Mellinger Minutes: Time for wasp? Keeping the Chiefs together, and ... the Royals?
The cliche most often used for these situations is “been living under a rock” but in this specific situation it’s more like “been living in Kansas City during its first Super Bowl in 50 years.”
My hangover lasted long enough that I didn’t realize the Oscars happened the other night until Twitter started talking about a bunch of movies I’ve never seen.
As a quick aside, every Oscars makes me feel like a cross between the stupid old football coach who talks about “Twitbook” and “Instaface” when (not)humble-bragging about how out of touch they are, and the way people who genuinely do not care about football must feel every year during the Super Bowl.
I digress.
If I had to do a pie chart of what I’ve thought about the last week, the section labeled “wasp” and the section labeled “my children” would be closer to the same size than I should probably admit publicly.
Over the last few weeks (months, if I’m being honest) I’ve thought way too much about Kendall Fuller’s willingness to shift off his position in a contract year, Chris Jones’ true value, how long Travis Kelce might maintain his peak and the beautiful sports magic that is a dozen dominoes falling the Chiefs’ way on their way to the Super Bowl.
What I haven’t thought much about is, well, basically anything else.
But I’ve done a crash course, and am here to share my findings.
The Royals are talking a good game, and talking about competing, and it’s just hard to see. I’ll be at spring training in a few weeks and I’m guessing I’ll leave more optimistic than I’ll arrive. But it’s a long way from 103 losses to competing, and it’s telling that even with the breakouts from Hunter Dozier and Jorge Soler and even with Whit Merrifield being Whit Merrifield, the Royals were next-to-last in the league in runs last season.
Even if the pitching takes a leap that’s a long way to go. And the pitching had more holes than even a few intriguing prospects can fill.
We’ll talk more about this below, but I do think the Royals can be a fairly interesting 93-or-so loss team.
How’s that for marketing?
College basketball is pretty drab. This is just a mock draft, so whatever, but the first eight players listed on NBAdraft.net include one star on a top 10 team. The rest currently play for two bubble teams, two non-tournament teams, one Israeli team and two more guys working out on their own.
The game lacks firepower, and that was true even before Iowa State’s Tyrese Haliburton suffered a season-ending injury.
Locally, Kansas is again (and deservedly) in the top 5. They’re very good! Devon Dotson should land on an All-America team, and Udoka Azubuike is awful to play against. But there are enough holes (three-point shooting and passing, most notably) to see some matchups that would be a nightmare in March.
Kansas State and Missouri are un-good.
Look, you guys. I don’t always tell you what you want to hear. I can only always tell you what I think.
Then again, Super Bowl mic’d up.
Please give me a follow on Twitter and Facebook and as always thanks for your help and thanks for reading.
I am a terrible businessman. I wouldn’t know the actual first thing about starting a business, or running one. I would be awful when it came time to fire someone, and awful when it came time to talk money.
But I know this: “Do we have time to run wasp?” is a best-selling T-shirt waiting to be made.
Has it already been made?*
* UPDATE: It has been made. I’d have gone with black play design, but you know what they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or something.
Because it should be made. It should be made right now, but only because it’s technically impossible for it to be made yesterday.
Red shirt, gold letters, with black X’s and O’s underneath with the play design. The shirt is so good you wouldn’t even have to make it out of that super soft tri-blend stuff ... though, if you’re still making stiff cotton T-shirts in 2020 you are a monster and should be ashamed of yourself.
We are raising a generation of kids who will know nothing but life with Patrick Mahomes as their quarterback. That is a stunning fact, and I know it’s more personal with sons who are 5 and 3, but it’s why I wrote the parade column the way I did.
Do you know how angry you’d be if you were a Bears fan, and your team traded UP to take Mitch Trubisky because the men in charge could not stand the possibility of being stuck with a choice between Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson?
Do you know how angry you’d be if you were a Bills fan, and your team traded the pick that turned into Mahomes because it was building around Tyrod Taylor and Nathan Peterman (and drafted Josh Allen the next year)? Tre’Davious White is a tremendous cornerback, taken with the Chiefs’ original pick, and the Bills have made two postseasons in three years for the first time this century.
