A Convenient Truth

Shannon Sharpe was not one of my favorite players. It had to do less with the fact that he wore Blue and Orange and more with the coincidence that back in the day, I had set a standard of people that I liked to root for. He definitely didn’t fit the profile and you can imagine the reasons: the trash-talking, the cockiness, and the overall obnoxiousness were too much for me to handle.

But I gotta hand it to him, I respected his game.

Everybody remembers vividly the classic comeback that Joe Montana pulled in October of ‘94 to give the Chiefs their first victory in the Rockies in more than a decade. At the time, Kansas City seemed like a team that was primed for one last Montana-led playoff-run and the Broncos appeared to be on the verge of witnessing the end of their remarkable Elway-led era. That was, until the final minutes of that game.

Aside from Joe Cool’s surgically-executed final drive, the moment that has stuck with me for a long time is what actually preceded that. Seconds after losing the football in K.C. territory, Sharpe magnificently bounced back by alerting Elway that they didn’t have seven men on the line of scrimmage while at the Chiefs’ 4-yard line. That remarkable display of awareness enabled Elway to adjust the call in order to avoid a penalty, and the result was a touchdown that set the table for an apparent Denver win. After that, the only thing needed was one last defensive stand. And again, the main character was Sharpe.

In what truly stands as one of the greatest footages of NFL Films, Sharpe starts the deciding sequence by going bonkers in the Broncos’ sideline, asking his defensive mates to make a play to seal the victory. With every single Montana completion, Sharpe went from near hyperventilation (asking for that one play), to frustration (still asking for that play), to exasperation, and finally, to complete resignation as the Chiefs’ rallied to survive.

I was able to record that, and after watching it over and over again in the following weeks, I knew that Denver had found a true leader –even in heartbreak– to pair alongside Elway.

The Broncos could not deliver the play that Monday night, but they made plenty of those three years later, in what turned out to be the first of back-to-back championship seasons. The aftermath: Elway was a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee. Sharpe will join him in Canton.

The ‘09 version of the Kansas City Chiefs is a trying edition. As Todd Haley has put it, the front office and the coaching staff are trying really hard to find “the right 53″ for the roster. But that hasn’t been an easy task. It’s clear that the franchise is in a rebuilding mode when that asseveration is supported by the struggles that we have witnessed every weekend. Unfortunately, the group has not sustained one consistent effort for 60 minutes and that has led to zero victories in the almanac. One explanation for that trend is the lack of talent; and the other one, which proves to be the most disturbing, is an abundance of wastefulness.

Through five weeks of the regular season, nothing has disappointed me like the blown chances. And I don’t necessarily mean the ones that reflect on the scoreboard but those that include the personalities of the competitors. The beauty of a transition stage is that said phase constitutes a paradise for players to show whatever they got. There’s definitely going to be carte blanche. Opportunities will come in bunches and they will be there for the taking. So far, no one has seized the moment ’cause there hasn’t been a bright spot in the depth chart. Some have flashed but none has shined. That comes as a byproduct of letting it all out.

Sharpe is a fine example of what I’m talking about. The now TV analyst, grew up in a poor background; he was a seventh-round choice in the NFL Draft; to stay in the roster, he converted from receiver to tight end; and yet, in a prime-time game for the ages, inspired by his clutch showing at the end of it, he built on that performance to establish himself by pleading his teammates to go the extra mile, just like he did an instant earlier. And the best part was that he wasn’t shy about it; he was willing to lay it on the line and it eventually paid off. Even though the Broncos lost that battle, they gained something invaluable: a building block for the future in the form of a guide. He showed them a way.

The Chiefs are approaching their goal but they have fallen short in rising up to the challenges. The Dallas game was a microcosm. Matt Cassel engineered his most productive day as a Chief and yet — as Bob shrewdly pointed out — his teammates still don’t hurry over to help him off the ground. Bobby Wade made a tremendous catch to set up the tying TD, but didn’t generate the confidence to demand the ball in overtime. Todd Haley had the possibility to end the ballgame with a 2-point try, and he declined to do so. The team was spotted a 10-point advantage by a squad in disarray and lost it when a backup achieved a career day. These are the kind of instances that do not replicate often and if you don’t take advantage of them, they will make up for a very long season.

The catch is that none of the above comes as part of a script; there is no magic formula to control the circumstances and there’s no special alarm that will signal when to turn it up a notch. Therefore, the bottom line is this: for the Chiefs to get a win this Sunday in Washington (or somewhere down their schedule), they’re gonna have to pull a Sharpe. At some point, somebody must improve his game and ask for others to do the same, and mean it.

There’s no other way around it.