Mellinger Minutes: How much Chiefs freakout is too much Chiefs freakout?
You could probably guess the general theme of this week’s version of Kansas City’s favorite brand of gimmick sports journalism:
The Chiefs stink.
We will get to all of it — who to blame, how much is fixable with a healthy offensive line, how much is Patrick Mahomes’ ankle, whether there’s any hope for the defense, all of it — but I want to make sure we point a few things out here at the top.
The Chiefs are 4-2.
They are in first place in the AFC West, with a road win over the only other team in the division with a winning record.
They have a new defensive coordinator, with all new assistants, and mostly new players, so let’s not pretend that Week 6 is the finished product.
They have a successful and trusted coach who’s managed his way out of much worse, and done it on teams that did not have the 24-year-old reigning MVP at quarterback.
Two main points here at the top, then:
1. The 2012 version of you desperately wants to punch you in the face for complaining right now.
2. Teams go through stuff. Good teams. Even great teams. Nobody is a finished product in mid-October.
OK. That’s really it for the intro. I just wanted to get that out here, because I’m telling you right at the top: The rest of this is pretty gloomy. If you want a pick-me-up, go pet your dog, or buy a candy bar, or exercise or search for puppy pictures or something.
This week’s reading recommendation is Jeff Passan inside Daniel Hudson’s week that started with the birth of a child and continued with the NLDS and the eating recommendation is the ribs and burnt ends from Danny Edwards*.
* I know I’ve said this before, but Danny Edwards is the most underrated barbecue restaurant in town. Had lunch there yesterday and am reminded it belongs on Kansas City’s top tier, and, dammit, now I’m realizing the Minutes will start arguments about the Chiefs AND barbecue and all I can do is say I’m sorry.
Please give me a follow on Twitter and Facebook and as always thanks for the help and thanks for reading.
The Chiefs have, arguably, been outplayed three weeks in a row. They have, undeniably, been outcoached three weeks in a row. They have a rocket ship quarterback who is hobbling on a bad ankle behind an injured offensive line with a defense that is literally turning the average ballcarrier into Jim Brown*.
* That’s not an exaggeration or a cute line, you guys. The Chiefs are giving up 5.2 yards per carry. Jim Brown averaged 5.2 yards per carry.
But sports make us all crazy. There is a human tendency to believe the only thing that will happen next is what happened last, but that’s no truer with football teams than the weather.
The Chiefs are in a spot now.
They remain likely make the playoffs, regardless of what happens with the run defense, but this season has never been about making the playoffs.
One of the curious aspects of this is the Chiefs’ inability to defend the run is old news. They last finished better than 25th against the run in 2015 which, ahem, is the last year Derrick Johnson was still Derrick Johnson.
You’re asking where I believe this season is headed. I still think they’re the second-best team in the AFC, and that they are the Patriots’ likeliest opponent in the AFC Championship Game.
The last season of Patrick Mahomes’ rookie contract was always going to be judged on whether they could get past the Patriots.
I believe that’s always been about Mahomes being healthy and the run defense getting to at least mediocre.
The next three months are about whether those things can happen.
A list?
A list!
The Top 5 Keys For The Chiefs To Turn Around At This Very Moment In Time:
5. Health. Maybe you think this is a copout. Every team has injuries, and that’s true. But I wonder how much different this all looks if Eric Fisher and Andrew Wylie are playing on the left side of the line. That’s all. To me, the Chiefs are built to win on the margins of offense. The offense scores points, which forces the opposition into bad decisions, and allows Patrick Mahomes to be the team’s best run defender.
They haven’t achieved that yet, and part of it is opponents getting smarter and realizing — as Ravens coach John Harbaugh said — that it’s not a field position game but a possession game.
The Chiefs have not been able to do this as much and — Next Man Up be damned — let’s recognize that Mahomes is hobbled because defenders keep running through backup linemen and the best two receivers have been injured.
Maybe that’s an excuse. But it’s also explanation.
4. Pass rush. The Chiefs hit Deshaun Watson just three times and sacked him zero in 42 dropbacks Sunday. Watson is a terrific athlete and had some quick throws, but he’s also been sacked more than all but four quarterbacks in the league.
I put this stat in last week’s film review of Frank Clark, but entering the Texans game the average time to throw against the Chiefs was 2.75 seconds, which was sixth-longest in the league.
