Good morning, Chiefs fans. Today's Kansas City Chiefs news is here, and the organization is taking a bit of a beating for some of the cuts that are taking place. Oh, and there's still a lockout.
As the lockout continues, we are trying to provide a very personal look at some of the unknown players on the roster that might be able to step up and provide some help on the field during the 2011 season. Last week we featured WR Verran Tucker. This week it’s DT Anthony Toribio.Player Profile... DT Anthony Toribio from Bob Gretz
Today, we’re compelled to specifically mention one team that has no legitimate reason to reduce employee pay, and to ask that team to stop doing it. Per the Kansas City Star, Chiefs owner Clark Hunt (pictured) has said that his team is "leading the league in new ticket sales by a significant margin." And the Chiefs, like the Buccaneers, took full advantage of the absence of a spending minimum in 2010, with salary commitments as of the middle of September in the neighborhood of $90 million, well below the point at which the salary floor would have been.
So why are the Chiefs cutting employee pay during the lockout? It’s a question that every affected employee — and his or her family members — should be asking.
Chiefs Should Rescind Lockout Pay Cuts from Pro Football Talk
NFL players urged a federal appeals court Friday to declare the lockout illegal, saying the league had no right to impose a work stoppage that is now approaching three months with no sign of a deal that will save the 2011 season.
In a courtroom packed with some 200 people, including out-of-work players and retirees on folding chairs brought in to handle the crowd, attorneys on both sides of the bitter labor fight got roughly 30 minutes each to make their cases.
NFL Players Urge Appeals Court to Lift Lockout from KC Star
However, I didn't want to leave you completely empty-handed for the entire week, so here's a brief article - utilizing the first game we'll review next week, Week 8 in Kansas City, as evidence - on the nature of the NFL as a game of matchups.This is just one tiny, nearly insignificant example of the chess match that goes on between two teams in any given game. This play is an example of coaches creating favorable matchups for their players, and also of players remaining disciplined and limiting damage - or "living to play another down," as they say.
On NFL Matchups and Buffalo's Defensive Personnel from Buffalo Rumblings
Kansas City: The Chiefs usually stay away from troubled players, and they just used their first-round pick on a receiver, so I don't think they'd be major players. Chances: Low
Could Burress be AFC West-bound? from ESPN
Conversely, the group of owners who’ve done right by their employees includes the Cleveland Browns’ Randy Lerner, the Dallas Cowboys’ Jerry Jones and the Oakland Raiders’ Al Davis (who has also mandated that staffers sell season-ticket plans to avoid a pay cut). Several teams (the Indianapolis Colts, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks) have promised not to cut coaching staff pay, even if the lockout extends into the season, and the Carolina Panthers’ Jerry Richardson has commendably told employees they won’t suffer any negative financial ramifications – regardless of whether it lasts several months past September.Owners Bullying Coaches, Staffers With Pay Cuts from Yahoo! Sports
Three Blue Springs siblings – Jacob, 11, Alaina, 8, and Rachel Straub, 6 – and neighborhood friend Ella Phillips got so upset watching the footage of tornado-ravaged Joplin that they were compelled to do what they could to help out.
Here’s what happened, according to their mother Regina Straub:
Lemon Aid: Children Help Joplin One Drink at a Time from The Patriot Ledger
Chiefs Pro Bowler Deron Cherry
Cherry has been a season-ticket holder at Kansas Speedway since it opened in 2001. He has driven the pace car. He was grand marshal. He dropped the green flag for the first ARCA race at the facility...
"...We had been going to Daytona for about three years," Cherry recalled. "Dale winds up winning the 500 that year. We're in victory lane, and he looks at my son, and said, 'Little D, you were my good-luck charm,' and he looks at me and says, 'Big D, you were my good-luck charm,' and then he looks at Rick Sutcliffe and says, 'Now I know who my bad-luck charm has been all these years."
Top-Tier Auto Racing Has an Allure for Many Pro Athletes from American Chronicle