Arrowheadlines: Chiefs News 8/23

Morning. Not a lot of Kansas City Chiefs news out there today. Still no updates on Maurice Leggett as far as I can tell. Enjoy.

Flowers was a split-second late in going after the interception, and he paid for his failed gamble. Tampa Bay’s Micheal Spurlock instead made the catch along the sideline, and with Flowers out of position to make the tackle the Chiefs had nobody to catch Spurlock.

Spurlock easily made his way to the end zone for the 53-yard touchdown, which turned out to be the deciding play in the Chiefs’ 20-15 defeat.

Flowers was immediately pulled out of the game in favor of Maurice Leggett. But coach Todd Haley indicated Flowers was not being benched; nor was the move a sign the Chiefs are unhappy with their third-year cornerback.

"Brandon is not one of the guys right now that I’m worried about not getting it," Haley said. "Brandon’s on board and has a chance to be a real good player for us."

Chiefs Still Confident in Brandon Flowers from KC Star

Being a fan is hard. The emotional investment one places in the Kansas City Chiefs makes it almost impossible to view them objectively. Some will try to stay optimistic and upbeat and others will will set the bar low for fear of again feeling the disappointment they know so well.

Thus when we review the events of last night’s game in our heads, we must strive to take the very worst and the very best and use them as anchors to establish a more realistic view.

Before going on, I want to establish two ground rules for this evaluation. The first is that I am talking only about the first team. While what happened in the second half isn’t irrelevant, it is much less a reliable vision of what the 2010 Chiefs will resemble than what we saw in quarters 1 and 2. Many of the players on the field in the 2nd half will never have careers in the NFL.

Chiefs vs. Buccaneers Wrap Up: Set Your Anchors from Arrowhead Addict

On the positive side, and in a development foreign to all Chiefs fans, the team didn't waste a single time out in the second half so even with Tampa taking over the ball with barely a minute left to go, the Chiefs defense was able to stop the Bucs on three consecutive runs up the middle, calling a time out after each play and forcing a punt on fourth down. Bucs coach Raheem Morris  had punter Brent Bowden run out of the back of the end zone for a 2-point safety and allowing Bowden to get a free kick to the Chiefs on the 20-yard line instead of trying to punt it out of the back of the end zone. The safety made the score 20-15 Tampa Bay.

Kansas City Chiefs lose 20-15 to Tampa Bay in Second Pre-Season Game from Examiner.com

The Kansas City Chiefs battled the Tampa Bay Bucs on Saturday night at Raymond James Stadium and came away on the wrong end of the scoreboard, losing the game 20-15.

There was, however, some good things to come out of this game for the Chiefs, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Although it wasn't able to put up a lot of points, the Kansas City offense performed very well overall.

In this article, I gave some observations of what I saw in the Chiefs game against Tampa.

Kansas City Chiefs Preseason: Offense Observations from Game Two from Bleacher Report

WEDNESDAY

WILL SHIELDS AUTOGRAPH SESSION: Former Chiefs lineman Will Shields will be signing autographs during the T-Bones game against the Gary SouthShore RailCats; the game begins at 7:05 p.m. at CommunityAmerica Ballpark; tbonesbaseball.com.

The Week Ahead: Run in the Head for the Cure 5K race from KC Star

When the Colombo Club was founded in 1920, members could get a night of dinner and dancing for $2.50.

At the 90th anniversary party Saturday night, a prime rib dinner with all the fixings went for $20, and some 500 members and their guests turned out to eat, drink, socialize and work to continue the preservation of Italian-American heritage in Oakland...

...Football's Wendall Hayes, who played for the Kansas City Chiefs, and Fred Biletnikoff and John Vella, formerly of the Oakland Raiders, still attend the monthly dinners.

Italian-American club celebrates 90 years in Oaklandd from The Oakland Tribune

The News notes that many teams manipulate salary cap numbers through signing bonuses, even so the bottom teams in cap spending are Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Jacksonville, falling more than $27 million short of last year’s salary cap, a cap which would have increased in 2010.  It has been predicted that several teams will spend less than $90 million on players this season.

NFL Teams Making Money By Not Spending on Players from The Biz of Football