Look, it’s clear. Unless they’re Adrian Peterson, then it seems like a lot of athletes do not like fantasy football. As Joel posted earlier today, Jamaal Charles sent out a tweet yesterday saying: “I don't care about nobody fantasy I'm worry about me, my team and #chiefsnation winning game this year!! U call me a p-ssy cause I got hurt!”

Jamaal is not the only athlete to display his frustration with fantasy football owners. Back in February, Brandon Jacobs talked about how much he hated fantasy football owners constantly talking to him about their teams. Also, last season, everyone remembers when Arian Foster tweeted, “4 those sincerely concerned, I'm doing ok & plan 2 B back by opening day. 4 those worried abt your fantasy team, u ppl are sick.”

I’m sure that there are a lot more athletes that resent fantasy football and the owners, and rightfully so. However, according to Greg Jennings, there are players in the league that play fantasy football themselves. So there are definitely mixed feelings on this around the league, and from the looks of the comments section of Joel’s post, there are mixed feelings with fans as well. So I figure I might as well give mine (even though you probably don’t care, but read anyways).

First off, I just want to say that I love fantasy football. I play in an eight team league with my girlfriend, brother, and five of my closest friends. We do research, check the waivers, argue, talk trash, and can even be caught doing some random shenanigans seen on The League (great show, by the way). But even though we all have different teams, we all have one team in common: The Kansas City Chiefs.

As much as we love our FF teams and keeping track of our players each week, we would never let that replace the Chiefs. Last year, my brother and I attended the Chiefs-Raiders game in Week 16, the same week that my FF team was in the championship game. While I was happy that my team was in the ship, that was at the back of my mind as we were driving to Arrowhead, hoping to see the Chiefs beat the Raiders and maybe take the division despite such a disappointing season. That morning, I even forgot to check my team and set my final lineup, which resulted in me starting an inactive Roy Helu.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about my team, because obviously nobody here gives a rat’s ass about that. But the point is that there are fans out there that may love fantasy football but still know their boundaries. If a player on my team gets injured, yes, I get upset. Just like when a Chiefs player gets injured. It sucks for the team, but you still do care about the health of that player. I would never get upset at a player for getting injured, especially since injuries are not the player’s fault.

Fantasy football is not ruining the game. It’s supposed to be a fun and competitive game that allows people to watch games from a different perspective. Why else would you want to watch a 4-11 team face a 3-12 team? Also, if it wasn’t for fantasy football, my girlfriend would never watch a game that didn’t have the Chiefs playing. If anything, all it does is give more popularity to the teams and their players.

Also, the fans that choose to root for their team instead of a real NFL team aren’t always a bad thing. There is actually one member of our league I did not mention that doesn’t root for the Chiefs. But he never has had an actual “team.” He is just a fan of the sport in general, without having a certain favorite (like I am with the NBA). I don’t really see anything wrong with this. He actually kind of has an advantage, because he can sit back and enjoy the sport and not let any fanboy homerism affect the way he runs his team.

I understand if you do not want to have a FF team. Hell, keeping up with the Chiefs can be stressful enough sometimes, so who wants the added pressure? But players like my friends and I are not ruining the game or disrespecting it in any way. The ones that are doing that are the idiots that do things like ask players if they should drop them shortly after they become injured, or the morons that call out players for “f--king up” their team by getting hurt or sitting out a game.

I have been met with a lot of justified hate with my constant prediction that Denver does in fact have the best team in the division, and will win the division this year. So to that end I figured I would go ahead and rank unit by unit each team in the AFC West as they stand today. After doing this it might be the Chargers that should be the team to watch out for.

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The offseason is a wonderful time of sunshine, lollipops, and good ol' All-American homerism. We all see the improvements the Chiefs made, and things look good on paper.

