Just went through some of the old Kansas City Chiefs training camp photos and picked out some of the betters ones. Many more after the jump.

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Tankville...where running backs come to retire.

The Kansas City Chiefs open up Arrowhead Stadium for 2008 play in Week 2 against the Oakland Raiders. Both teams were 4-12 last year, with the Raiders taking one in KC and the Chiefs taking a win in Oakland.

The tempting match up to point out is the newly souped up Raiders' secondary against the Chiefs' young corp of receivers. The addition of former Falcon Pro Bowl CB DeAngelo Hall catapults this secondary into probably one of the best in the league. A Hall-Bowe matchup sounds great to watch but it won't be the most intriguing. We know Dwayne Bowe is fantastic and we don't need a good performance against the Raiders to prove it again.

I again think that the most interesting data from this game will come from the defensive line. The Chiefs squeaked in at 28th overall last year in rushing defense, a mark that absolutely must be improved for the team to progress as a whole. Teams absolutely stomped the Chiefs last year on the ground. Selvin Young and LaDainian Tomlinson had monster days against us, helping bump that 130 yard/game average the Chiefs relinquished last year.

The Raiders will be another early and difficult test for an unproven squad of defensive linemen. Last year, RB Justin Fargas became the first Raider to rush for over 100 yards at Arrowhead since 1978. Highly touted second year RB Michael Bush will get his first chance to play on an NFL field, after spending 2007 on the PUP list.

And there is this other guy they have...McFadden? Yeah, that's it. Darren McFadden. We'll keep an eye on him too.

In other words, the Raiders are stacked at running back and should prove to be a worthy challenge to our youngsters on the defensive line.

I'm going to assume a vast improvement over 2007 on the offensive line, which means I'm shifting the utmost importance of development to our defensive line. Worked right, the talent is there on that line to create an intimidating force. Worked wrong, and like our offensive line, the team could be harmed for seasons to come.

To sum it up, the Chiefs have a lot riding on pretty much every position on the team.

Cue the Priest Holmes training camp appearance in 3, 2, 1....

My blood pressure goes up the day camp starts and guys aren't there because of contract negotiations. From PFW:

And from what we hear, Kansas City is still not close to signing their two Round One choices, DT Glenn Dorsey and OL Branden Albert, both of whom may be waiting for more of their fellow first-rounders to ink deals. An even greater concern, however, is that the Chiefs haven’t been able to nail down contracts with many of their mid- and late-round picks, a few of whom they’ll need to contribute immediately.

What's holding up the signing of our draft picks? Well, first off, it's not that late in the process just yet. You'd expect Glenn Dorsey to at least wait until the first defensive player picked before him, Chris Long, is signed so you can compare deals. That's to be expected.

Still other delays stem from the lack of a collective bargaining agreement in 2011, which affects the allocation of money throughout the life of a contract. From John Clayton:

Under the rookie pool, base salaries can only increase 25 percent per year, but agents found a loophole in which a draft choice can receive a one-time bonus and guarantee it in the final year of the contract. This particularly affects second-round choices because they sign four-year deals. The problem in this summer's negotiations is that there is no collective bargaining agreement in 2011 so the fourth year of the contract can't be involved in any kind of guarantees.

So, we have the usual summer contract BS to deal with this year, plus an amorphous "future" contract problem.

To date, only three first round picks have signed - #1 Jake Long, #3 Matt Ryan and #4 Darren McFadden.

It really appears that at least Glenn Dorsey and Branden Albert will not be participating in training camp for at least a couple of weeks.

I fully expect six or seven of our remaining nine unsigned picks to complete contracts in bunches over the next ten days or so, which seems to be the Kansas City Chiefs' modus operandi when it comes to this stuff.

And just to mention the picture, doesn't it seem like forever ago that we were talking about Priest Holmes at River Falls, WI? Man, a 4-12 season will age you quickly.

The Kansas City Chiefs are undergoing renovations at Arrowhead stadium that plan to keep us not-as-far-behind the new billion dollar stadium craze.  The new stadium and practice facility will bring with it an array of LED screens, revamped club-seating and suites, and many other treats that all the up-to-date stadiums have these days according to the Kansas City Business Journal.

The new screens will be nice.  If I ever get tickets in club-seating I'm sure I would enjoy the renovations that are being done to them.  But these aren't the reasons I go to Arrowhead stadium.

I go for the tailgating, the somehow-still-astonishing sea of red, the fans and most of all for my team.

I like that I can go there and look at the names of the past on the Chiefs Ring of Honor.  Well, those are being replaced by LED screens.  Okay, I can live with that.  The LED screens will display those contained on the Ring of Honor sporadically throughout the game.