But, still. That trade is one of football’s all-time screw jobs.
Do you know how frustrated you’d be if you were a fan of the Broncos, Chargers, or Raiders, and your team is stuck in a division that’s been won four years in a row by the team with the 24-year-old MVP/Super Bowl-winning quarterback? The Dolphins, Jets and Bills have shown how much fun it is competing against that kind of thing.
There will be a time when this all wears off. The Chiefs have been upwardly mobile for years, but there is no more up to go from a Super Bowl parade. Trying to repeat is a lot different than the chase.
There will be disappointments. Contracts will backfire, or the wrong injury will happen. The Chiefs won’t win the next 20 Super Bowls.
I thought Steven made a hell of a point in my hour on the Border Patrol: Even if the Chiefs have the kind of long-term success that the most optimistic fan might expect, it will never again feel like this.
You never forget your first time, as the saying goes, and for the vast majority of Chiefs fans this is their first time rooting for a Super Bowl champion.
Mahomes is a magician, and he’s on a two-year run of turning the amazing into the routine, but forgetting how special he is would be the ultimate waste.
The Chiefs have a chance to be the team of the new decade. They face a million difficult decisions, and have to get most of them right for any of this to happen. We’ll get into that more below.
The quarterback can cover a lot of holes, but for the sake of anyone who lived through Grbac over Gannon, or Matt Cassel pretending to be a franchise quarterback, or any of the other indignities we don’t need to rehash here, I hope you all do your best to remember that Mahomes quarterbacking your team for the next 15 or so years is one of the greatest sports gifts imaginable.
Multiple things can be true:
- Chris Jones, Travis Kelce, and Patrick Mahomes would each genuinely prefer to play their whole careers with the Chiefs.
- Super Bowl week is a time for maximum good vibes, the time of their professional lives, so even by NFL Players Speaking Publicly standards you’re going to get extreme positivity.
- The business of football is a mother.
Part of the gift of Mahomes is that he is an apparently flawless leader. He says the right things always and has the combination of hard work and otherworldly talent that commands respect. He can speak comfortably to anyone in the locker room, or any coach, and with the diversity of backgrounds on an NFL roster that’s no small thing.
So, right away, the Chiefs’ “culture” is going to be one that a lot of guys want to be part of.
Kelce is in line for a raise whenever George Kittle gets paid, and Chris Jones has earned the right to demand every last penny he’s worth plus 10 percent.
But a disconnect exists between what guys typically mean when they say they want to stay with a team, and what fans hear.
What guys typically mean: I love it here, I’m happy here, and I’m having professional success here so of course I’d like to stay. I’m also a human being who would like to earn what I’m worth.
What fans typically hear: Hell yeah I love this team as much as everyone in Section 338 and will take whatever money I’m offered to stay.
For decades, the NFL’s financial structure has benefited the Chiefs. The conversations about the Royals losing their homegrown stars don’t happen with the Chiefs because NFL rules give everyone a relatively even chance.
If the Royals lose Lorenzo Cain, it’s because they can’t afford him.
If the Chiefs lose Chris Jones, it’s because they don’t have enough room under the salary cap.
I’m not saying any of this to diminish what the Chiefs have built. I believe the locker room culture is real. I think we could see that in how Jones handled his contract situation, the bond he developed with Frank Clark (a fissure there could’ve torpedoed the defense), the way the team responded to Mahomes’ injury, and how players like Kendall Fuller, Reggie Ragland, Andrew Wylie, Cam Erving and others handled being asked to sacrifice personal shine for the team’s best interests.
But I also think that locker room culture exists in the real world, where humans want to be paid what they’re worth, particularly after their profession’s ultimate achievement.
So, maybe it’s time ...
I wrote about this in Miami, and a lot of you weren’t ready for it, and I get it. But the front office has been working through these scenarios for months. Those scenarios will now take shape.