But here's the thing about paper... it's not real life. It's just paper, silly. And as we all know, any two-year-old can draw up something nice on a piece of paper. Trust me, it's true. I have a fridge that's completely covered with the stuff (slightly off topic, when did everything our kids draw become fridge-worthy? I mean crap, our oldest is just phoning it in at this point because he knows no matter what he draws my wife will put it up there. I personally think that if a drawing is bad we ought to burn it in front of him. You know, just to really drive the point home).

Anyways... what if the worst happens? What if our team is terrible? What if that old jackass Murphy decides to use his law on us and everything that can possibly go wrong does? What if we suffer through the worst year in sports history? What if, by the end of this year, we're pining for the good old days of 2008?

Now, obviously, not EVERYTHING can go wrong. The odds of lightening striking every player on the team simultaneously are slim at best (if anything it's way more likely that the earth opens up and swallows everyone at Arrowhead during the first half of Game 1 of the preseason). But lots of things CAN go wrong, and I think it's important to be prepared for the worst case scenario. So steel yourself, gird your loins and cover your nipples because you're about to take a trip down "Worst Case Scenario" Avenue...

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On both the Offensive and Defensive lines there will be some interesting decisions made regarding the back-ups. Last year the Chiefs kept 8 players for both the lines. This was a fairly standard number of players for the Offensive Line but was a surprising number (at least to me) for a team that plays a 3-4 with a lot of 2 linemen sub packages.

The starters seem, at present to be somewhat set:

O-Line Starters: Albert, Lilja, Hudson, Asimoa, Winston

D-Line Starters: Dorsey, Poe, Jackson

There are a number of players in the mix for the back-up roles that will make for interesting viewing during training camp

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via sportsofboston.com

Scott Pioli is certainly building a solid team in Kansas City. The Chiefs have solid players more than 53 deep as of this writing; but, how did we get there? Looking at the final presumed starters from the 2011 season, Scott Pioli is only responsible for drafting 10 starters in the more than 28 playing spots required. Jovan Belcher is the lone undrafted free agent player to crack starter status in 3 years of Scott Pioli in charge. Pioli inherited 9 starters from the Edwards Era.

The Chiefs aquired in trade Matt Cassel. The majority of the other starters in 2011 and possibly in 2012 were Waived Player pickups. Steve Breaston, Ryan Lilja, Weigmann, McClain, Gregg, and for 2012 Eric Winston, Stanford Routt.

With more than 30 picks of Scott Pioli Chiefs drafts, How successful have we truly been?

I was doing some research on a possible B.J. Raji vs expectations for Dontari Poe post. While searching I found that the actual success the Packers had in 2009 Defensively was less about Raji as it was about Dom Capers and their switch from a 4-3 front to the 3-4.

On January 18 it was announced that with the hiring of defensive coordinator Dom Capers that the Packers would switch their base defensive scheme from a 4–3 to a 3–4 scheme which implements three down linemen and four linebackers instead of four down linemen and three linebackers in the traditional 4–3. While the defense will now be based out of the 3–4, head coach Mike McCarthy stated that they will also use some four man fronts thus being more of a hybrid 3-4/4-3 defense.

The Packers draft that year was pretty good to

After finishing the 2008 season with a 6–10 record, the Packers held the 9th selection in the 2009 NFL Draft. With the pick they selected defensive tackle B. J. Raji of Boston College. After selecting Raji, they then traded picks 2–41, 3–73 and 3–83 to the New England Patriots for picks 1–26 and 5–162. With pick 1–26, the Packers selected linebacker Clay Matthews of USC.

Ah, fleecing Bill Belichick had to be sweet!

The Packers run defense improved from 23rd to 6th, the overall defense itself improved from 18th to 5th. Ryan Pickett actually was the starter at NT with Raji playing 300+ snaps at Nose and Defensive End. The interesting part was the absolutely rediculous season that Clay Mathews had as a rookie. DE Cullen Jenkins and ILB Nick Barnett had awesome seasons too.