I like that I can challenge anyone to top the gameday experience at Arrowhead stadium. 

The renovations cost money.  From whom?  A combination of people, including sponsorships.  Tammy Fruits, VP of sales and marketing for the Chiefs said, "Some of these teams have absolutely crazy amounts of revenue they can raise through sponsorships. Revenues from naming rights are so significant. Even if we land ours, the naming rights for cities like Dallas and New York are probably going to be five times larger." [Ed. Emphasis mine]

Um, naming rights?  Like my challenge for the best gameday experience might be changed to Sprint field at Arrowhead or something else completely not KC?

Fruits continues, "It is certainly our hope to incorporate the Arrowhead name and tradition into whatever we end up doing, not unlike Invesco Field at Mile High, that sort of thing."

Tammy, Tammy, Tammy.  One thing you do not do in this town, at any point in your life, is compare US to the Denver Broncos.  But even that's besides the bigger point.

I thought our charm was the tradition.  The fact that we weren't sell-outs.  The fact that we did sell out.  No matter what.  The Dallas' and New York's of the world can spend billions on their stadiums but they can't match our gameday experience or our tradition at Arrowhead.

Unfortunately, the second we change the name of Arrowhead to Corporate whatever, is the second we lose our edge

RIP Arrowhead Stadium: You fell to the (necessary?) desires of a front office to bring in an extra $5 million per year.

One of our many series that may or may not finish, I'll be taking a look at what I think to be the most interesting individual match ups next season. First up in Week 1, the New England Patriots.

With a new starting cornerback, a second year player in the nickel spot and two safeties with combined experience of four years, the easy answer this week is say watch the Kansas City Chiefs secondary compete against the record setting, All World, yada yada yada New England Patriots offense. I'll admit if the Chiefs are able to at least feign containment on Brady and Moss in Week 1, I'll be impressed. And I do that that would at least vaguely point to developing talent in our secondary if they performed well against the best. But if the Pats destroy the Chiefs secondary, then what will we say? That's what we expected?

That's why I'm going to tell you to watch the Chiefs' Jared Allen-less defensive line against the Patriots' foundation, their offensive line.

Right at the beginning of the season, the Chiefs will have a difficult test to gauge how far (or how steady) the team's 2007 strength has fallen. The Patriots offensive line, while a fantastic unit, is more dependent on the influence of Brady and Moss in that offense than the actual skills of their entire line. For example, only left tackle Matt Light and center Dan Koppen were cemented in their positions last year, with the guards and other tackle able to interchange quickly.

So, if the Chiefs are able to develop a successful pass rush during the game on September 7th, we'll know we have something to build upon.

Frankly, it's time for Tamba Hali to either become a pass rushing force or relegate himself to the "Also played" category of NFL players who had a couple of decent seasons. We will see in Week 1 if Hali is a player on his own or if he needed those dozen or so sacks by Allen the last two seasons to skate under the Chiefs' radar.

The same goes for the defensive tackles in Week 1. Glenn Dorsey gets a big time NFL test in his first game and we hope, we hope to see progress from Tank Tyler or Turk McBride, or both.

In other words, the Chiefs will get to see how immediate of an impact their '07 and '08 draft picks will have.

I know this is a lot of hot, hypothetical air over a game the Kansas City Chiefs will likely get whooped up so bad in that we won't be able to glean any lessons from it. But you see where I'm going with these? As this team changes and grows, what will be revealed to us this season about our current condition? We may lose, but what are we learning? Who can't cut it anymore? Or never could?

Because if you're not a Chiefs fan who is thinking in terms of two to three years down the road, you're setting yourself up for angry disappointment.

Ha. Good luck trying to swing your "false positive" excuse again.

A highly placed source in the NFL told Fox 31 sports reporter Josina Anderson that if Henry failed the test that the troubled player would be "up for a suspension".

This comes after Henry had successfully appealed a positive test taken prior to last season. Claiming the test was a "false positive", Henry won his claim against the NFL, though as part of the agreement he remained in the NFL's substance abuser program.

Earlier this spring the Broncos released Henry stating that the former Bill and Titan was "too inconsistent as a person. When you're too inconsistent as a person, you usually aren't going to win championships."

When the source was asked if Henry knew of the positive test, he replied, "I was told this result is recent. [Henry] should already be informed. If he didn’t know, he knows now."

There isn't much more to say that hasn't been said the other times Henry has tested positive in a league drug test. Stupid. Cocky. Can we get him the hell out of the NFL already? I suppose he's almost there.