The Chiefs expect their cap space to be “in the 20s” of millions, from what I’m told, and that’s going to be eaten pretty quickly with Mahomes’ contract.
It’s a fascinating situation, because both sides agree he should be the league’s highest-paid player, but both sides also agree that it is in their best interests for the Chiefs to be able to build the best roster possible.
Most quarterback extensions are around four years, but I’ve wondered if something much longer would benefit each side. Signing bonuses can be spread for up to five years to diminish cap hits. What if the Chiefs and Mahomes could agree to something like 10 years, $400 million, with maybe $100 million guaranteed?
That would be a record for total value and guarantees, and make him the NFL’s highest-paid player. It would also allow the Chiefs to soften their immediate cap hits, which is probably their only hope of re-signing Jones.
I’m saying all of this with the assumption that Sammy Watkins will be gone. He’s a good player and has been a star in the playoffs. The Chiefs would love to have him back, but not if they can save $14 million next year (and $7 million more in dead cap in 2021) by cutting him.
If Mecole Hardman and Demarcus Robinson (also a free agent, but presumably much cheaper than Watkins) can’t make up for the loss then the Chiefs have bigger problems anyway.
Now, all that said, please allow me one sentence to emphasize what I think you and I both know: I’m not a salary cap expert.
Also: the likeliest outcome with Jones has always felt like a franchise tag and then a trade, something like a first- and third-round pick.
Anything is possible, and I mean that literally, because everything you said is true, but so is this:
That locker room culture will be tested in new ways now, because it’s one thing to sacrifice on your way to achieving a dream and quite another to continue sacrificing it once that dream is achieved.
I’m not sure Fuller is staying for less money for a lesser role, in other words. I’m not sure Bashaud Breeland doesn’t believe he just had the ideal prove-it season and now it’s time to get paid. You can see where this might be headed, right?
I guess I can see two things here.
First, your broader point is correct, because I do think the longer the Chiefs went and the more Andy Reid became characterized as the guy good enough to lose in the playoffs the more that would all become A Thing and whether athletes admit it or not that’s not an ideal way to win in a sport with so many sharp edges.
But I also believe that success can bring traps, too.
I’ve said this when the outcome hasn’t gone the local team’s way, but it’s still true now: we all have a tendency to treat these results as absolutes instead of the result of lot of mixed probabilities.
What if Ryan Fitzpatrick didn’t beat the Patriots?
What if the Titans didn’t beat the Ravens?
What if Jimmy Garoppolo connects with Emmanuel Sanders?
What if Jones doesn’t knock down those passes late?
The Chiefs had a long line of fortunate breaks this season, from Mahomes’ injury not being as severe as initially thought to the loss in Nashville turning into Terrell Suggs and a first-round bye. They were injured early, and healthy late.
The team should enter 2020 as the most confident in the league and there is no reason for them to play anything except loose and certain. If you could pick just one franchise to have the most success in the next five or 10 years you would probably choose the Chiefs.
We agree on all of that.
I’m just saying none of that is guaranteed, and the football world the Chiefs now inhabit is much different than they one that existed before the postseason.
These are all good problems. But they can still be problems.
One thing I didn’t know about being a parent is how often you compare their childhood to your own. We all want a better life for our kids than we had, so maybe this is a product of being lucky enough to have had a great childhood of my own, but I’m often shaking my head about how good these guys have it.
Once, we got in an argument because I couldn’t fast-forward the commercials when we were watching a game. It occurred to me that this is what happens when they shows they’re used to watching are all on Netflix or Disney+ or whatever.
They have more friends in the neighborhood, better food, closer parks, and more to do than I could’ve imagined. The only thing our childhoods might have in common are matchbox cars, pizza* and sports.
* But that comes with an asterisk because my dad was all about Little Caesars and these kids are used to Minsky’s.
Now they get a childhood so perfectly matched in timing and geography that it’s realistic they graduate high school being literally unable to remember a time their team wasn’t quarterbacked by Mahomes.
My hope, of course, is that they grow up with sports representing all the good stuff: optimism, success, teamwork, etc.
