The wait is over, Addicts. We’ve got a bunch of Arrowhead Addict ones, a couple humor ones and even a few for the ladies thrown in there (order here — pretty cheap, too)! All shirts are printed on our other favorite A.A. — American Apparel. Had you there for a minute, but, naw, there ain’t no 12-step shirt printing press. Oh, the shirts do run a bit small, so, jump a size up if you like ‘em big. Check ‘em out (click on the logo to order):

Red Logo

Gold Logo

Cinder Logo

The Adam Special

The Zach Special

Ladies Red Ringer

We’ll get a logo up on the sidebar so you can order these at any time soon. Feel free to offer suggestions on future shirts (a Nigerian Nightmare one is coming for sure)…

Brought to you by BetPheonix Sportsbook, make your NFL Sundays with the Chiefs more memorable.

There’s something you should know about me. I watch a lot of Saints football.

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for New Orleans and their Saints following Katrina, even scooped one of these to help the cause. I always thanked the Saints for giving us Willie Roaf, and for taking Joe Horn off our hands — most of the time, anyway. When we were little, the Old Chief bought Zach and I NFL helmets, but to be fair neither one of us could pick the Chiefs. Zach picked the Jets (pretty sure it was a green one back then). I picked the Saints, because, hey, even as a kid I thought their unis were pimp (they really are). Picking up Marques Colston miraculously snuck me into the playoffs of the Dirty Dozen, my family and friends league, his rookie year. This year, Drew Brees has single-handedly kept me in the hunt.

The rule is no second teams. I abide that rule. At the same time, I find myself watching a lot of Black and Gold football and half-smiling for the good people down in Nola when they do well. Especially when Drew Brees gets me a W in fantasy. But this week the play our Chiefs, so, as Alice Cooper would say, “no more Mr. Nice Guy.” They will get the Arrowhead Advantage treatment just like everybody else, and hopefully an ass whoopin’ less than 24 hours later.

All that being said, the Saints are a very, very flawed football team. They can’t run the ball. They can’t stop anybody defensively. Jeremy Shockey has been at least a bust, if not a cancer as well. And now Mike McKenzie, Reggie Bush and Will Smith are all out. This is a game we can win, but the Saints are still dangerous. The key is to strike first and get after Brees early.

If Brees gets off to a scorching start right away, you can pretty much forget about it. If he does have one flaw, however, I believe it’s that at this point his has almost too much confidence in himself and his accuracy at this time. Given that we are one off the league lead in takeaways with 18, this could be key. Brandon Carr and the corner store backs (because it’s like we just went around the corner and bought them in a pinch) will also really be tested by Lance Moore and Marques Colston. Moore is like a poor man’s Marvin Harrison, and Colston is like Roy Williams minus the whole diva routine. Devery Henderson has also shown the ability to strike deep and tight end Billy Miller is also a threat.

We absolutely cannot allow them to find success in the running game, something they haven’t done all season, especially sans Bush bouncing things outside. Even our rush defense should be able to at least contain Aaron Stecker, Deuce McCallister and Pierre Thomas. I hope we have Turk McBride, because if we don’t we’ll be getting to know Jason Babin and Wallace Gilberry (is that really dud’s name?) better than we’d like to.

This is a game we can win. I won’t be heartbroken either way, but a home win would be good for the young guys and the fans. I don’t know if Herm Edwards can pull it off, so we shall see. The other thing is that I don’t expect us to end up with a worse record than the Lions, and possibly the Bengals and Raiders, anyway.

Regardless, I think this is going to be one the most exciting game Arrowhead has seen since the Jayhawks and Tigers clashed there last year. Let’s just make sure that the scoreboard operator is well stretched and has plenty of fluids.

If anyone thought the Chiefs‘ season would end up like this Google Trends chart, I want to know what teams you’re betting on this weekend (or what you’re smoking). Brodie Croyle has just completely flatlined, while Tyler Thigpen has surpassed Larry Johnson even in the midst of all of L.J.’s off-the-field drama. This chart really shows just how crazy things have been…

In an effort to take the conversation here at Arrowhead Addict to the next level, we’ve added a new feature called the AA Shoutbox. What in the hell is that, you ask? It’s a continous chat box for all of our registered users Addicts. Want to inform all the other Addicts of breaking news, ask us questions or simply chat up the Chiefs? Now you can do exactly that on the left sidebar — in real time! Enjoy and big kudos to Zach, too, for figuring this out. I’m kind of like Bruce Wayne and he’s my Lucius Fox. I just ask him to create something for me and before I know it he delivers.

It is coming. It is undeniable. It is unstoppable.

The plays being called are getting smarter each week and each week the players are getting better at executing them. Tyler Thigpen improves each time he steps onto the field and is now playing about as well as any QB in the league. The offensive line is starting to stand its ground, especially with pass blocking. The defensive line, though battered, is containing the run, getting penetration, pressuring the opposing QB, and making key stops late in the game. Our beleaguered backers and secondary are sniffing out the play and stopping it.  Marquee Mark Bradley proves himself over and over in the clutch as a true #2, if not #1 WR. Guys who nobody even heard of a week ago are coming in and showing up big time against big-time teams.

Riddle me this - are the patchwork Chiefs playing better because of the way they are being coached or in spite of it?

Yeah, we’re 1-8. With one or two exceptions, we have faced some the toughest teams this league has to offer. So yeah, that has made it a pretty tough row to hoe for a beat up, sometimes distracted, youthful team. And yet still, four of those eight losses were decided at the very end of the game or in overtime. Beaten perhaps, but standing to the end.

