckage that still decorated many residential street corners. And the success or failure of any sports franchise has nothing to do with how a particular city may be prospering, but instead on how well it runs its business model. Struggling cities can have winning teams, and this can build a solidarity in rough times like few things can. New Orleans, when in pain, fed off the energy of its up-and-coming pro football team.

In addition to that, the Saints (mainly through the peerless Drew Brees) have done everything they can to eliminate that detachment. This is a team that represented a city in ways more profound than simply being stationed there. Through tragedy, this team became the city, both through its efforts to reach out to the city and through the city’s desperation to find something it could pride itself on again. I don’t need to reel off the hundreds of ways this happened. It just did, and we all saw it, and we saw it all the time.

Even though it still requires massive work to rebuild, New Orleans is spiritually rebuilt right now, however temporarily. And I think the Super Bowl win, and this team in general, has had more than a little to do with that.

The Saints winning the Super Bowl reminds us of the unique power of sports in our lives. And that power that is, in my humble opinion, the very best thing about sports. And it’s a beautiful frickin’ thing.

Go Chiefs. Go Saints.

Time to familiarize ourselves briefly with what yet another team is looking for this Draft season. We’ve already covered the two earliest pickers in the 2010 Draft, the Rams and the Lions. Now it’s time for team #3, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Thanks to Dustin Staggers from The Pewter Plank, FanSided’s resident Bucs expert and blogger, who emailed me this nugget:

With the third pick in the draft, the Buccaneers should be targeting a defensive lineman.  Since the departure of Simeon Rice and Warren Sapp, the Bucs have not been able to generate pressure on the QB . Ndamukong Suh would be the logical choice, but I don’t see how he makes it past the Lions, if the Rams were to pass on him.  Gerald McCoy would be a great choice for the Bucs, but once again, I don’t know if he’ll make it past the Lions.  That brings us to our 3^rd pick. 

Most pundits seem to think the Bucs will target Eric Berry, S from Tennessee.  While Sabby Piscatelli is awful at SS and I definitely think that is an area of need, I have reservations about drafting a SS number 3.  I love the guy personally, but the third pick is very well compensated, hence the reason MLB’s and Safeties are not normally drafted there.  Carlos Dunlap from the Florida Gators would be a great choice for the Bucs in my mind.  His physical skills are off the charts, he is big, can stop the run and penetrate and get to the QB.  He will wow scouts physically at the combine and shoot up draft boards.

Carlos Dunlap, eh? Hmmm… in my head I have him lasting until the second round and going to Oakland. I can’t see him getting selected that early, or really in the first round at all.

When we heard from Ethan Novak of Ramblin’ Fan about the Rams, we had a first-time commenter named Jeff post this:

I am friends with a member of the Rams staff and he implied a possible deal in the works with Tampa trading multiple picks for Suh and the Rams taking either Berry from Tenn or Bradford. I think that has a strong chance to unfold.

I don’t mean to dismiss Jeff, but I seriously have my doubts. Teams simply can’t trade out of the top selection. Dustin of the Pewter Plank is similarly skeptical, although he left the door open:

Would depend  on the picks involved.  There are a bevy of players who I think could be available for a 2^nd round pick (Anquan Boldin) being the main one, that trading a 2^nd or 3^rd round pick to move up two spots could be detrimental to us in the long run.  It would just depend on the picks involved.

Check out the NFL Draft Trade Value chart. Dustin’s right on the money — the Bucs would have to trade their first, their second, and their third to move up two spots.

Go to The Pewter Plank for discussion about everything Bucs. If Dustin’s latest update is any indication, he’s having a small crisis of faith, so buy him a beer why dontcha. It’d make the guy’s day.

Afternoon Addicts. Now that the Super Bowl is over we will be getting in to fill on offseason mode around here. We’ll be bringing you all the Chiefs news and views we can in the coming weeks as we approach the combine and the draft.

Today, however, is the 10 year anniversery of the death of Chiefs great Derrick Thomas. It would be great if we could all take the time to remember Derrick and his family today. I’ve put a post together in honor of Derrick. Feel free to use the comments to remember him and his incredible play in your own way. Go Chiefs!

One Thomas, Derrick of Alabama, edged another Thomas, Broderick of Nebraska, to win the Butkus Award as the nation’s outstanding college linebacker yesterday.

Derrick Thomas, a 6-foot-4-inch outside linebacker who has 22 sacks this season, received 2 more points in the voting by a 12-member selection panel of the Downtown Athletic Club in Orlando, Fla., than Broderick Thomas, who is not related.

The New York Times

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