My fear is that they’ll grow up and think an 11-5 season is a waste of time.
Well, look. I’ve thought about this a lot.
First, yes, absolutely, almost anything that happens will leave someone upset. Technology is great for a lot of reasons but it does also give people voice to complain about everything.
Second, yes, I have gotten to a point where I can understand why some are upset. We took our kids to the parade and they had a blast. They asked no questions, though they’re too young to really know those were beers or that the guys in the buses were drunk. But that doesn’t mean older kids didn’t have questions, which means other parents and teachers had to come up with answers.
And here is where I think a lot of people can go one of two ways.
You can take the stance that athletes are role models, and that particularly with teams that are this successful it’s easy for some of us adults to use them as a crutch for examples. That’s what hard work looks like, which means the MVP quarterback pouring a beer down the throat* of the star tight end means some uncomfortable conversations. Kids often emulate celebrities, good and bad.
* And, if we’re honest, all over the coat.
I have a fundamental disagreement here. I believe — and I know some will take this as delicious irony coming from a sports writer — athletes are too often worshiped and presented as flawless. I believe that parents should be role models, and help their kids understand the real world instead of some dishonest facade that is bound to be broken down.
I also believe that it’s OK for people to celebrate, and that if you’re not ready to answer some questions about why that football player is chugging a beer then you’re probably not ready to take your kids to a championship parade.
I also believe that it’s OK for parents to use this as an opportunity to have some conversations. It’s OK to believe a football player chugging a beer in a championship parade is fine and fun but that you don’t want your 12-year-old sneaking down to the garage fridge to do the same.
We all have different lines in the sand. I’m a difficult person to offend. If you’re not breaking a law, not hurting someone, not directly and unnecessarily being a jerk, well, then we can probably get along just fine.
But more than anything else, I believe that if I made a list (a list!) of the 10 most difficult conversations I might have with my kids because of sports that Patrick Mahomes chugging a domestic would not make the top 50.
If there were 800,000 people at the Royals parade* then there were 800,000 different experiences.
*And there weren’t, but whatever, let’s pretend.
If there were 500,000 people at the Chiefs’ parade* then there were 500,000 different experiences.
*And there weren’t, though I haven’t seen a credible estimate, and not just because I’m not sure it’s possible to credibly estimate a crowd along a 3-mile route plus a gathering spot at Union Station for an event in which no tickets were sold.
But, for starters, the Royals parade happened on a perfect day. Temperatures were around 70, if I remember correctly, bright blue skies and a light breeze. In November. It was ridiculous.
The Chiefs’ parade happened on a day that some meteorologists predicted snow, when temperatures didn’t get above freezing. Also, city officials spent most of the preceding days telling people that if they did not get downtown by like 3 in the morning they would be shunned and turned away and shamed.
So, anyone who went to both parades has a credible viewpoint on the differences.
My view is that the Royals parade simply cannot be duplicated. Not just the weather, either, but that it had been 30 mostly hopeless years since Kansas City hosted a parade. The whole thing felt a little out of body.
Playoff baseball is an overwhelming experience. All the things that people talk about when they say baseball in August is too long become all the things that make playoff baseball so dramatic. Games happen nearly every day, and the days that don’t have games can feel empty and long.
When that bottleneck produces a city’s biggest party in decades it can feel like the ground is shaking. I do remember the Royals’ parade being chaotic. I don’t know if it wasn’t planned as diligently as it could’ve been, or if the shock of it all made people lose their minds. Either way, cars literally parked along the interstate, drivers walking from there to the route.
So if the Royals’ parade was a sort of Christmas with a present you never thought you’d see, the Chiefs’ parade was more like a college party the night after your last final.
It felt much better organized, with clear maps distributed and police doing an admirable job keeping order. They had a gosh dang car chase in the middle of the route, for goodness sakes, and it was like 10 minutes of a story.
The Royals’ parade vibe, to me, was a city and a team celebrating their love for each other.
The Chiefs parade vibe, to me, was a city and a team celebrating a season that just concluded and the run they expected to have in the coming years.