The Kansas City Chiefs did not have a Cullen Jenkins, while it appears we did have our very own Clay Mathews in Tamba Hali and Derrick Johnson has out-performed Nick Barnett since that 2009 season. B.J. Raji had an awesome 2010 season as the full time Nose in Green Bay. Jenkins and Barnett moved on and the Packers Defense in 2011 was not nearly as dominant. The Chiefs are on the cusp of putting a grouping together that is locked down for 4-5 years and just as talented as what Green Bay won a Super Bowl with.

In a previous post, I mentioned that the Chiefs have nearly 1000 snaps of production missing with the presumed departures of Wallace Gilberry and Kelly Gregg. How many of those snaps do you think it wise to expect from each of these players? Poe, Powe, Ropati, Long, and the others.

"Roll" Chiefs

Looks like McNabb is working hard to make himself a viable option for some team this year. What do you guys think about him ending up in KC as competition for Cassel? I wouldn't mind giving him a chance to beat out Cassel for the spot. Probably could get him fairly cheap, so there shouldn't be too much risk to bringing him in to compete. Here is the story:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7931921/philadelphia-eagles-andy-reid-recommends-lighter-donovan-mcnabb-nfl-teams

That's right, another post about our Nose Tackle and who is now filling the position. A couple of drafts ago there were many folks here who wanted Big Phil Taylor from Baylor. It was no secret that we needed a Nose Tackle to help the interior of our defense. Somehow our GM shocked the fans by not choosing the GUY who most thought was the best suited to play that position. Instead, our GM Scott Pioli waited until this draft to fill the position with Mr. Poe.

There were a couple of obvious similarities between them. Big men who seem to be able to man the position and a great combine performance. After that not so much. Big Phil was from a stud conference and DePo wasn't. I was adamantly against Taylor from the start because his performance at the combine was suspect in regards to his past. That past included weight loss to excel for the show the combine has become. Also it was reported Phil had some foot problems which could affect his presence on the field at various times in the future. Dontari was different just in that he wasn't deemed to heavy and wasn't worried about his weight or physical appearance, didn't have injury concerns, but had some worries about his performance during games.

I must admit I was shocked by the pick as I didn't think he fit what Scotty looked for, while a few play makers were still available. But as adamantly as I was against bringing Phil Taylor in, I am not as disposed to write DePo off because of the upside that is readily apparent with his freakish physical tools and how they can impact the defense. I freely admit to some trepidation with this pick, but am still happy we passed on the guy from Baylor.

What do you think, should we have passed on DePo and taken Taylor? Passed on both and drafted another play maker? Traded the pick, or just accept the fact that Scotty knows best. Go Chief's!!

The Chiefs just wrapped up thier 2012 Rookie Minicamp that went on and on and on for like THREE WHOLE DAYS! Those poor rooks, not used to having to attend that days of classes practice in a row. Gotta feel sorry for those kids, yanno? I mean, Wylie ONLY got a cool $2.5M (rounded off for brevity) for his "graduation present" from the Chiefs (cheapskates!) although it's believed that the team's 1st Round pick, Dontari "Eat The Children For Breakfast" Poe does (or will [see? this is how little I really pay attention: I don't know if Poe has signed or not, but it doesn't matter because if he hasn't, he will {and you thought MNchiefsfan was the only blogger who could do parenthetical asides}]) get a much bigger paycheck than Wylie, and Romeo, along with his staff of coaches, will be earning theirs for sure.

But lost in the midst of our elation that the 2012 NFL Season is indeed coming is what our illustrious team leaders are REALLY telling us about our favorite team, specifically this year's bumper crop of rookies, both drafted and otherwise. I have, therefore, taken it upon myself to do the work that few would endeavor: translating what Romeo Crennel says to something more recognizable, like English. Let's hop jump right to it, shall we?

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The Kansas City Chiefs defensive line turned in a few gems last season and a few dogs too. In four games the Chiefs allowed less than 100 yards rushing. Four other contests the defense allowed between 100 and 110 yards on the ground. Buffalo, Denver, Minnesota, Oakland, New England, and the Jets all had great games on the ground against us.

