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We seem to have taken a wrong turn someplace on the messaging for the Kansas City Chiefs game in London.
Shortly after it was announced that the Chiefs would be playing the Detroit Lions in London later this year (and after Chiefs president Mark Donovan said a Super Bowl bid is not directly related to the London game), Chiefs owner Clark Hunt suggested that the London game was connected to the possibility of a Super Bowl bid for Kansas City.
Hunt said the league passed a recently amended resolution from 2006 that requires teams that play host to a Super Bowl to also be host to an overseas game, and he is hopeful his team's decision to surrender their home-field advantage against the Lions will take care of that obligation for the next four or five years as it pursues a Super Bowl bid.
"I can't look too far in the future, but one of the things that factored into my thought process was by doing this next year, this takes care of part of our obligation in the short run," Hunt said.
Read that and try to marry that with this from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
Roger Goodell on possibility of a Super Bowl in Kansas City: "That's not being seriously contemplated." #chiefs
— Jeff Rosen (@jeff_rosen88) April 24, 2015
There was speculation & reports that playing in London could open the door to a KC Super Bowl. Goodell says there's no connection. #chiefs
— Jeff Rosen (@jeff_rosen88) April 24, 2015
Let's go back again to Clark Hunt, who is on the NFL's international committee, when he spoke to reporters following the London announcement and he said it was more about the cold weather in Kansas City.
"I think Mark [Donovan], when he spoke to you guys on Thursday, mentioned that, really, from a Kansas City standpoint, it's more about the weather," said Hunt, who said he was traveling when the news broke Thursday. "That's the first hurdle we have to jump over. The league is going to have to make the decision to take the Super Bowl back to a cold-weather site."
Again, try to harmonize Hunt's statements with this from Goodell.
It's not the issue of cold weather: "We have teams that play here (NY) in cold weather," Goodell said. #Chiefs
— Jeff Rosen (@jeff_rosen88) April 24, 2015
Am I the only one who is confused here? The idea of a KC Super Bowl was always a huuuuge long shot so I certainly didn't expect it but something got lost in translation here.