The Morning Fix: Chiefs News 2/1

No other major American sport uses the Roman counting system, one formerly familiar to school kids around the country but now essentially obsolete to the iPad generation. Yet the Super Bowl persists with the tradition, has no desire or plan to change it, and the ancient characters will continue to appear just as they have since 1971.

That was the year when what was supposed to be Super Bowl 5 became Super Bowl V, at the insistence of pioneering sports entrepreneur Lamar Hunt, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs and one of the most significant figures in the growth in the game’s popularity.

I wonder what will the Chiefs do with their second round pick, something that has gone under the radar.

Kansas City, despite being 2-14, does not have a ton of obvious holes in the starting spots. The offensive line is very good, Jamaal Charles is God, Dwayne Bowe (if re-signed) is a No. 1 receiver, and the defense has four Pro Bowlers on it with numerous other good players like Brandon Flowers, Tyson Jackson and Dontari Poe.

But on Sunday, she promised, she will “absolutely be singing live. I am well rehearsed and I will absolutely be singing live. This is what I was born to do. What I’m born for.”

She’s been teasing fans the last few days with photos and video clips of her rehearsals. You can watch the 42-second YouTube clip below.

And while she’s hard at work rehearsing in New Orleans, a few NFL players got together to show her a little love on another YouTube video. And look who’s there: Kansas City Chiefs safety Eric Berry, who calls Beyonce the “female version of Michael Jackson.”

“She makes good music. She’s beautiful,” Eric gushes, before quickly adding, “Jay-Z, no offense to that.”

Herm Edwards, former coach of the New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs and now an ESPN analyst, has called for not only revising the rule but perhaps even changing its name.

“When you use the Rooney Rule and not correctly, you put a little bit of a bad mark on Mr. Rooney’s name, and that is not good,” Edwards said Wednesday. “If it keeps going this way, we might need to take his name off the rule. It is not being used in the right manner that Mr. Rooney meant it to be.”

For one thing, he’s very versatile. Beyond that, the primary trend is that when drafting high, they draft defense and his three highest picks were all on that side of the ball. When they did draft a QB with their first pick it was at #24 and it was Aaron Rodgers who famously fell into the Packers lap. Rodgers was the second QB taken in that draft, behind Alex Smith who went first overall. Keep in mind that this pick was while Brett Favre was still in his prime. Because there were no quarterbacks taken from #2-#23, Rodgers was definitely the best player available.

“I don’t know a whole lot. I just know there was a courtship. It was not even an inside source, you know what I mean? It was just kind of the scuttle in the offseason,” Dilfer said.

Smith does fit the profile of a potential Reid quarterback.

“I think Andy wants to change a little bit offensively,” Dilfer said. “Alex is a guy with a huge capacity (to learn). You can give him a lot and he can handle it. Andy has always been able to get the most out of guys that don’t have extreme talent.”

It sounds like a perfect fit for both sides. The Chiefs are starting over from scratch at quarterback.