I was reading some quotes from Gunther today about how awesome his defense is going to be, and I experienced two simultaneous feelings.
1) Intense dislike of Gunther Cunningham.
and
2) Intense pity for the people of Detroit.
The first one wasn’t all that surprising. Gunther sucks. I’ll get to that later. It was the second feeling that was, for me, somewhat of an aberration. I’ve never really felt genuine pity for an opposing city’s sports fans. You see, I’m a contentious individual, quick to anger (although I like to think I’m quick to laughter as well). I’m more likely to feel rivalry with another city than camaraderie. There’s never been room in my brain for altruistic feelings for another town’s sports fans. Why give them the gift of my pity* when they’ve undoubtedly tasted more success than I? After watching countless hacks** run my franchises, I couldn’t care less for what other fans are subjected to. It’s been hard being a Kansas City sports fan. I don’t have to tell you guys this. You’ve lived it.
*I’ve got to side with my boi George Costanze here. Pity is very underrated.
**Herk Robinson, Allard Baird, Carl Peterson, Tony Muser, Gunther Cunningham, Buddy Bell, Herm Edwards, and Trey Hillman. Talk about a murderers row. It would take that group a month to finish a game of Trivial Pursuit. In the end I think Carl would win by cheating.
With Lions fans, things are different. I genuinely feel bad for them. They had to endure 8 years of Matt Millen’s historic ineptitude. The one good thing about bad records is high draft picks, and Millen screwed those up year after year. We don’t need to re-hash his many failures, but suffice it to say that Matt Millen is the easy answer for worst GM in the history of the NFL. And Lions fans didn’t just sit there and take it, they were proactive. Remember a few years ago when you’d hear “Fire Millen” chants at every Detroit home sporting event? Hockey, baseball, basketball, college, pro, whatever. I’d be watching a Pistons playoff game and the fans would be doing the “Fire Millen” chant during timeouts. It was hilarious. Then there was that game against the Bengals where everyone wore orange to the game in protest of Millen’s contract extension. Another great move.
The point is that after watching The Lie Guys for 3 years, I now feel Detroit’s pain. Those fans deserved better. And now, after waiting what must’ve seemed like an eternity for a new day to dawn, they’ve been stuck with more of the same. Martin Mayhew and Jim Schwartz are not gonna get it done. Mayhew has no front office experience and Schwartz is a “football guy”*. His first moves were to bring in Gunther Cunningham and Scott Linehan, for christ’s sake. And now Gunther is over there flapping his gums about how, when he watches game-film, he mistakes some guy named Jordan Dizon for Julian Peterson. First of all, Dizon is 6 inches shorter than Peterson. Secondly, he isn’t good. The guy had 28 tackles last year. Peterson is a perennial pro-bowler.
*Like how Trey Hillman and Buddy Bell are “baseball guys”
We’ve seen this before. It’s a classic Gunther move. Somebody stinks, he makes an over-the-top statement about how great they are. He’s even talking about unleashing Dijon as a pass-rusher. Sound familiar? The guy hasn’t even bothered to change up his lies. It’s pathetic. Lions fans are going to be hearing bullshit like this for years.
It took a long time for Gunther to go from endearing to offensive. I, like basically everyone in KC, held on to the past for far too long. We all gave Gunther a free pass despite years of idiocy and failure. Looking back, Gunther was probably never actually a good coordinator. If the past 10 years have taught us anything, its that any success the Chiefs enjoyed in the 90s was due to Marty Shottenheimer. As soon as he left, both Carl Peterson and Gunther cunningham were exposed as frauds. And now Detroit, a city whose football fans have seen nothing but frauds, is getting another heaping helping. If there are any fans deserving of my pity, its them.
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Interesting article about Tamba today. At least, with him potentially losing weight, they’re actually thinking about ways he might be able to improve his game. He did seem to throw Gunther under the bus regarding the weight issue but ya know, you can’t blame your way out of a terrible performance last season.
I’ll be GD’d if he is anything like Harrison or Merriman. Who does Tamba think he is? As Centaur pointed out to me recently, I was wrong on Jared Allen when I thought he was a one hit wonder. Don’t get me wrong, Tamba strikes me as one hell of a model american, but why is he comparing himself to two excellent players when he stinks?*
*Note: My opinion on Tamba has been developed through watching him at Penn State and his combine 40 yard dash and 225lbs bench test. I know that evaluation is not fair, but in the words of Chris Cooper in “A Time to Kill”, “You turn him loose! You hear me? You turn him loose!”
I like the fact that they’re willing to experiment with Tamba, but I seriously doubt he’s going to be able to handle playing linebacker. The thought of him dropping into pass coverage is a real laugher.
No surprise on the stupid quotes from him. The guy always sounds dumb when he talks to reporters. Remember last season when he said, “There aren’t going to be a lot of other teams that rush for 300 yards on us, I can guarantee that.” He be dumb mon! I’d like to see us find a place for him in our lineup though.
Gun is an interesting guy. He was pretty bad on his return to the Chiefs, and he is not an impressive guy to listen to (although he seems like a nice and even funny guy when you meet him in person). However, in his first tenure with the Chiefs, the defenses were extremely good and, even as a head coach, he was 9 and 7 his first year and suffered a heartbreaking overtime loss in the final game to lose out on the playoffs. Overall, he was 16 and 16 as a head coach, so he cannot be a moron. He also coached for a successful program in Tennessee. I suppose the results in Detroit will demonstate whether on balance he is any good as a defensive coach.
Yo hatt, let’s not forget the time millen called johnny morton a faggot after the chiefs/lions game a few years back. Talk about class! Also, did you ever see what millen was making per year towards the end of his run? Not 100% sure, but i know it was inxs of 5 mil per. I know we ain’t had it easy, but those poor poor poor poor lions fans.