Monday Morning Grab Bag & Cup O’Chiefs 2/22

When we look back at 2010, I believe the weekend of February 19-21 will go down as the quietest in the year for the world of pro football.

That’s good for everyone involved, because starting Wednesday with the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. With the possible exception of a couple quiet weeks in July, the pace goes pretty hot and heavy for the next 10 months.

But there have been a few stories in the last couple days that are worth taking another look at, so here goes the Monday Morning Grab Bag.

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Everyone was talking about Tiger Woods after his first words in public since his world was turned upside down Thanksgiving weekend. There are plenty of others who are writing about Tiger, so I will stay away from that area. I want to bring into the discussion here one part of his speech. It went like this:

“I knew my actions were wrong, but I convinced myself that normal rules didn’t apply. I never thought about who I was hurting. Instead, I thought only about myself … I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame, I didn’t have to go far to find them.”

It’s highly unlikely Tiger wrote those words himself, but he accepted them as his own when he read them aloud. His sincerity must be proven in time and won’t happen with a single 13-minute speech. Those words describe the delusion that swamps many professional athletes. They pop up on our radar screens, guys like Steve McNair, Alex Rodriquez, Michael Vick, Gilbert Arenas … they feel entitled. The adulation, adoration, money and pampering that begins for many of them in their high school days, feeds that sense of entitlement. Generally, that belief they are chosen people doesn’t end well.

There have been plenty of those types of guys that have run through Arrowhead Stadium over the years. Few ever registered much of a blip on the radar screen because their sense of entitlement far exceeded their skill level. A guy like Dale Carter fit the picture, although some would say because of his background he didn’t really know that some of what he was doing was wrong. But there’s no doubt that he felt the rules didn’t apply to him. Only in the last year or so Carter has come to discover that what he did in his Kansas City career hurt himself and a lot of other people. Bam Morris and Tamarick Vanover would fall into that class as well. The Royals had their share too, guys like Willie Wilson and Willie Mays Aiken and the others hooked up in the drug scandal some 20-plus years ago.

Those are just a few that cracked the surface of jurisprudence. There are many others that didn’t break any laws, but their actions were just as despicable. There was one former Chiefs player who held an orgy at his home the night his first child was born. His wife and daughter were in the hospital and he and a few teammates were enjoying a wild night at the house. He felt entitled. Not surprisingly, he’s lived a troubled life to this day because his entitlements ran out with his ability to play the game.

I don’t feel sorry for him, nor do I feel sorry for Tiger. They knew better.

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You’ve got to hand it to former Chiefs defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast. He spent just 11 days with the dysfunctional Oakland Raiders before he bailed for the defensive coordinator’s job with the University of California.

Pendergast was there just long enough to have Al Davis pick his brain about the Chiefs and what’s going on with the new regime. Count on Davis’ being very interested in any news he can pull from behind the Pioli Curtain. How much Pendergast could or would give him in that short period of time we can only speculate. There’s always the chance that he never even saw the Wizard during his time in the Land of Oz.

But I’m going to bet Al picked up as much intelligence as he could and then was willing to cut Pendergast loose so he could go to Cal and work for Bears head coach Jeff Tedford.

“I’m excited to have an opportunity to work here at a Cal with its tradition rich program,” Pendergast said in released statement from the school. “I’m also excited to work with a high-profile college football coach like Jeff Tedford. Hopefully, I can bring the ability to be a very good teacher of the game, give our players direction and put them in position to use their strengths along with their talent to make plays.

“We want to play smart, tough and aggressive. Those will be the three keys.”

An opening surfaced at Cal when Bob Gregory left to become a defensive assistant at Boise State. Pendergast’s ultimate goal was to remain a defensive coordinator, according to a Raiders official who spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle.

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Here’s an early prediction: Brett Favre will be back in Minnesota for one more year. Reason? The Vikings need him badly to get them a new stadium. I think they’ll up the ante financially, especially in an uncapped season, to lure Favre out of Mississippi for one more run.

The future of football in the Twin Cities is teetering. The Vikings lease at the Metrodome has 20 games to run, the 2010 and 2011 seasons. Once the lease runs out, the Vikes will become a free agent franchise and that opens the chances of them heading for southern California and the new stadium that continues to creep its way towards construction in suburban Los Angeles. There have been several designs for stadiums put forth by the Vikings, like the one above. But right now there is no plan for a new stadium. No shovel has been put in the ground and no money has been found to pay for the building.

Students of history will remember that in 1960, the Minneapolis franchise in the NBA picked up and moved to Los Angeles where they’ve been the weirdly named Los Angeles Lakers ever since. Those Minneapolis Lakers teams were championship clubs, winning five NBA titles as they were led by one of the greatest players in the game, George Mikan.

The Minnesota Twins will open their new ballpark this spring. Recently, the University of Minnesota opened its new on-campus football stadium. There’s no money available for the Vikings. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty told Sid Hartman of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that the state has no funds for a stadium, but the Vikings are a “valued asset” to the state.

“We want to keep them here, and they’re not going to stay in the Metrodome,” Pawlenty said. “So, this issue is going to come to a head, and there are some examples that I and others have put out that would at least move the debate forward.

“But it’s very hard to do that when the economy is so bad and so many other aspects of government are being reduced … I also think if this ever gets done, it’s going to require a local partner, a city or a county is going to have to step forward and say they’re willing to be a partner as well.”

The governor isn’t running for a third term this fall so he can say just about anything and not have it come back to haunt him on election day. He is convinced a Vikings stadium will happen.

“Well, I do think it’s going to happen at some point,” he said. “There’s so many economic challenges right now that I think the Legislature would be very hesitant to say we’re going to introduce the Vikings into that mix when they’ve got their hands full on the basic things like health and human service funding and nursing home issues and things like that.”

One way the Vikings can generate more interest from the folks in the Twin Cities is another run deep into the playoffs led by Favre. Even though he’s at the end of his career, he could leave a legacy in Minnesota with a new stadium, the House that Favre built.

Think that’s crazy? That’s how the Broncos got Invesco Field. Thanks to John Elway and a pair of Super Bowls late in his career, the push for a new building to replace Mile High Stadium got done.

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Last week, USA Today announced its team of the decade and players of the decade at each position. The newspaper named the New England Patriots the team of the decade, followed by Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and the New York Giants. The highest rated team from the AFC West was San Diego at No. 12, followed immediately by Denver at No. 13. Listed at No. 22 were the Oakland Raiders.

The Chiefs? How about No. 27. The Raiders ahead of the Chiefs? Listen, I didn’t say these ratings made sense, but there’s no doubt the Chiefs should be higher than six from the bottom.. Washington, San Francisco, Oakland and Arizona were all rated ahead of the Chiefs and those teams had the same number of victories or fewer than the Chiefs 70 in the decade. Those teams had as many seasons in the playoffs with two trips as the Chiefs. Hey, it was a bad decade no question, but being ranked behind the Raiders is a real pisser.

As for players, Tony Gonzalez was the tight end of the decade, the only Chiefs player selected by the newspapers writers and columnists.