A Polite Message to the NFL...

I'll start by saying I've been a football fan since Moses was a corporal. More than 65 years, I believe.  Not that I'm counting or anything.

And having been born and raised in and around Kansas City, Missouri, my natural tendency is to root for the Chiefs.  Big Time.  First, last and always.  So much so that I had a 53-yard line seat on the third row back at Super Bowl IV.  

And William Boyd, who played TV's Hopalong Cassidy, happened to be sitting behind me!  How about that?  

January the 11th, it was, 1970, when Kansas City whipped the Viking's butt, 23 - 7.  And the then-quarterback Lenny Dawson connected for an unheard of 16 passes in a row, to set a new NFL record.  And Jan Stenerud, their Swedish field goal kicker, connected for an unheard of 100% of all his attempts that year.  

Oh yeah, I paid a whopping $56 dollars for that seat.  My, how times have changed...

Anyway, I've still been a Chiefs fan, no matter how well or how badly they've played.  Or at least I have, up until just recently...

Somehow Chiefs football has morphed into the Pat and Trav and Tay show.  Whenever "Tay's" jet brings her to a game, you can assume the camera will be on her about 20% of the time.  Then flashed to the "Jumbotron."  And then on Travis for his reaction.  It's disconcerting.  It's unnecessary.  It's a diversion.  And it's likely helped cause K.C.'s season to come apart at the seams.  

The way they've played over the past 3 weeks is horrid.  That's one thing.  But the way its "stars" have behaved is quite another.  They've acted like children!  Twenty-something $Multi-Millionaires who weren't getting their way!  On world-wide television!  With millions and millions of impressionable folks observing them behaving badly.  I was ashamed for them, even as they were not ashamed for themselves.  Simply stated, they raised my blood pressure to hitherto untold levels.

So I've thrown the flag and penalized the Chiefs 1 full game as a result.  I'm not watching if they're playing.  No matter what.  They pissed me off.  

As the guy once said, "You win some, you lose some."  And being able to both win and lose gracefully should be required of "role models" like these.  When they don't, they should be called out for their disgraceful acts.  And I'm calling them out.

If you'd like to know class, I give you Brock Purdy.  This kid from San Franpoopco collapsed on TV a week ago like no other QB has ever collapsed.  He threw 5 interceptions.  Unheard of.  Blew a lead and lost to a team he should have beaten.  I doubt I could have withstood the scorn heaped his way were I in his cleats.  Yet, he soldiered through it all gracefully.  And won some grudging acceptance - from me at least - as a result.  

Here's something I'd like the NFL to know.  My allegiance to a team, or to any person or institution, including the NFL, is not unlimited.  I've been offput by the flurry of yellow flags flying after every other play, for example.  That's been one thing.  Seems like if it's fun, it's now illegal.  And the laundry comes out.  And then we add uncalled for diversions, and conferences between the refs, and it ceases to be football.

But now we get this "Hollywood-ification" of one of our last remaining pure sports.  A lot of old-timey football fans, the folks who count, the folks with enough $Dough to buy tickets, including me, are getting fed up with all of this.  

They might want to remember that...