The Royals’ success always had an expiration date, even if at the time a lot of people figured that was two more years. The Chiefs’ success has no such anvil hanging over it.
To me, that shapes the celebration — not good, not bad, just different.
I grew up with the chop. If you’re a certain age, and loved sports as a kid, it’s hard to forget how cool the chop felt. Florida State did it first, and it spread with the Braves’ postseason runs and at Arrowhead Stadium.
It was loud, constant, energetic and looked badass on TV and in person with all those arms chopping down in unison.
I’ve written this before, and know many of you disagree with me passionately. But here goes: I’ve since been swayed by the arguments against it. The chop is, and please correct me if I’m wrong, the last vestige of outdated racial stereotypes that people defend.
The Chiefs went away from logos that leaned on stereotypes, and my understanding is that they haven’t put an outright ban on headdresses but have asked networks not to show them on TV.
The Chiefs went away from the chop for a time, but embraced it again when fans voiced support for it. The Chiefs now exist in this compromise where they partner with (pay) various Native American groups.
The whole thing comes across as outdated and dishonest to me, but sports can be a heavy boulder to move.
So, anyway: yes, I am surprised it’s still around.
But I also understand that most fans love it, and it’s become part of the team’s tradition and way of selling itself.
One of the great things about sports is that you never know, and that’s as true in baseball as any other sport.
The Royals are as good of an example as anyone — they were expected to break through in 2012, and by the time July 2014 came around many Royals fans (and media, including many who hope you forgot) wanted Yost and Moore fired and the whole thing blown up.
You can come up with a scenario in which Adalberto Mondesi (finally) makes the step, and Hunter Dozier is real, and Sal Perez is fresh, and Whit Merrifield continues to star, and Alex Gordon is revived, and Jorge Soler hits a bunch more homers, and the young pitchers come along quickly and the Royals are playing important games in September.
That scenario exists.
So does this one: Mondesi is talented but doesn’t get beyond the point of showing flashes of stardom. Sal Perez is about to turn 30 and begin to transition away from full-time catcher. Alex Gordon might have the best Royals career since George Brett but he also hasn’t had an OPS+ above league average since the parade*.
* Drink.
There is no baseball heartbreaker quite like pitching prospects.
Here’s another way of putting it: the Royals have lost 207 games the last two seasons and the apparent fix is with the game’s 25th-ranked farm system.
That’s suboptimal.
The Royals’ greatest internal conflict the last few seasons has been an institutional acceptance that it is rebuilding along with an institutional reluctance to use that word because it wants to fight complacency.
It’s great that Alex Gordon and Whit Merrifield and everyone else are talking publicly about competing. But they’ve said that before each of the last two seasons, too.
I’m expecting the Royals to lose more than 90 games, and to be more interesting and worth your time than the last two seasons.
Don’t stay in Surprise. Just don’t.
If you like golf, find somewhere close to a good course. If you like restaurants and want to go out at night, stay in Scottsdale. If you want a fuller Phoenix experience, go in or near downtown. Camelback Mountain is a good way to spend a few hours, too. It’s exactly as hard as you want it, you feel like you’re exercising, and it’s a hell of a view at the end.
Depending on what you want out of your trip, pay close attention to the schedule.
Surprise Stadium is close to functionally perfect for players (and media) but there’s not a lot to it for fans. The Giants have a cool park. The Cubs, too. There are others. Check out the reviews.
If I was to take my kids, we’d wake up early and watch practice. Players are usually very approachable, particularly on their way back to the clubhouse after workouts. Again, depending on what you want, you might get more out of watching those workouts than a game.
Also: sunscreen, and layers.
See, the thing is ...
... well, what I’m trying to say is ...
... I was just wondering ...
... OK, we obviously got a lot of questions like this, and even if this last one didn’t explicitly mention football withdrawal it fits the broader theme.
Some suggestions:
- Get outside. It’s supposed to be nice-ish today, and this weekend. I’m hoping for some home run derby or at least a bike ride or something with the kids.