The Chiefs Defensive lineman did a good job wrapping up (if given a shot) as Kelly Gregg (4), Tyson Jackson (3), Glenn Dorsey (2), and the rest of the lineman (2) combined for just 11 missed tackles all season. All stats are from www.profootballfocus.com data. Derrick Johnson and Jovan Belcher each missed 10 tackles on the season. I wonder how many of those 720 yards after contact was on the Inside Linebackers?

The Chart is looking at the Defensive line as if the Center was at the bottom between the "A" gaps. Glenn Dorsey would be on the Left side and Tyson Jackson on the Right.

Tyson Jackson and the Left side B and C gap run defenders allowed 430 yards, 111 of those were to the Denver Broncos in 2 games played. The Right side surrendered 87 of the combined 337 yards it allowed all season also to the Broncos. The Nose Tackles did their part allowing 77 yards right up the gut to the Broncos.

Geaux Chiefs

My father watched the Royals religiously, every single game with passion. Now I'm not a big baseball fan, so I never got it, the passion I mean. Then I sat down with him, and tried to understand it. It was not the player’s performances he would get excited about. It was not the pitching, the fielding, or the hitting he was concentrating on. It was the game management he was so into. When do you go to the bullpen? Who do you bring out? When do you steal? When do you bunt? I still don't like baseball. The pace is too slow. The players are soft. It's all about the money, and any sport where players can wear jewelry isn't a sport in my book, but I get him now because that's how I am with the Chiefs, and he was too. We are not armchair quarterbacks. We are couch coaches.

I love football because on any given Sunday anything can happen. In my opinion the talent of the skill positions is not the most important factor in consistent winning. While it is a factor, the guys wearing the headsets and the offensive and defensive fronts are far more important. To quote my dad, "You can manufacture runs without homerun hitters." This point is not my main point, so I will only cite one team in recent memory, and that was Dick Vermeil’s Chiefs. We did not have Faulk, Holt, Bruce, or Warner not even close at the skill positions, but that offense was still a juggernaut. My point is all the talent we added these past few months is great, but the thing that will make us winners again is what we let go. Let us recap the past three years from a couch coach's perspective.

In 2009 a short time after the Chiefs hired Todd Haley I remember reading an article in the newspaper about a disgruntled and offended Brian Waters. He went to 1 Arrowhead Drive to introduce himself to the new regime, and the encounter did not leave him with a warm and fuzzy feeling. Flash forward a week after Haley was hired by the Steelers and Big Ben was commenting on how he hadn't got so much as phone call from his new coordinator. This was a foreshadowing of things to come and the first red flag for me.

Dwayne Bowe started the 2009 training camp fourth on the depth chart for no other reason than to prove a point. A point that was apparently more important than getting the best and only receiver synced up with his new quarterback. After a disappointing offensive showing in the preseason Haley fired Chan Gailey weeks before the start of the regular season. Chan Gailey was and still is a respected offensive mind around the league, but he was not Haley’s guy. He already was handcuffed to a quarterback he did not want. I guess since Haley was the one accountable, his words, scrapping the offensive scheme the team had spent the entire offseason practicing right before the start of the season made good football sense to him.

In week one of 2009 against the Ravens Derrick Johnson was benched and only started 3 games that year. One was the last game against Denver where he intercepted 3 passes returning 2 for touchdowns. Many people want to credit benching him for his improvement, but I say that despite his struggles converting from a 4-3 OLB to a 3-4 WILB Derrick Johnson would have made plays all season because that is what he had done since being drafted. He made plays that potentially changed the game. Benching a game changer did not make good football sense to me.

Despite starting as the #4 receiver and serving a 4 game suspension in weeks 10-13 Dwayne Bowe managed to start 9 games in 2009. I think the contradiction there for Haley was better than losing the best player on his side of the ball. I got that because that is how felt about Derrick Johnson, but Bowe was only the best offensive player before Larry Johnson yapped himself out of a job and made way for Jamaal Charles. Before then Charles had doubled Johnson’s per play production in Haley’s offense, but still Haley elected to watch Johnson run into the backs of his offensive linemen and refuse to pass block for the first half of the season. Good football sense tells me to give the guy averaging over 5 yards per carry more carries than the guy averaging 2.

