Griefs

I really thought the Chiefs could at least beat the Raiders. We played a much, much better team last week and actually made it a fight.

I'm still optimistic, but my 8-8 prediction relied on us at least beating teams like Oakland at home. Now we get to play four ridiculously good teams in a row without so much as an ugly, half-assed win. I still think we can beat one of those four, and I still think there's a lot of good things that will happen when all these incredibly green (but seemingly talented) players start to gel.



For instance, if they can stop making stupid, play negating penalties right and left. That right there, today, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Another thing I thought was encouraging: the fans were into it. It was finally chaos on the field in the fourth quarter for the visiting team trying to play offense. They made mistakes (not enough of them, but still) because they couldn't hear. I've been to some games in recent years where that joint was a ghost town by the fourth quarter, and at least today we kept it interesting enough to prevent a mass exodus at halftime.

Hard for me to be positive, but I'm trying: there's only a few things that matter in the world of football, really. Top of that list are that the Chiefs win and the Raiders lose. No matter what else happens. There are a few things that complicate this world view, such as my near Raider-like disdain for Cowboys (this causes me psychological turbulence when the Raiders play the Cowboys, because they can't both lose that game).

Or my disgust that Michael Vick is back in the league, even if he's still on the bench. So I won't know what to hope for if, say, it's the Eagles versus Raiders or Eagles versus Cowboys. Well, maybe that one's not so hard to figure.0= Al Davis and Jerry Jones are jerks, but I don't suppose they've tortured and killed many animals lately.