FanPost

What has happened to Arrowhead Pride?


Let me begin by telling you how I found AP. I am in Bartlett TN so let's just say that Chiefs fans and games are pretty sparse around here. I was always trying to find any information I could about the Chiefs. Yeah, I had the mothership, but that was usually about it. Most of the time I was searching, I was searching at work (the internet helped the time go by). Everytime I searched for anything Chiefs related (whether at home or work), AP came up.

More after the jump

Since I was at work, there were certain sites that you could not access, so half of my time on the net was spent gathering up all of the Chiefs sites I could find that could be accessed at work. But again, the top few articles, links, and sites were always AP.

Now this happened for years. So finally in, I think 2008, I said when I get home, I am going to check this site out. When I got to get on AP, I could not believe it. I spent hours reading several posts both old and new (I read a lot before I joined). It was like Christmas. I had finally found a place where I could talk about one of my favorite subjects 24/7....the Chiefs.

I remember thinking "I can't believe that it took me this long to check this place out!". AP was packed with other Chiefs FANATICS!, and there were 2 things in particular that AP had in spades.....

1. Knowledge

There will always be fans who just don't know what they are talking about. I am not talking opinion, we all have a right to our opinions no matter how...."different" they are. There are some people who say things like "I was so happy when the Chiefs drafted Priest Holmes!" It doesn't mean that they are any less of a fan, they just don't know what they are talking about. Those fans were here, but there were a plethora of people here who knew the Chiefs. The knowledge was awesome.

That knowledge led to some WONDERFUL discussions. Deep discussions. Yeah, we all had our sense of humor and it showed, but the knowledge would always shine through. The jokes were relevant and usually didn't pull from the discussion. Opinions (for the most part) were respected and the insults were not very abundant.

The other thing that AP had was ....

2. Passion

More specifically, Passion for the Chiefs. The people here (for the most part) loved the Chiefs as a team. That didn't mean that you liked every player or thought that every player was the best at their position, but as long as that player was a Chief, they were family. And you don't mess with family. Now that doesn't mean that there was nothing negative said about a player or the team. If you messed up, you messed up, but that player or coach at the end of the day was still a Chief until they weren't.

I wonder what happened.

Now when I come to AP there is so much negativity. And don't get me started on things like things like "Suck for Luck". I could be wrong, but a few years back there wouldn't have been a whole lot of that. Yes people would have said it, but it would have been shot down so fast that people would have been embarrassed to continue to bring it up. I don't care what anyone says, a real fan would never want the team to lose. I don't care how you try to justify it.

Now the posts are full of bad jokes, butt kissing of popular posters, insults, and people just talking bad about the Chiefs. And don't get me wrong, I know that times are not the best right now, but we are not as bad as people try to play. We have been through a lot worse. Yeah, I know that as a whole the Chiefs have not been to the Super Bowl in years, and we only recently made it to the playoffs. Sometimes we just need to vent. That is fine. But what has happened here lately is frankly embarrassing.

AP used to be full of posters who had something positive to say about our team. This was the place we came as fans to recharge our batteries that were depleted on Sunday. This was where we came to be around people who were like us. This was where we came to get away from the negativity of the media and fans of other teams.

We were the strongest blog of Super Bowl nation. Posters from other blogs would come here and marvel at our atmosphere, participation, and knowledge. Not too long ago, there was a poster from another team who was defending the Chiefs from us! We had to have outsiders come in and do what we should be doing.

Just to be frank, many of us don't deserve to be the fans of a Superbowl Winning team because we are not superbowl caliber fans. I often wonder if any of the Chiefs players ever visit AP. I wonder how they would feel if they did visit? Now some people might say "players would deserve what they get if they are not playing well." That might be true, but they don't have to get it from us. We all know that Tyler Palko is not a good QB. One of the announcers during the Jets game made a comment about Palko knowing that he is not that good of a QB physically, so he tries to make up for it i other areas. I can respect the hard work from Tyler. All I am saying is that there should be more positive being said than negative and that isn't the case.

I am a Chiefs fan and I still believe that we have the best fans. As a whole we are usually very high on class and very supportive of our team. But here lately we have lost ourselves. Hopefully, AP will turn back into what it used to be and what it should be.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Arrowhead Pride's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Arrowhead Pride writers or editors.