From here on out, I say woe is the team that looks forward to having an easy day of it with the Chiefs.

Soon it will arrive. It is just about here. It will stand. It will not look back.

I know it. You know it.

GO CHIEFS!!!

“We’ve got another good football player and that’s good” - Herm Edwards on Larry Johnson’s return.

Well, Chiefs fans, at least I have these to look forward to if Harm sticks around. Big thanks to Dr. Paine on that one. You can always shoot these over to me at arrowheadaddict@gmail.com as well.

A fourteen point underdog, a team decimated by injuries and we come within a botched snap and/or a two point conversion from beating San Diego on the road. I have to give credit to the team and the coaching staff for an effort like this. This is a game we should not have been competitive in, yet we were and could have won. I was fine with the try for two at the end. We had some momentum and tried to capitalize on it. You could argue kicking the extra point and that would have been a decent play there. Just note that if we had another botched snap or lost in OT, the same folks that are killing Herm Edwards for going for two would be killing him for not going for two. They would be arguing: ’same old Herm, a conservative call’ or ‘why did we try to kick the extra point? We already botched one snap.’ or ‘last game, we never saw the ball in OT, why did he not try for two there?’ The point is that some folks have made up their mind on Herm and are looking for additional reasons to argue that he must go.

In my view, Herm and Carl Peterson are still playing for their jobs. Their stock has improved since the last game but more is needed to bring them back. Tyler Thigpen has been wonderful for us. I still am concerned about his transition to a more conventional offense, but his play is undeniably good. Mark Bradley has been a nice addition for us. We may have found our complement to D-Bowe and Tony G. This may be the signing we thought we had when we signed Devard Darling. It was nice to see Kevin Robinson returning kicks and punts. We need to find out what we have with him. Brian Johnston, alas, we hardly knew ye. Seventh round picks have a hard time staying on the roster if they keep getting hurt. Next year’s training camp will be huge for him. If he doesn’t light it up, well, I hope he got a good education.

Draft Watch

I am still keeping QB on my list of three first round areas of need (along with DE and MLB). However, it’s status in the first round is starting to shake a bit. Looking at the other teams, it looks like Detroit has the inside track to the first pick in the draft. If we still want a QB, we better hope that Bradford and Stafford, perhaps even Sanchez, are in the draft. The other team I would keep my eye on is the Raiders. We could be fighting for draft position with them.

“Chiefs heading in the right direction.”

“Chiefs are making strides under Edwards.”

Thanks to the two bumbling blobs over at The Kansas City Star, we now have this…

Jason Whitlock, stick to what earns you your paycheck — blaming Carl Peterson for global warming, the economy’s collapse, the latest season of Entourage starting off slowly and all the world’s other problems.

Jos Posnanski, stick to baseball — you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about when it comes to the gridiron.

Just because you can write well — and credit where credit is due, you both can do just that — doesn’t mean you can write well about the Chiefs.

Here’s the biggest thing; if Herm Edwards had of made some decent adjustments and not tightened up down the stretch like a nun’s holiest of holies, then the Chiefs would have never even been put in that position in the first place. Yet they were. Harm’s three consecutive three-and-outs gave the game away. For the third time in as many weeks, Harm snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Either this guy is tanking it or he is criminally mishandling leads. There’s no way he’s tanking games either, so you do the math.

Another thing I hated about Harm going for two is that he basically put Tyler Thigpen in a position where he lost the game for the Chiefs, or at least I’m pretty damn sure that’s how he felt after he threw that near pick to end the game. Why not take it into overtime, where you can give Thiggy Smalls more pressure-situation experience and a better chance at being a hero. We all know that most young quarterbacks really struggle inside the redzone, especially inside the 10-yard line. Tony Gonzalez’s second touchdown was tipped by two Chargers, and it took every bit of Tony’s Hall of Fame skills to make that snag, so don’t give Tyler too much credit there. If we won the toss, there is no way the Chargers would have stopped our offense, as long as Herm allowed Chan Gailey to play call aggressively, which never seems to be the case late in tight contests. In that scenario, Thigpen leads us down the field, we kick a short field goal and Thiggy is the talk of the league. Now that would have been terrible for his confidence. Just terrible, I tell you!

If we lost the toss and, as a result, the game, we could have just blamed the loss on the defense being depleted by injuries. That way Thigpen’s psyche doesn’t get damaged. After all, developing a quarterback is the most crucial part of this rebuilding process. This year, it’s even more important than the final score.

I’m just sick and tired of fans and high-profile journalists alike patting Herm Edwards on the back. I expect that from “yes man” Bob Gretz, but the rest of you are better than that.

Continue Reading »

• Tell me we shouldn’t send a message like this one to Clark Hunt about Carl Peterson and, more importantly, Herm Edwards. - Hugging Harold Reynolds

• Michael Lombardi talks Tyler Thigpen in this video. - NFL.com

• Herm’s latest press conference. Unfortunately, no real “Deep Thoughts” in this one. - KCChiefs.com

• Is Tyler Thigpen the answer for the Chiefs? - NFL Mocks

• A look at our utterly redunkulous injury situation (ahem, conditioning, ahem). - Arrowhead Pride

• I break down the Atlanta Falcons‘ resurgance. - FOX Sports

My over under for the Saints @ Chiefs game? 137. In all seriousness, there is no way either of these banged-up defenses holds the opposing offense under 20 points. Hell, these defenses were bad enough when healthy. The over/under is 49, and I’m taking the over in this one. No hesitation.

Addicts, over or under for this Sunday’s shootout?