The Chiefs start regular season play this Sunday September 11th at 3pm against the Arizona Cardinals. A team that was once known as the most disappointing team in the AFC West has blossomed into a perennial contender for not only the Division, but the entire League. This team will once again be put to the test this season with one of the league's toughest schedules, and with the amount of shifting parts in the offseason involved Arizona will be a true litmus test for this Chiefs squad.
However, that is a topic for another (probably tomorrow's) article. We'll get to that I promise. I wanted to kind of infuse both the Chiefs and area high school football into one article. As the years have progressed and the Chiefs have been building towards where they are today, so too has area high school football. In the early 2010s, Missouri and Kansas were not considered to be recruiting hotbeds. The "fly-over state" moniker translated over to how college scouts viewed area prospects. Even with the local schools such as KU and Mizzou (Not so much K-State as they've crafted one of the best local recruiting formulas in college sports, and that's coming from a KU fan) paid little if any attention to guys that if put in a D1 setting, could thrive. Nowadays, this is no longer the case. The MoKan area has made their voice loud and clear, and in my opinion has had help from their local NFL team's success.
As the Chiefs become more popular and garner more attention, the youth football scene also benefits from having more kids interested in football. There was a time where some Kansas Citians didn't even know who the Chiefs quarterback was, and with the advent of these incredible Chiefs teams and not only sports, but pop culture icons like Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce we have seen more and more KC folks take pride in the Chiefs. The more Mahomes is put into mainstream media, the more attention football gets. In my opinion, it is somewhat similar to the situations in Texas and the Deep South, where football is king. A local professional team hit it big and now kids want to model your Mahomeses, your Kelces, your Chris Joneses, just as they did back in 1970's Texas with Roger Staubach and Drew Pearson. If you build it they will come, and they have arrived. Guys like Ronnie Bell, Mudia Reuben, Shane Ray, Turk Wharton, and other local products that have shown out at the next level are just the beginning, MoKan football is rising, and we may see the next phenom come straight from KC...
Burn Notice: 10/10 Burning upward towards recognition and glory
Comments