I need to apologize for mixing up my Bronco games in the High and Low post yesterday. The Denver game I went to was the 27 to 11 loss in November. The game I described, as if I was there, was in December at Invesco Field. They were both bad losses at the hands of the Broncos and I simply got mixed up. The credibility of this blog is extremely important to me and I wanted to apologize for giving you misinformation. Won't happen again. Many thanks to the commenters who pointed it out.

Big props to a poster at Chiefs Coalition for the graphic.

I think it's pretty much dead on. Except that period a bit after Joe Montana, around 2003ish I think the freak outs dropped a bit.

Over the next three years or so, do we freak out more? Or less? As a whole fanbase, I think we'll see the freak outs rise this year then drop from there on out.

It's Friday so we'll be heavy on the FanShots so keep checking those out.

Anyone doing anything interesting this weekend? Since our move to Austin, TX, a little over a month ago, Miss Arrowhead Pride has been on an organic food, fresh vegetable kick so I think we're hitting up a local farmers market on Saturday. Then maybe Home Depot. I don't know if we'll have enough time.

Enjoy this Friday, where ever you are.

We're going to kick off this Thursday morning with what will hopefully turn out to be an interesting discussion. I'm serious this time. And there are lots of new FanShots today so check them out too.

Update: Yes, I know I mixed up the Denver games. It was late.

I want to know what you think is the best, most proud, most exciting moment the Kansas City Chiefs had last season. It can be a game, a play, a series. Whatever you want. Let us know where you think the wave crested.

Conversely, let's talk about the lowest, can't get any worse than this moment of last year.

Let me throw mine out first.

The best moment, the one that immediately stuck out when I thought of this topic, happened in Week 11. The Chiefs were playing the Colts in Indianapolis. We were 4-6 at the time and the severity of the team's problems hadn't sunk in yet, so we were still feeling suspiciously optimistic about the Chiefs. Not thinking playoffs per se but more along the lines of looking for solid progress.

With the score 10-3 in favor of the Colts late in the third quarter, Brodie Croyle completed his fifth pass of an eleven play drive to a streaking, smothered Dwayne Bowe in the left corner of the end zone.

Touchdown. Tie game.

With that, Brodie Croyle had taken the team on one of the longest drives of the season, coming in at eleven plays and nearly six minutes.

I loved it not only because it tied the game against the Super Bowl champion Colts but also because it was Croyle to Bowe, a phrase I had been wanting to yell out all season long. I wanted the young guys to play last year and form that foundation for the years of success to come.

The play just made me smile. At the time, with all of the uncertainty surrounding the team, it was something we could point to and say, "That's what we have to look forward to!"

(Read more about that game at these links:

The Kansas City Chiefs Play the Colts Tight but Lose the Game

Kansas City Chiefs v. Indianapolis Colts -- Game Recap)

Alas, that play was one of the few bright spots amid a nine game losing streak. Without further delay, my worst moment of the 2007 season.

December 9th, 2007. Arrowhead Stadium. The only game I went to last season. And it was a slaughter.

The Broncos, and there is no easy way to put this, destroyed the Chiefs 41 to 7.

And the low point of it all was the entire second half. With the Broncos already leading 24 to 7 at half time (You could make a case for the first half of this game too as the worst moment), they pounded us for 17 more in the second half. The Chiefs' drives in the second half went three and out; interception; fumble; three and out; three and out; three and out; and fumble.

When Brodie Croyle was sacked and then fumbled the ball away late in the third quarter, the fans left in waves and when it was over in just a few short minutes, I bet no more than 20,000 fans remained. At the time, I spun it positively. Since I was staying the rest of the game no matter what, I figured it was a plus because there would be a shorter wait to get out of the stadium. And the beer lines would be shorter.

Don't forget that Tony Gonzalez was injured early in that third quarter. The Chiefs were in Bronco territory for exactly two plays in the second half and one of those resulted in a fumble.

Did I mention this was at Arrowhead Stadium?

I mean, it doesn't get much worse than that in franchise history, let alone 2007.

I wandered out of the stadium and into the parking lot of Arrowhead wondering, like most fans that day, how in the hell did this happened? When did this talent separation between us and Denver occur?

I also wondered where the nearest place I could grab a drink was. Turns out, it was in our car! And did that beer taste bitter. Not bitter because of the loss but because I'm pretty sure it was Keystone Light I was drinking.

(Read our coverage of that game at these links:

Chiefs Finally Hit Rock Bottom in Blowout Loss to the Denver Broncos

The Worst Game of the Season for the Kansas City Chiefs

Sunday Was the Worst in a Long String of Bad Games for the Kansas City Chiefs)

I looked back at these last night and I have to say I really enjoyed my writing on the site at the time and the comments were numerous and intense during that time period. Definitely close to the site's zenith.

Let's hear your worst and best moments.