via media.kansascity.com

Another quick one this morning. I'm skipping the Twitter stuff. Last day out of town this week. Tomorrow should be the full treatment.

The situation did not look favorable for the quarterback. In just his 19th starting assignment in professional football, Cassel could have been excused if he felt stressed and uncomfortable as he went to the line of scrimmage for the first play.

That wasn’t the case. Cassel was calm, he was cool and he was collected. In the two-minute offense, and working out of the shotgun, it all seemed very familiar and real for him.

"He was very calm," said Wade Smith, who was playing left tackle by this time as a replacement for the injured Branden Albert. "He was calm the whole game. There wasn’t anything that happened that surprised us."

Cassel took the Chiefs those 74 yards in 10 plays, firing a fourth-down scoring pass to WR Dwayne Bowe with 24 seconds to play. The PAT kick knotted the scoreboard at 20-20.

Cassel Continues To Grow … Tuesday Cup O’Chiefs from Bob Gretz

KC Star Photo Gallery: Photos | A look back on the Chiefs Super Bowl victory in Jan. 1970 over the Vikings

"If it’s something that gives us a better chance," Haley said, "I would be for that. It’s something I’ve had a lot of experience with. Anything that will give us a chance to play good on either side of the ball, we need to do."

Haley said an added use of no-huddle offense wouldn’t eliminate rushing plays, which largely haven’t worked, but a change in philosophy could flip Kansas City’s emphasis from rushing and power to finesse and surprise.

The question, then, becomes whether Haley can yet trust Cassel to play on command the way he did Sunday out of necessity. For the Chiefs to play no-huddle more often, it would have to come with the understanding that a higher-risk offense means more opportunities for mistakes. Still, the team left Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday wondering where that kind of offensive rhythm had been this season.

Haley wants to put more emphasis on successful no-huddle package from KC Star

This book is filled with tidbits like that of the early days of the American Football League, and the early days of the move of Hunt’s franchise to Kansas City. There was the cold, rainy December day in Houston where Hunt, Richey and their party sat in the worst seats in the stadium to see the Texans win the 1962 AFL Championship Game in double-overtime. There are memories of Super Bowl IV in New Orleans.

I must tell you, I’ve sat with Tom Richey and listened to these memories and he did an admirable job of committing the best ones to the printed page. For anyone interested in the history of the AFL, pro football or the background behind how the Texans became the Chiefs, this is a good read.

Book Review: Lamar Hunt & AFL from Bob Gretz

So I was alarmed to read The Star’s myopic, misguided editorial (10/6, “Hey, sports fans: Real losers are the taxpayers”). The story felt like a cheap shot, and an uninformed one at that. It seems, in the narrow view of the writer, that after a 3/8-cent sales tax was passed, both teams could fulfill their end of the “implicit bargain” only by immediately printing playoff tickets and winning championships. That betrays a startling ignorance of big-time sports. In that hyper-competitive world, especially for a market like Kansas City, it simply doesn’t work that way.

Teams don’t win championships because they have new stadiums. Teams get new or refurbished stadiums so that they have a chance to compete, financially and on the field.

The Chiefs and Royals have performed poorly of late, but they are our teams, and the much-needed renovations to the stadiums, which as I recall The Star supported, guarantee that they will remain in Kansas City for the foreseeable future. This is more than can be said for some NFL cities whose teams have better records, such as Minneapolis-St. Paul (where the Vikings will almost certainly move if they don’t get a new stadium), San Diego or Buffalo.

Stadium money well spent from KC Star

We tracked down Kent Babb, who is in his third season covering the Chiefs for the Kansas City Star, to answer three questions about this weekend's opponent for Redskins Plus.

How has quarterback Matt Cassel looked, and has he so far been worth the big offseason investment?

Before the Chiefs' last drive this past Sunday, he was somewhere between a question mark and a disappointment. The Chiefs went out on a shaky limb when they signed him to that big contract, and it's no secret this team has been desperate for a franchise quarterback for a long time. Cassel didn't answer all the questions on Sunday, and there were times that he looked as shaky as ever. But on the last drive of regulation, he made passes and led the offense like an elite quarterback. It was an odd time for a glimmer of hope: The Chiefs had two starters missing from their offensive line, momentum had clearly swung toward Dallas, and Cassel faced an enormous amount of pressure to score a touchdown in two minutes. Coaches don't know what got into him, but they sure liked it. That was the first time, if only for a series, that Cassel made good on the potential the Chiefs saw in him when they traded for him and offered that huge contract.

Out of Town Q&A: Kansas City Chiefs from The Washington Times

The underdog Chiefs outplayed the lethargic Cowboys for a good three-quarters of the game and held the lead going into the fourth quarter, but couldn’t close the deal when the chips were down, dropping their fifth straight game of the young 2009 season, 26-20 in overtime.

Even though it ended in another bitter loss, this was Kansas City’s most sustained effort of the season. The longer the game went, though, and with the Chiefs not able to extend their lead beyond a 10-point margin, you just knew that the Cowboys would eventually find a way to mount a comeback.

Extra points: Reflections, reverberations in scanning the Kansas City sports scene from Examiner.com

Well Kansas City Chiefs fans – those of you who are still watching the 0-5 team – is your glass half full or half empty after watching Sunday’s 26-20 overtime loss to the Dallas Cowboys?

If you’re left encouraged by Matt Cassel’s late drive to tie the game with a 16-yard touchdown pass to Dwayne Bowe with 16 seconds left in regulation, your glass is half full.

If you can’t believe that Miles Austin broke free from a member of the Chiefs secondary – for the second time in the game – to score the game-winning overtime score, well your glass is probably half empty, and right now you’re wondering how you can get a refund on those season tickets you bought instead of putting some cash away for your kid’s college fund.

After watching the game, I’m a bit torn between the two choices.

Are Chiefs Half Full or Half Empty? From The Independence Examiner

Here's one more thing I believe:

- The Chiefs will win no more than three games in 2009. That means that, for the third consecutive year, they'll probably have a top-five pick in the NFL draft.

So with that in mind, and the growing frustration among many of you, I have found myself looking past what will continue to be a season in which progress, and not necessary victories, is the objective. I have found myself looking toward next year's draft, when the Chiefs will have many chances to upgrade some positions that badly need them.

Not that the list starts and stops here, but here are the positions that I think the Chiefs absolutely must upgrade -- and have those upgrades work out, immediately -- in the draft, if not during free agency:

It's almost the middle of October. Too early to start thinking about the draft? from The Red Zone

"I know it's going to take time when I look at the talent that they have, and I look at the other teams they're playing against and the talent that they have, the things that they're capable of doing," Dawson said Tuesday. "Kansas City is not in that position right now.

"There's no mystery about why teams win. They have people, people that play together, work together and have the same goal set. They keep talking about people are going to play hard, but anybody can play hard. I want them to play smart, and they're not playing real smart right now."

Chiefs legends urge patience from The New-Leader