That means the Chiefs aren’t generating much pressure — they are bottom five in hurry percentage, knockdown percentage and pressure percentage according to Pro Football Reference — despite having more time to do it than most.
What’s interesting is that some analytics rate the Chiefs’ pass rush as not just good but great. I’m as much an analytics apologist as anyone else, but this is one where what I watch during games and later on film doesn’t add up.
Completely open-minded that I could be wrong here.
3. Run defense. If you took a poll of the locker room, particularly on defense, this would win in a landslide.
And it should!
They’ve been awful, and football is a manly sport played by manly men and there is nothing less manly than continually having the ball shoved down your pie hole.
I debated pushing this toward No. 1, and I know most would, but maybe I have run defense fatigue. It’s been a problem for so long, and is without even a fly’s crumb of doubt a potential fatal flaw.
I just think two other factors are more important. Let me explain.
2. Offensive line. We covered some of this above in the health section, but it’s worth emphasizing here because Patrick Mahomes is the whole thing. When he’s healthy, he is on a track toward one of the best careers in the history of the sport. When he’s not, he’s more ordinary than you might think.
We pointed this out in the game column, but Mahomes completed 10 of 16 passes for 189 yards before the play in which his ankle appeared to be re-injured. Three of those incompletions, it’s worth noting, happened when his arm or torso were hit as he threw. After the injury, he completed just nine of 19 passes for 84 yards.
It’s enough that Vahe is among those wondering if the Chiefs should let Mahomes get healthy.
“I’m not telling you it doesn’t bother him,” coach Andy Reid said. “But it’s not something that’s hindering him like that. There are other things that go into it.”
That’s fine, but as ESPN’s Bill Barnwell points out, this is a season-long trend.
Mahomes’ ankle has been injured to varying degrees in three games — against the Jaguars, Colts and Texans.
Barnwell charted the plays and found that Mahomes has completed 69.1 percent of his passes for 676 yards (12.3 per attempt), five touchdowns, no interceptions and a 141.1 passer rating in those games before his ankle injuries.
The same research has Mahomes at 57.1 percent completions for 296 yards (6.0 per attempt), two touchdowns, one interception and an 80.0 passer rating after the injuries.
If you want to expand this and include the games he stayed healthy for a bigger sample size, he’s at 65.7 percent completions for 1,808 yards (9.99 per attempt), 12 touchdowns, no interceptions and a 120.6 passer rating with two good ankles.
Reid is undoubtedly correct. There is more that goes into these things than the line of demarcation with Mahomes’ ankle.
But that’s clearly a factor, too.
1. Andy Reid. The Chiefs started 1-5 in 2015, a run that included Jamaal Charles’ ACL tear and the fifth loss coming when a lineman accidentally knocked the ball out of his own running back’s hands.
We did our postgame Facebook Live chat in front of a giant garbage can, because it felt like the most appropriate place.
That Chiefs team then won 11 games in a row, including the franchise’s first playoff win in more than 20 years.
The 2017 Chiefs lost six of seven in the middle of the season, lowlighted by 19 total points in consecutive losses to the sorry Giants and mediocre Bills. They rallied with four straight wins to qualify for the playoffs.
I believe that Reid is the single most important factor not just in those two turnarounds, but also in dragging the Chiefs from the tragic 2-14 season in 2012 to one of the league’s most consistent winners since.
If I’m right about that, it stands to reason that he must be the single most important factor now.
He’s the old offensive line coach who can get an injured line in better position, and the offensive mastermind who can scheme more consistency, and the one who made the bet on his old assistant Spagnuolo helping improve the defense.
I know that’s an oversimplification. Football is complicated. But it all starts with Reid, which brings up the question ...
I guess we’re to the point this is an unpopular take:
Andy Reid is a good football coach.
Look, I know I just wrote that the Chiefs keep making the same mistakes, but I’m going to disagree with a few things here.
I believe one of Reid’s greatest strengths is his ability to correct mistakes, which is related to his open-mindedness about new solutions.
Maybe this goes back to the central point of the moment, about whether you believe this is the time for panic or mere concern. I’m fully on Team Concern for lots of reasons including but not limited to the following:
- Two losses just don’t define a season. Super Bowl winners routinely have lost two or more games in a row. Last year, the Patriots were 1-2 with awful losses to the Jaguars and Lions.
- Reid has climbed out of much worse.
- Too many of the current problems can be directly addressed by Tyreek Hill playing a full game, or Eric Fisher and Andrew Wylie solidifying the left side of the line.
