I’m all pumped up for football this season because me and my buddies have already started on our fantasy league for 2008-2009 and I’ve got LaDainian Tomlinson and Steven Jackson as keepers.

I’m not ready for the fall, but I’m definitely ready for football season. :)

Youth, hope, the future and unlimited ceilings are much fun than hanging on and being focused on a closing window of opportunity as we were the previous few years with the offensive line. That window closed, and a new, exciiting and occasionally frustrating door has been opened.

I remember being excited to see how well Derrick Johnson could play, for example. (I know we’re still waiting for “dominant,” but he’s pretty good.) But this year, it’s a whole list of people, including 2nd year players like Tank, Turk, how far Bowe can go, emergence of Croyle along with Dorsey, Albert, Flowers, Carr, Morgan, Charles, whoever starts at WR and so on. There are story lines all over the place!

And they have a chance to come together as a team more than many other franchises this year. In fact, how about putting a point differential on team chemistry. Home field advantage is generally considered about a 3-point advantage, isn’t it? I’d venture to say that if two teams have equally talented players, that the team with good communication, support and understanding among the players is also worth about 3 point a game. On to training camp, player potential and teamwork!

Can you already tell that the media’s line about the Chiefs for camp, preseason and probably a good part of the regular season will involve the phrase “youth movement”? I didn’t mean to say I was sick of the actual youth movement, more sick of how I know that phrase is going to beaten into our heads.

After all, rookies are still rookies and there’s a steep learning curve in the NFL for most of them. But I think they’ll be more watchable than last year, and (if they keep having decent drafts) I think they’ll be better next year, and so long as they keep building on that and improving I’ll be happy with them.

I can understand what Chris was trying to say about the press harping on that angle, but that doesn’t bother me too much either since I’m glad to be reminded that we aren’t tolerating the status quo (which is what had been happening for the Chiefs for way too long). Young players challenging for starting jobs (for which they’ll eventually be challenged by other young players) is always welcome news.