Blob Gretz = IT'S A TOUGH, LONG FIGHT

[teedubya]

IT'S A TOUGH, LONG FIGHT
SEP 17, 2008, 5:04:21 AM BY BOB GRETZ - FAQ

http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2008/09...gh_long_fight/

Let me start by writing about the Battle of the Bulge.

No, not the pivotal moment in World War II when the Germans made a last ditch effort to turn the tide of the war with an offensive against the Allies in France and Belgium. This epistle is about the battle tens of millions of Americans fight on a daily basis. I’m writing about the fight to lose weight.

How many times have you said “Starting (fill in the date) I’m going on a diet and I’m going to exercise and I’m going to lose (fill in the amount) pounds.” That start-day comes, you are motivated and prepared and for a few days, you eat less and work out more. But then your will wanes and you sneak a little something sweet here, and a little something salty there. It’s just a little; it can’t hurt.

Before you know it, you are back where you started.

I use this tale in relation to where the Chiefs and their fans are after two games of the 2008 season.

Before all this got started, Herm Edwards spoke for months – make that years – that the Chiefs needed to get younger. When the bottom dropped out of last season and the team finished 4-12, it provided the perfect storm. The roster was trimmed, draft choices were accumulated and the rebuilding through youth began.

Based on the e-mail and conversations I had with hundreds of Chiefs fans, the strategy was considered a winner. Most liked the idea that the direction of the team was changed and a group of young players would drive the future.

When a team goes in this direction, there is no going halfway. That would be a giant waste of time. You don’t dip your foot in the rebuilding through youth pool. It’s got to be a head first dive into the deep end.

But it’s one thing to say you are going young and rebuilding. It’s quite another thing to live through the efforts. They are not pretty. They do not always go well. There are ups and downs that wreck the stomach and create anger, second guessing, panic and delusions.

I write this only because I’ve read the e-mails I’ve received here at kcchiefs.com and at my own website, bobgretz.com. I’ve heard a few callers on sports talk radio. I’ve seen the writings and heard the rumblings of various pundits. There is outrage, there is anger, there is second guessing, there is panic and there are delusions.

Going young suddenly doesn’t seem to be the way to go. Fans want the Chiefs to go out and sign somebody, anybody. Others want somebody fired. It doesn’t matter who. They just want someone called on the carpet, head placed in the guillotine to answer for being 0-2 and losing as badly as the Chiefs did last Sunday to the Raiders.

Listen, the team’s performance against Oakland was without a doubt woeful. It was not up to the standards the team established the week before in losing to New England.

But it was but one picture in a series of 16 pictures that will make up the gallery of the 2008 Chiefs season. Those pictures very well may be a series of ups and downs as young players get their feet under them and learn the business of playing pro football. What few older bodies remain will play their way out of the picture or suffer injury that steals their availability.

This is what rebuilding looks like. It’s a dirty, stinkin’, gut-wrenching business, as difficult as anything there is to do in the game of football.

Some would say the Chiefs aren’t rebuilding, they are building. But that’s semantics. What the Chiefs had here for the better part of the last 18 years was winning football. It wasn’t the ultimate success, it wasn’t championship football, but there were more victories than defeat. There was always hope of something better. Eventually, there was a desire for something more concrete than hope.

Right now the Chiefs are trying to re-build a winning football team, one that will be good for years and will challenge for a championship. They easily could have gone out and signed various veteran free agents and put together a more experienced team that would go 9-7, maybe 10-6 and slip into the playoffs every once in awhile.

Would that be satisfying?

From personal experience, I can tell you the only way to lose weight is to eat less and use more energy and that must become a lifestyle, not a momentary thing.

The Chiefs have made a lifestyle change. There are going to moments of hunger, but the goal is better health and a winning football team.

It’s not time to start cheating.