- The Chiefs still employ a smart and successful coach and the 24-year-old reigning MVP at quarterback.
I don’t know whether it’ll be enough to play in the Super Bowl, but I do feel pretty confident that it’s enough to have a chance.
I want to say this without downplaying the current slump, because there are concerning elements of the last two games that aren’t fixed by better health. But it is much likelier that by the end of the regular season this will all be more of a blip on the way to the playoffs than the beginning of the end.
As for what Reid says after games, well, look: I wish he’d be more open because it would make for better #content, but I think we can all recognize why he does what he does.
When things go well, he compliments his coaches and especially the players.
When things don’t go well, it’s I’ve gotta do a better job.
That works on a lot of levels. Attitude reflects leadership, so this is a fairly simple way for Reid to establish the expectation that everyone holds themselves accountable. It limits the finger-pointing and throws some doubt into any criticisms that focus on a particular player.
Reid looks at interviews as less an opportunity to tell fans exactly what’s happening and more as one more tool to use in coaching his football team.
All coaches do that, at least to some degree. Reid is better at it than most.
I asked Spagnuolo a version of this question the other day: Are you 100 percent sure you have the personnel to do what you want?
“I love working with these guys,” he said. “If you were in my shoes and saw the way they work every week ... whatever it is they can do they’re doing it and more. They care about it. I can work with guys like that. They care, they’re passionate, and they hurt as much as anybody.”
Now, fine. It would’ve been a heck of a story if he said the linebackers are too slow and he needs another pass rusher, right?
But the overall point is something I think a lot of us would agree with. It’s not effort. I do believe the Chiefs have a good locker room, and that this group is focused. Teams behave a little differently when they truly believe they have a chance at the Super Bowl. That’s what the Chiefs have right now.
My sense is that the players are good enough. I don’t have a strong feel either way about the scheme, mostly because I believe Spagnuolo and his assistants are still figuring out who does what the best.
The biggest problem that shows up on tape is simple execution.
That word has become one of sports’ biggest cliches, but that’s what I see: defensive ends (especially Frank Clark) setting edges, and interior linemen like Derrick Nnadi sucking up blockers, and then too many moments where the linebackers are late, in the wrong gap or just miss the tackle.
Maybe you would see the same thing and diagnose the problem as talent, because more talented linebackers would make those plays.
And maybe you’d be right.
But these guys have all performed before. Anthony Hitchens built a solid reputation for himself in Dallas. Damien Wilson had what is still one of the best plays of the year by anyone on defense with the pursuit-and-strip of Leonard Fournette on a third down in Week 1.
The linebackers, in general, played pretty well the first two or three weeks.
That’s changed dramatically in the last three or four weeks.
I could only guess as to whether that’s regression or something the opponents are doing or a failure by the Chiefs’ coaches.
My best guess is that this is a combination of facing better competition, coaches still searching for comfort and the ensuing knock in confidence.
This was always a defense that was going to have to win with execution and one guy doing his subtle job to help the guy next to him do his more noticeable job. There are instances of that breaking down all over the place.
I believe the internal outlook was that this defense would be better equipped to get off the field on third downs, which would allow the offense more opportunities.
My sense is the expectation was that more speed at linebacker and more muscle across the line would make a significant difference against the run and, well, screw it — we’re all friends here, right?
I think they might still end up being correct!
Whatever it’s worth, the Chiefs are top half in red zone defense after ranking 29th last year and league average on third-down percentage after ranking 25th last year. They’re also now tied for ninth in takeaways.
I’m not making the argument that the Chiefs’ defense has been good, or even average, or even better than crap.
I’m making the argument that there are a few encouraging signs around the wreckage and that even as it’s no longer early, it’s also not yet late.
They should get more than six games before we decide what they are.
Not all of you agree with me ...
Did you guys see how much Pro Football Focus loved Frank Clark against the Texans?
I have to tell you: I don’t necessarily agree, but then, that’s the point of analytics, right?
Anyway, I reference the grade as a reminder that football is complicated. There is a credible argument — and it was made to me by someone who knows WAY more football than most of us — that it’s unfair to blame Frank Clark for Deshaun Watson’s last touchdown, the one that proved to be the game winner.
The argument is that it wasn’t on Clark, that his job on that play was to keep Watson from bouncing outside and allow teammates to swarm.
I can see the perspective. Derrick Nnadi wasn’t exactly hustling over to help. Reggie Ragland didn’t need to step back to double an already covered receiver and then took a bad angle after Watson spun.
