Vacation: Day 4

Today begins Day 4 of my vacation and I am still recovering from being sick yesterday. I do feel better, but other member(s) of my family who will remain nameless...and who hopefully will be making Steak'ums tonight...came down with the same thing. From this point on Chad, I would stop reading since it is about sports.

Despite that setback, I am starting to get excited for the fall with more and more football stories on my traditional news/sports websites: St. Louis Post Dispatch, Kansas City Star, Springfield News-Leader, ESPN, CNNSI and the Missouri Valley Conference, among others.

The Chiefs are rebuilding and getting better this year. How could they not with 13 draft picks this year? While their record will probably only be 4-12, I think it will be exciting to watch some young, raw talent. However, there are four major problems that are going to hold their long term goals back if Clark Hunt does nothing.

First, King Carl has still not signed the top three draft picks. He does this every year: Derrick Johnson, Tamba Hali, Dwayne Bowe. Once their contracts are up, why would anyone want to go through the hassle of negotiating with the Chiefs again.

Second, Herm Edwards doesn't know offense. I should have known when my long time friend and KC Chiefs apologist and optimist, Justin Sponaugle, told me that he was not happy that Herm was hired. I have never heard Sponaugle say a bad thing about the Chiefs. I like to give Herm the benefit of the doubt since he has taken his teams to the playoffs something like 7 out of 10 times, including KC 1 of 2 years. After watching last year though, the offense was the worst I have ever seen, including the Steve Bono years. The best sign at Arrowhead I saw last year was "Herm's Offense: R2P2 (Run, Run, Pass, Punt)."

Third, I am worried about Brodie Croyle. Even though the Chiefs have a lot of young talent, QB is key and he has yet to produce. In his defense, the schizophrenic management did not know when to play him and when not. At the first hint of trouble, they would pull him. Croyle will benefit a lot more if they would just let him take his beatings and learn to adjust.

Fourth and finally, Larry Johnson sucks. This big baby, who whines about everyone else but himself, is a TO type cancer in the locker room. While the Chiefs offense line was horrible last year, LJ couldn't produce. I wouldn't care if King Carl signed his golden child to a $49 million contact last year. Rookie Kolby Smith seemed to do better than him last year. They should have traded him when his value was high. Now, when Jamal Charles is going to be this year's rookie of the year and take over the starting job, they will be lucky if they get anything better than a 5th round draft pick. And when he can't be traded, he going to destroy any team chemistry that the team is trying to build.

Well, I was going to summarize other football teams this fall, but this turned out longer than I thought. I will continue he different posts.