In 2010 Scott Pioli brought in 2 renowned coordinators on both sides of the ball. Two guys Hailey would not dream of challenging for supremacy. The result was a productive 2010 campaign that produced an AFC West title, but sadly ended with a playoff loss to a very good Baltimore Raven team. A game I thought was lost by turnovers in the first half and panicked play calling in the second. I know we were behind, but Jamaal Charles had nearly 100 yards in the first half and was barely used in the second. Instead of staying composed and doing what we did best we turned the game over to Matt Cassel, his only receiver in Dwayne Bowe, and a questionable offensive line in regards to pass protection. Listening to the media give credit to the Ravens for shutting Charles down in the second half was maddening salt to my wounds. That was my only complaint that year.

Finally there was last season, an offense scheme that had 2009 and Todd Haley written all over it. A three coach play calling system that not only caused delay of game penalties and added pressure by taking up precious time, but allowed Haley to put his stamp on every play, and had Jim Zorn acting as Matt Cassel’s handler. We all were there. We saw the injuries. We also saw the transformation under Romeo Crennel. What I saw as couch coach was game planning and play calling that made good football sense in those last few games. I credit those games to the coaching staff not Kyle Orton. The only Orton factor that made a significant impact to me was the decision to start him over Palko. That is also why I knew that if it was not Peyton Manning, no one was going to replace Matt Cassel. I knew there would be no quarterback taken in the draft. I do not think Cassel was ever given a fair chance to succeed with the exception of 2010 given the talent of the line in front of him, and the chaos around him. My only hope is that Brian Daboll is not an offensive genius, but a football coach capable of creating game plans not philosophies, so I did a little checking(on YouTube).

In Miami Daboll used a lot of single back sets. He uses a lot of 2 TE, in fact the TE rarely came out which explains the interest in a third TE like Dallas Clark. Daboll also used a single back with 3 WR, 1 TE, and 1 HB. The TE sometimes lined up tight, other times the TE split out wide, and they even motioned into an empty backfield with that personnel package. Usually when the offense was spread the QB was in shotgun. He also used a 3 HB 2 TE formation splitting one back out wide. My football sense tells me that one might become my favorite considering the backs we have and their skill sets.

One of the things I noticed was his offensive look changed every year depending on the weapons he had at his disposal. The one thing I particularly paid close attention to was the number of players going out into routes on pass plays. That number was consistently 4-5. I’m guessing that is what he meant by an attacking offense. That tickles me especially because if I had to watch our offense run one more 2 route pass play my TV would end up broken because unless you are inside the five that one makes no football sense to me. He ran 469 times and passed 469 times in 2011. I am guessing he favors the ground game because had the Dolphins been winning in more of their games the number of runs would have gone up. I hope he comes up with some 4-5 wide receiver formations because after the draft I like our depth there, and I think it makes good football sense to use that to our advantage.

All in all I am encouraged for no other reason than Todd Haley and his ego are no longer things that will ruin my Sundays. Given the chaos and instability he created particularly on the offensive side of the ball I think this team, Matt Cassel included, is just getting started. I completely understand the "SWAG" the Chiefs organization is displaying that was recently questioned by members of the media. In fact I find it contagious. I am buying in, all in, because so far there has been no foreshadowing or red flags about the 2012 Chiefs. When asked what it is like under Coach Crennel Brandon Flowers gave a telling answer to the past and what is to come. He said "It’s just a positive spirit all the way around. He gives his coaches the leeway to just go out there and just coach without anyone standing over them watching them."

I pray we stay healthy because the stage is set. Call it Cinderella, call it a dog’s day, call it whatever you like because my football sense is tingling and telling me it is our year.

Sorry no pretty pictures. I'm still working on my blogging sense.