I can see all that.
I also see a guy with $63 million in guarantees and nobody blocking him four yards from the goal line one-on-one with the quarterback and giving up the touchdown.
Anyway, no matter how you see that play the point is that there are more solutions than are immediately obvious on the surface.
Again, my point isn’t that all is well, and that Kansas City will host another parade in February.
My point is that it’s not as bad as it looks at the moment, and that a path exists to get to the other side.
That path is not guaranteed. It depends not just on better health — Jones is better than he used to be against the run, but the real impact is that they can’t rush the quarterback without him — but faster feet and surer tackling and a roster and coaching staff that better understand each other.
I’ll say it one more time: This is not an argument that the Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl.
It’s an argument that if we judged last year’s Super Bowl winner after six games we’d have seen that they gave up 40 at home in one game, and scored just 10 in a blowout loss to a non-playoff team in another.
This may be a rut the Chiefs just can’t get out of.
But we can’t know that yet, and we do know that Reid has escaped worse.
I don’t want to ignore your point about Veach, so ...
Veach’s eye and aggression were critical in the team trading up for Patrick Mahomes, and without that the Chiefs are in a much different and much worse place. Maybe they’re a cornerback or middle linebacker away right now, but that’s better than being a quarterback away.
He’s only been the GM for two drafts, and he hasn’t picked higher than 46 in either. Nnadi has shown some promising signs, and I was really looking forward to how Breeland Speaks might perform in the 4-3 before his injury.
In the most recent draft, Mecole Hardman and Juan Thornhill both look like good players. The rest of the class hasn’t played enough to say.
Now, the reason they didn’t have a first-round pick this year is because Veach traded the pick (and a second, and a swap of third-rounders) for Frank Clark.
If the Chiefs missed on that decision, well, it’s not as bad as the Mahomes pick was good ... but it would be a lot to overcome.
Let me be clear: Clark has shown some promising moments, and it remains far too early to say what he’ll be here.
I believe the front office navigated the Tyreek Hill mess well this offseason, found low-cost and effective offensive linemen, the LeSean McCoy signing has shown to be smart, and they’ve continued to surround Mahomes with pass-catching talent in Sammy Watkins and Mecole Hardman.
But that’s the offense.
Veach’s biggest challenge has been in reshaping the defense.
They’ve added depth across the line and vastly improved the safety position, but at least at the moment that’s being muted by a linebacking group struggling to keep up.
And, really, that’s the biggest knock on Veach.
Under his watch the Chiefs have used a third-round pick (Dorian O’Daniel), a fourth-round pick (trade for Reggie Ragland), a sixth-round pick (trade for Darron Lee) and two free-agent contracts to bolster the linebackers.
Damien Wilson’s deal was for two years and $5.75 million. Not huge money in the world of the NFL, particularly with free agency.
But Anthony Hitchens signed for five years and $45 million with $21.3 million guaranteed. The Chiefs really can’t get out of the deal for a worthwhile savings until 2022, and even that would come with $4.2 million in dead money.
So, really, a disproportionate amount of this comes down to Hitchens and Clark.
If Hitchens can be effective against the run in Steve Spagnuolo’s system, then everything else starts to look better. If the Chiefs can even get to the low 20s against the run it at least eliminates this thoroughfare opponents now have to the end zone and allows everyone else to shine a little more.
But I want to emphasize one more point here.
Any criticism of Veach is, by extension, a criticism of Reid. They are tied together, the same way Spagnuolo and Reid are tied.
Veach is the GM because he built a reputation as a good scout and has a strong relationship with Reid. They work well together, with plenty of communication and collaboration.
That didn’t always happen with the last GM, which is why the Chiefs had an opening.
So if the Chiefs get to the point where they decide Veach isn’t the answer — and let me be particularly clear in saying I don’t think we’re even close — then they might be to the point where they should know that Reid isn’t the answer either.
But, there’s also this thing in journalism called burying the lead and ...
This is a very real problem.
The Chiefs will be trying to build a Super Bowl winner with (at least) one more very large cap hit than they are currently carrying while drafting toward the end of every round — and that’s if everything goes well.
In the world of professional football, the challenge of winning a Super Bowl with an MVP quarterback who’s being paid close to market value is one of them good problems.
And I do think, for instance, the Sammy Watkins contract wouldn’t happen if Mahomes was making real money and established himself this way. So there are paths.
