In the spring of Coronavirus, the Chiefs and the streets have been quiet
While the world has come to a quiet halt, the Kansas City Chiefs' offseason has been muted as well. But that's okay.
I’m sitting here, self-isolated in my apartment above two closed-until-further-notice bars, and it’s very quiet. It’s not usually quiet. It’s usually very loud. I’ve gotten used to hearing all of my town’s dirty laundry spilling out into the streets. One time a guy got thrown through a window during Oktoberfest. Sometimes sloshed stumblebums ring my video doorbell just to talk to someone.
But for the last week, I’ve been pretty much the only person in my entire neighborhood at night. All I hear is the train going by every hour or so. Sometimes I can feel it coming before I hear it. Once it’s passing by, it’s louder than it ever has been.
Now that you know my living situation, you know I am fully qualified to be a writer. This means I can move on to football.
Being mostly frozen in time, on paper, makes for an almost-ideal scenario to write a whole lot about sports. But like myself, the NFL has been in stasis. Or, at least the Chiefs have. So without a lot going on, I’ve spent a lot of time just sitting in silence in between sessions of Animal Crossing. (Follow me on Twitter and get my friend code so I can come pilfer your bugs.)
I just coast around in my stream of consciousness for a while and hope I find something interesting in there. Mostly, though, it’s stupid and not productive. But that’s true of most things. Like writing about football.
The Chiefs’ offseason has been about as eventful as the streets below me. They didn’t sign Tom Brady or trade for DeAndre Hopkins. They didn’t need to, they won the Super Bowl and already have a better quarterback and receiver. They didn’t change their uniforms or their logo. They didn’t have to, theirs are already perfect.
Have you ever thought about how the Chiefs’ helmet actually has two different logos? They’re one of the only teams like that. It’s just the Chiefs and the Ravens. Every other team with a logo on both sides of their helmet uses either mirrored or identical logos. But not the Chiefs. They’re special and different. Sometimes I look at my replica Chiefs helmet that sits on a shelf in my apartment and think about that. The logo that points to the left is the better one. But they’re both good logos because my team wears them.
I’ve watched the Chiefs win the Super Bowl in those helmets at least 37 times in the last week. All of Joe Buck’s calls have, against my wishes, permanently seared themselves into my being. I can fast-forward to the good plays without even looking at the progress bar. I don’t even feel anything when I watch it anymore. At this point it’s just familiar colors that calm my dumb animal brain.
Chris Jones might sign a multi-year contract for lots of money to stay in his familiar colors. He also might not. If he doesn’t sign a multi-year deal, he could end up wearing unfamiliar colors like green, blue, or dark green. Signing or not signing are the only two versions of Jones’ contract reality that exist in the near-future, which means the only two related emotions that exist for me in the near-future are sad about Chris Jones or sad, but not about Chris Jones.
The NFL Draft will almost-definitely happen in the near-future. Originally it was going to be on the water in Las Vegas and players would travel to the stage on boats. Now the draft will be behind closed doors and everyone everywhere will travel nowhere at all.
The Chiefs have the 32nd pick in the first round of the draft. That’s the last pick, which means they’re the best team. When you have great success in sports, it’s understood that you don’t need nearly as much extra help as the teams with less success. This is a good moral lesson that should be transferred to most things, like the education system or structuring stimulus assistance for a country in crisis.
Crisis is, of course, why I’m sitting here, self-isolated in my apartment above two closed-until- further-notice bars. The train is passing as I’m writing this. For real, this isn’t a convenient fabrication. It’s chugga-chooing as I type these words. My windows are shaking a little.
At some point in the months ahead, everything will return to some new normal. For football, that new normal might be empty-stadium games. It might be everything returning to the way it was, with just a sprinkle of more caution. Whatever that new normal is, I’ll be writing about it and within it here. I’ll figure out a way to make it worth your time. Or I won’t. Those are the only two versions of your future reality with me.