- City Market on a Saturday.
- Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. This year (and, actually, this week) marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Negro Leagues. You might know that KCPT has a documentary on it dropping this week. I’ve always thought 8 or 9 is a good age for kids to start learning about the Negro Leagues, and this year will be full of opportunities.
- Usual suspects like Science City, Legoland, and Wonderscope (new location coming sometime in the fall, last I heard).
- High school games. I got lucky, because the game ended up including basically two buzzer-beaters, but I took the kids to a high school basketball game a few weeks back and they loved it. I wanted to do another one last Friday, but by 5 or so their eyes looked like they hadn’t slept in a week so Disney+ for the win.
- Which reminds me: Disney+.
- I’m going to leave you with this, because I’m nothing if not a damn cliche: spend an entire Saturday on a brisket.
First of all, yes, it is rather glorious but here’s a take that’s going to be unpopular with a lot of you animals: fans aren’t as different as a lot of you think.
Patriots fans have been arrogant and defensive to criticism for a long time, and if the Chiefs ever approach the Patriots’ run of success some of their fans will be the same.
Chiefs fans have been sensitive in the wake of playoff disappointment, and now that the Patriots have disappointed some of their fans are doing the same.
All of this comes without judgment, I want you to know. This is how the world works. We like to think that growing up in a certain part of the country or rooting for a certain team or following a certain coach means we have more class or better morals or some other weird intangible that is not at all connected honestly to a sports team, but it’s nonsense.
The Chiefs are more fun to follow right now, and figure to stay that way as long as Patrick Mahomes’ kneecaps are in place, but I can make this promise to you right now:
Let the Chiefs win like two or three more Super Bowls in the next five years or so and you will see a cascade of arrogance from some fans, and the trolling on both sides will be enough to sink a battleship.
I am going to answer this two ways, but before I do I want to state what is probably obvious anyway: I’m not an expert on, well, anything.
Actually, I’m a little leery of anyone who calls themselves an expert, but even with lax standards I’m not sure I could be an expert except for the following subjects:
- How to turn something on and off in hopes that’ll fix it.
- Doing the morning routine of coffee, smoothie, and breakfast for two kids with ruthless efficiency.
- Smoking ribs, actually.
But, anyway, all that said I do have two answers.
The first is a sort of gratitude course. One clarity that my mom’s death left with me is the importance of absorbing the good, and filtering what actually matters. It started with small gestures, like the closing paragraph of this weekly time suck, but has creeped into literally every day of my life. It’s probably made me a little too mushy with the kids, but it’s also helped me avoid the everything-sucks rut a lot of us can get into with busy lives and routines.
Thankful that our kids had a good Christmas. Thankful that my wife has work she enjoys. Thankful that our dog is happy, and we can plan meals ahead of time and then scrap the plan last second to order sushi. Thankful for good friends, people I can trust, on and on it goes.
I am not an expert on this stuff. But I do think it’s an important and overlooked part of life, and maybe this would come across too new age-y but I think a one-semester course filled with the right kind of personal and first-hand stories from guest speakers could be a hell of a lot more valuable for students than a lot of the stuff I took in college.
The second answer is one that I could never teach, or even know enough to help facilitate. But the class would be called something like Adulting.
You’d learn about making a personal budget, how to shop big purchases like a house or car, different ways to invest and save for retirement.
You’d learn how to fix basic problems, like a leaky toilet or installing a new light fixture or changing a flat tire.
You’d learn how to spot a scam, how to know which news can be trusted, and tricks to navigate your way through various credit card or company reward systems.
You would, in other words, get a head start on learning some of the stuff we all just sort of wing and guess on our own.
Again: I am incapable of teaching or having anything to do with the design of this class. I’m just the dummy asking questions I wish I’d asked when I was 22.
This week, I’m particularly grateful for a slow few days over the weekend. Got to have a night with the wife while the kids had a sitter, hung out with friends and played monster trucks with the kids. Perfect few days.
This story was originally published February 11, 2020 at 5:00 AM.