Look, I don’t know how else to say it: I know the theme of the week is that Veach doesn’t know a linebacker from a line-stepper but (call me nuts) I believe the guy still knows some football.
I also believe the whole thing is, was, and always will be a partnership between the front office and Andy Reid.
Reid has said the problems at the end in Philadelphia came as he took over too much work outside the normal control of coaching, and while he undoubtedly has more personnel influence now than the first year or two with John Dorsey I find it hard to believe he’d make the same mistake again.
The job of building a winner will be more difficult when Mahomes is making more money, but if you don’t trust Veach and Reid to do it then the Chiefs are in much worse shape than any two-game losing streak.
You guys, this is rushing toward crisis, and I want to drop a disclaimer.
No NFL season in recent memory has happened without many, many fans and media criticizing the officials. Every season is called the worst officiated in human history. I’m among those who routinely meet that with rolling eyes. Remember the year the officials went on strike?
But, wait!
I’m all-in this year. It’s awful. The remarkably awkward offensive pass interference reviews have added a nice comedic cherry on top, but there’s enough meat on the bone here for the officiating to carry the day without it.
There is no way to measure these things, but it sure seems like officials are missing more calls than usual or missing more calls in critical spots than usual. They had the botched ending of the Saints-Texans game, the nonsensical handling of the Travis Kelce defensive holding the other day at Arrowhead, and so many mistakes in the Monday Night game that Lions fans can justifiably feel jobbed.
And those are only the calls I’m thinking of at the moment.
I don’t know what the solution is, but I have a few ideas.
I’ve always thought it’s indefensible that a $15 billion industry leaves such regularly critical decisions in the hands of part-time employees. That seems obvious. I understand the argument that some of the best officials have outside financial interests that are more lucrative than officiating, but to me, that’s part of the problem.
NFL officials reportedly make an average of $201,000. That’s real money to a lot of us, but MLB umpires reportedly can make up to $350,000.
This is sort of an apples-to-tables comparison, because the baseball season is so much longer and more of a grind, but what if the NFL made officiating worth a full-time gig?
I’m just throwing this out there, but scale the salaries so that they double within 10 years. The league employs 122 officials, so the raises would eventually mean paying $24.5 million more than they pay right now. But how much is public faith worth?
The NFL has said it hopes to bring in $25 billion annually by 2025. The increase in referee pay would amount to 0.1 percent of that. Hell, maybe doubling salaries isn’t enough.
The return, at least in theory, would be a workforce that is 100 percent focused on the cause and 100 percent available to be as effective as possible. That’s time for more training, more film, more accuracy.
Maybe you lose some officials who want more flexibility in their lives, but you should be able to build a better roster with what’s left.
The NFL could also invest in developing future officials. Baseball does this with its minor leagues, but the NFL essentially just uses colleges. There has to be some more investment the league could do to improve its prospects.
It’s a start.
I also think the league could help officials with technology. Reviews could be streamlined, and maybe I’m off my rocker but I really liked the Alliance’s system where everything was handled by the booth.
I think there’s real potential there, and would get closer to what I think a lot of us have always believed was the purpose of replay: to correct what should’ve been seen by the naked eye, and not what could never be seen in real time.
This may sound like a small thing, but I saw a suggestion on Twitter that the NFL (finally) take spotting duties away from officials. Put chips in the balls and let someone upstairs handle spots, freeing officials to concentrate on penalties. The system they use now is a joke anyway, so worst-case scenario you get more accuracy on spots.
I obviously don’t know if any of this would help. I think it would, but I’m also sure there are factors I’m unaware of. Which brings us to the only point on here of which I’m certain:
Some element of imperfection is inevitable. Officials are far better than we give them credit for, and the irony is that the more we complain about the mistakes the more tomorrow’s officials are going to find something else to do with their time and the worse the problem is going to be.
Yeah, if you’re talking about transparency you know I’m going to agree. We have some ideas about who is in the group, but obviously if we knew enough to report those names we’d have done it already.
I don’t know why it’s a secret. Maybe the minority investors are deferring to the process, or deferring to John Sherman. Maybe they don’t want to be bothered. Who knows.
The point you make is valid, that the more public the process the better chance MLB would have of avoiding or addressing potential problems.
But I also know it’s in MLB’s own interests for the vetting process to be as thorough as possible, so in a way, keeping the other names secret only means the commissioner’s office needs to be even more certain.
