KC Replay: Kansas City fans turn page from Chiefs to soccer (baseball too, eventually)
Life comes at you fast in the NFL.
Last Sunday (was it only a week ago?!), the Chiefs were bowing out of the AFC Championship Game with an overtime loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.
Days later, the Eric Bieniemy Interview Tour was back on the road, quarterbacks coach Mike Kafka was leaving to become the New York Giants’ new offensive coordinator and a half-dozen Chiefs players were getting ready to experience something unseen around these parts for a couple of years: members of the Chiefs’ roster playing in a Pro Bowl.
Elsewhere, the city’s pro soccer squads convened for spring camps, college basketball threw down in spite of a Midwest snowstorm and somewhere, someplace, someone presumably was doing something about this bleeping MLB lockout.
Here’s the quick and dirty from the final week of January/first week of February in KC sports.
.JPG "BengalsChiefsFootball (5).JPG")
Season ends in overtime
Fans of the NFL’s other 31 teams probably had smiles on their faces last Sunday night. For the first time since 2019, the Chiefs were eliminated from the postseason before reaching the Super Bowl.
Here in Kansas City, some lamented the Chiefs’ final play of the first half, an ill-fated pass at the goal line when a field goal would’ve made a huge difference in what became a 27-24 defeat. Or the Chiefs’ second-half play-calling. Or the Chiefs’ inability to generate consistent pressure on Cinci signal-caller Joe Burrow. Or all three of those things, and more.
We’re spoiled here, perhaps, by the Chiefs’ many successes since Patrick Mahomes arrived. But soon enough, we’ll be watching the annual scouting combine, and the NFL Draft, and talking about OTAs and minicamp and then it will be time for training camp.
Yes, life comes at you fast in the NFL.
Chiefs coaches = hot commodities
Members of Andy Reid’s coaching staff drew interest from teams with various leadership vacancies.
One, QB coach Mike Kafka (the guy who’s worked most closely with Mahomes of late), left to lead the Giants’ offense under newly hired head coach Brian Daboll — another former Chiefs assistant, albeit under former Chiefs head coach Todd Haley, not Reid.
And the ongoing saga of Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy added another chapter. Now known to have interviewed for no fewer than 15 head-coaching gigs elsewhere, Bieniemy was reportedly interviewing this weekend for the New Orleans Saints’ top job.
Bieniemy’s name also came up in a discrimination lawsuit filed by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores against the NFL and several teams. Flores cited Bieniemy’s inability to land a head-coaching job while “numerous white candidates who are clearly less qualified have taken over the Head Coach duties for numerous NFL teams.”
Respect for women’s pro soccer
It’s been a long time coming, but players in the National Women’s Soccer League finally have a collective-bargaining agreement that paves the way for better base wages, access to free agency (starting in 2023) and increased protection from unconscionable abuses and harassment.
With the new CBA between the league and the players’ union hammered out early in the week, the KC Current and other teams opened training camps in the days that followed. The Current is doing it right, too, trading sub-freezing Kansas City for sunny Florida.
Says here they’ve earned that, as well.
Sporting KC underway in Arizona
Sporting KC also began its own preseason action at its camp in Arizona.
Coach Peter Vermes got to tinker with lineup combinations on Thursday during a 2-2 friendly tie with the Portland Timbers. Nicolas Isimat-Mirin and Johnny Russell scored for Sporting.
Last Saturday, on Jan. 29, Sporting played the Colorado Rapids to a scoreless draw. Tim Melia and John Pulskamp teamed up for a clean sheet in the Desert Showcase match.