Kansas City Chiefs - CALL & RESPONSE – "Choosing between vulgarity and obscenity"

CALL & RESPONSE – "Choosing between vulgarity and obscenity"

Nov 28, 2007, 5:40:51 PM by Rufus Dawes - FAQ

CALL: You are right about the KU-MU game. It wasn’t like any of those TV guys said it was going to be…. (Border War for Headline Writers Only) I wonder how many of the people at the game never mind media had ever even been to this game before.

RESPONSE: Much of the video shown on local television captured the special event nature of the game. Some – not all – of the reporting, however, was too alarmist.

In the days and months following 9/11 when media were careful not to inflame public sentiment, a headline writer found it necessary to write in the San Jose Mercury News, “Religious Tensions Kill 57 in India.” As one dissenting columnist had occasion to write shortly after that headline appeared: “Ah, those religious tensions’ll kill you every time.” Well, if “tensions” will kill you, can you imagine what “mayhem,” the Kansas City Star’s word for what they were looking out for at KU-MU, might do? (November 25, 2007)

You bring 80,000 plus into a confined area – especially when some of them have never been there before – you’re going to have to expect certain inconveniences. I’ve been coming to Arrowhead for years (some of the time hauling along an 80-year old mother who refused to stay home in frighteningly cold weather) and have had drinks spilled on me through no fault of the spiller, stood in line to go to the bathroom in a trough, fallen up the stairs because they’re awfully steep and asked repeatedly for some of the people sitting in front of me to please sit down. That and other inconveniences I accept in such a crowded atmosphere.

But “tension” or “mayhem”? Come on. The only true “tension” or “mayhem” in Arrowhead on that chilly Saturday night came from what was occurring on the field not in the stands.

CALL: I heard the afternoon [local talk] radio [hosts] – or at least one of them – predicting that Carl Peterson would be gone by next year. Needless to say, I’ve heard it before. Knowing what you know of the likelihood of most of their predictions what do you suppose the chances of that happening?

RESPONSE: Listening to the opinions on anything Chiefs-related from one or the other of those fellows, I’m reminded of a story about a voter bemoaning an election-day choice of Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon, to which Senator Eugene McCarthy is supposed to have replied: “That’s like choosing between vulgarity and obscenity, isn’t it?” At best, listening to what these two yodelers are saying about the Chiefs is like hearing an interpretation of only one spouse’s version of a failed marriage.

Listen for too long and you understand why sports news should never be left to sports talk radio. Whatever remarks either makes about Peterson can be construed simply as wishful thinking on their part since the general manager’s stay in Kansas City lingers over both of their many predictions like an eternal winter.

Peterson’s fronted 13 winning seasons out of the 18 [with one .500 season] he’s been in Kansas City This is a league where a GM like Detroit’s Matt Millen can keep his job leading a franchise that has had losing seasons nine of its last 11. And these two radio guys think it’s going to happen here…now? At least the media who hate Bush and Cheney know the most they have to suffer is eight years. Peterson hasn’t lost enough to warrant his departure, like it or not. In the end the endorsement of two radio characters who can’t take any criticism themselves probably confirms that it will be on Peterson’s terms when he does head off into the sunset.

CALL: I thought I was going to get sick when Carl Peterson was ta[l]king on tv during the KU MU game. He is the almighty CARL PETERSON god of all football GM’s but in reality he is nothing but an overpaid GM that has no ability to build a [S]uper [B]owl football team….I could only guess that this email will never get relayed to [Chiefs chairman of the board] Clark Hunt…because CARL the god Peterson has his robots filtering and changing the emails to sound the way he wants…

RESPONSE: In the aftermath of the Raiders loss, the people lining up to lynch Carl Peterson were as packed together as a passenger train rolling out of Calcutta on a round-trip, two-for-one day, to read some of the emails I received. But it’s always particularly amusing to read ones where they think of Peterson as the NFL’s version of Kim Ill Sung, the self-appointed “Great Leader” of North Korea, an omnipotent Oz-like figure who knowith and controllith all things, or so these people think.

If you’ve read this site at various times, you’ve seen a broad cross-section of emails, letters and responses that many times aren’t glowing tributes. I know, because the majority of emails of this nature are sent my way, but everyone around the team sees them I imagine. My goodness, here’s yours printed above right now!

Frankly, I don’t think I or anyone else here could change your words “to sound the way [Peterson] wants” even if we were to try, for starters because Peterson doesn’t tell me what he wants and I don’t ask. Besides, after the Raiders loss I’m sure he’s not naïve enough to expect that any kind words would be flowing his or Herm’s way.

If Peterson, or maybe it should be his “robots,” are guilty of anything it’s not being more up-front on the nature of this season. See my It Was Over Last Year here from November 21, 2007.

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The opinions offered in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Prodigiously well-researched, informative and opinionated, Rufus Dawes examines media coverage of the Chiefs occasionally throughout the year.

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