I don’t know that we’ll ever know all the names, and I’m even less sure we’ll know who has exactly what stake. Even now, Sherman’s specific interest in the Indians has never been publicly disclosed.
Baseball teams aren’t public companies, so this is their right. Sherman was already vetted when he bought into the Indians, so baseball has a pretty good idea who it’s working with.
So, sure, I’d love to know everyone involved. But I understand why that hasn’t happened, and that keeping the secret only amplifies the problems if MLB’s vetting process missed anything.
In most of the ways that matter ... all of them.
I’m still a fan. I probably always will be. Just the other night, I had the Lions-Packers game on and woke my wife up screaming at this throw by Aaron Rodgers:
I mean, that’s art. I feel the same way watching Zion Williamson dunk at Duke, or this absurd touchdown by Najee Harris, or pretty much anything Gerrit Cole does.
So it’s not that having this weird job prevents you from being a fan. It just changes the way you’re a fan. It’s not better, it’s not worse, it’s just different.
You’ve heard me talk about this before, so I won’t bore you with a repeat. But I do think I can focus the thought a bit toward what you’re asking.
I can’t be a fan of the Chiefs, Royals, Sporting or any of the local colleges the way I might if I had a real job. What that means, in practice, is that I’m never really rooting for any local team to win or lose beyond what it does for me.
Like, if I have a good column in mind that depends on Charvarius Ward making an interception or Skylar Thompson throwing a touchdown then you’re damn right I’m hoping those things happen.
But mostly I’m just hoping something interesting happens.
I know the fan-as-writer thing has been popular for many years now, but it’s just not how I can do my job best or most honestly. The Chiefs winning or losing can’t determine my day, because when they’re playing I need to make my day about writing the best column possible.
I can’t do that if I’m going Chris Farley with my chance to get insight in the locker room after a win, and I can’t do it if I’m angry after a loss.
I love watching games as much as ever, and in some ways more. It’s just that instead of a team, I’m more a fan of moments.
There are times those things pour into my job, like the 2014 and 2015 Royals runs or basically anything Patrick Mahomes does on two good ankles.
But my professional worth is only as much as I’m able to find something interesting for you, and I’m not good enough to do it if I’m fogged with emotion.
I’ve done two as-told-to books* but if what you’re asking about is something that’s more my own story, or at least driven by my own reporting, then the answer is absolutely yes.
* The Art of Scouting, with my friend Art Stewart, and Guardian of the Golden Gate, about a fascinating man who patrolled the American landmark that became one of the world’s most prolific suicide destinations.
To do a book the right way I think at least two things have to be in place:
1. You can’t imagine not doing the book.
1. A compelling reason exists as to why you are uniquely qualified to do this specific book.
There are probably times that the first can be the answer for the second, but either way, a book project is a massive undertaking and I don’t ever want to get to a spot where I want to quit after a few months. I’ve done that a few times already, actually, with book ideas that will never see the light of day*.
* Yes, absolutely, maybe that’s a good thing. One you guys really would’ve loved. The other would’ve been done from a sense of duty to impress a publisher enough to get to do a second project that would be my idea.
I have a notes file on my phone of various ideas, but for the most part the books I feel drawn to are not books that a sports writer in Kansas City would be obviously qualified to write. That’s a potential problem.
I’m most naturally interested in sports and raising kids. That’s pretty much my entire life right now, and I can think of a book project that I’d be psyched to do that would be at the intersection of those two things but I’m not sure it would sell more than six copies.
That notes file has probably had 20 or 25 different ideas in it at one time or another. There’s only one that’s lasted more than a year and, if I’m honest, it’s probably the one I’ll end up pursuing.
I try to be completely transparent here. I’ve probably overshared at times. But I hope you understand why I’d like to keep the idea a secret. There are a dozen steps I’d need to take before even beginning the project and — especially right now, in the middle of football season — I’m not particularly motivated to start today.
I’ll only say this: If done correctly the book would marry the best of sports, the best of life and honor the memory of someone who deserves it.
This week I’m particularly grateful for technology. In the last few weeks we’ve replaced a horribly outdated home security system with one that actually works, replaced a sprinkler system control box that was probably built in the last century with a wifi controller, and done the same with our thermostat. We have an old house, so on some level I guess I thought we were stuck with some old stuff, but holy cow there are times that technology makes life so much easier and even saves some money.
This story was originally published October 16, 2019 at 5:00 AM.