FOUR days until exultation or misery. Remember, each team has a 53 man roster plus another 16 practice squad players. That's 2,070 players who will be sitting at home watching the game on TV. Since Super Bowl #1, teams in Cleveland, Detroit, Houston have never been. Twelve teams have never won a Super Bowl, the four above and the Cardinals, Falcons, Bills, Panthers, Bengals, Chargers, Vikings and Titans.
We've won TWO, and this is our THIRD Super Bowl in FOUR years! Pinch my small market epidermis!
FOUR minute warning. Blogging goals for me: keep you awake; occasionally read something where you'll think "I didn't know that."; have a splash of 'coming from leftfield; and hopefully, bring a laugh or two.
FOUR minute stories of KC Chiefs.
Uno: I wanted to play quarterback in the NFL so bad I could taste it . Undrafted, six tryouts (Giants, Packers, Jaguars, Cowboys, Jets and Vikings) ended in no, no, no, no, no, no. So, for the next six years I drug my family with me to living in FOUR different cities as arena league quarterback. My goal then became putting football in my past. At age 30, it was time for a real job.
A buddy of mine convinced Steve Wisdom, the owner of a new home construction company, to interview me for new home sales. It was shortly after the 2008 housing crash, Wisdom admitted later he was fighting to save employees he already had, not wanting to add new ones. "You're asking me for a role you have zero experience, hundreds others want this job, how can you possibly make the case it would make sense to hire you? I told him I would outwork and outhustle anyone in the company. I told him I'd do everthing I could to become one of the sales leaders. We hit it off. I think deep down he worried I might go back to football, but he offered me $100,000 a year, no commission.
This guy spent four months in training, sold four houses in the first six weeks and was off and running, as promised. Nine months later, his phone rang. Andy Reid, head coach of the Eagles, offering a full time assistant coaching position at a salary of, gulp, $45,000. After conversing with his wife (oh to be a birdie on the window sill to eavesdrop on that one!) he called Wisdom apologetically, Wisdom replied "Matt, you're a man of integrity, go chase your dream."
That he did. Even though Coach Reid was fired the next year, he brought me with him when he went to KC. In a few years I was hired to be the Head Coach of the Chicago Bears. In three years there we went 34-31 (12-4 the first year) but they let me go. I'm back with Andy and the Chiefs, living the dream as quarterback coach to the best QB in the NFL! Hi, I'm Matt Nagy.
Dos: This one is only FOUR'ty seconds. This guy, at the University of Delaware, handed off to me and passed to me as he was QB and I was running back/wide receiver/returner. Come to think of it, with all the injured returners, naybe the GM would consider me? Who are we? Home salesman/QB coach Matt Nagy and 'returner'/GM Brett Veach!
Tres: Another FOUR'ty second diddy. Hi. I was born in Long Beach, CA. Three different people gave me names....well, I guess FOUR if you count my mom. Snoop Dogg, yep, THE Snoop Dog was my pee wee football coach. I was the number two rated (nationwide) wide receiver out of high school, went to USC, and I'm proud of some things I did early in the NFL. I was the youngest player ever, and I was the youngest player ever to score a touchdown! In my third year I passed Randy Moss becoming the youngest wide receiver to reach 2,500 receiving yards. My mom named me John Sherman Smith,my aunt called me Ju-Ju, it stuck. Snoop called me "Sportscenter" In college I legally changed my last name to Smith-Schuster in honor of my stepfather who raised me. I'm JuJu Smith-Schuster.
Cuatro: The FOUR oldest players on the team? Back-up QB Chad Henne is 37, and DE Carlos Dunlop, TE Travis Kelce and OL Brandon Williams are all 33.
Cinco: In honor of Wordle, all these players have five letters in their name: Brown, Clark, Danna, Henne, Jones, Jones, Kelce, Moore, Smith, Sneed, Toney, Wylie, Amadi, Reiter, Franks.
Seis: While it's not my personal creed, both starting QB's have played with my butt. I was the Center at Oklahoma when Jalen Hurts was the QB, and of course now it's me and Patrick. I'm Creed Humphrey.
Seiti: Your Super Fan (Edp445) is creepier than our Super Fan. The 31-year-old Eagle fan was detained by police and eventually arrested in June of 2020 for suspicion of child grooming and pedophilia but it is unclear if he ever served jail time. (and again in 2022.) All our fan, Xavier Babudar, who is known as a diehard Kansas City Chiefs fan who dresses up as a wolf to attend home and road games did was rob a bank. On Dec. 16, police arrested Babudar in Bixby, Okla. at 10:15 a.m. and charged him with numerous offenses, including armed robbery. Babudar was suspected of robbing the Tulsa Teachers Credit Union in the town earlier that morning.
Ocho: Me and my size 17 shoes left Nigeria, bound for Edgewood, Alabama when I was 16 years old. I'd watched film of NBA greats like Lebron - and my goal was to play basketball in the NBA and send funds back to provide for my family in Nigeria.
Thankfully, I was invited to live with Edgewood HS basketball coach Todd Taylor and family. They met me at the airport. I didn't have much, They started toward the bag claim but I told them my backpack was all I had. Inside that backpack was one change of clothes, a Nigerian passport and a student visa, a few family photographs, a bible gifted me by mother, and $20 cash I'd converted from my country's depressed naira currency. Oh, I had an old, dead Nokia phone that wouldn't work with any of the US chargers. It went dead on my 18-hour flight, with connections through Amsterdam, New York and Atlanta, it became trash.
Because of my prior schooling, they elevated me one year in school. Basketball was OK, but I didn't excel fast enough for me. One day a buddy and I were watching football practice and we were tossing a football around. The coach walked over, asked me if I wanted to tryout, "It'll be a good way to stay in shape until basketball season," so I did. They didn't have any size 17 cleats so I ran the 40 in hi-tops. I ran a 4.62 and they told me that was pretty good. They liked my size too. I was 6'7", 225..
Thanks to some soccer skills honed back home as a kid, they had me kickoff too.I made a lot of tackles on kickoffs because I guess kids feared getting in my way. I played defensive end and I guess I did OK. Coach sent game films to college coaches, and before I knew it, I had over 30 offers. Schools like Auburn, Kentucky, Clemson, Georgia, LSU, Florida, Ohio State, Notre Dame and many others. The Taylors had a map on the wall, they'd put red pins in to show me where the schools were.
My Senior year I broke my leg pretty bad in January playing basketball. Some schools backed off their offers but thankfully Auburn Coach Malzahn stuck with me, as did the Taylors did too. I did end up at Auburn and I switched to offense, starting three years at left tackle. Some team named the Eagles (haha) drafted me in 2020. Five days after they let me go on January 11, 2021 the Chiefs picked me up and I've been here ever since. Sadly, my mom passed my sophomore year in college so she didn't get to see me reach my dream. My name is Prince Tega Wanogho.
FOUR days! I'm not out of stories but, I don't know what comes after ocho in Spanish so I gotta go.
Love, Victurd
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