Head coach Romeo Crennel of the Kansas City Chiefs will have a new look on his coaching staff in 2012. The team’s official website announced Jan. 30 that Tom McMahon will serve as the special teams coach of the Chiefs next season. He comes to Kansas City after three years down I-70 with the St. Louis Rams. In 2010, the Rams had the third-best punting average. They also led the league with 12 punt returns of 20 yards are more from 2009 and 2010 combined.

McMahon has also served as assistant special teams coaches with the Atlanta Falcons. Before that, he was coaching with the University of Louisville and Utah State. McMahon replaces Steve Hoffman who was not retained by the team after Todd Haley was fired. Two other coaches, both on the offensive side of the ball, were also let go.

Special teams, although not horrible in 2011, need improvement. The kick return game was stagnant in 2011 as there were no special teams touchdowns scored whatsoever. Two field goals were blocked in a game Dec. 24 against the Oakland Raiders, an overtime loss that haunted the team. Had the Chiefs won that game, they would have made the playoffs.

Placekicker Ryan Succop was a bright spot on special teams. ESPN reports he tied Pete Stoyanovich’s franchise record of 22 makes in a row. As such, the team signed him to a five-year, $14 million contract for his hard work.

There is still no word on a new offensive coordinator.

Whoever gets hired to run the offense will have an interesting job in 2012. Key players will be back from injuries. The defense, run by Crennel in 2011, came up big and bailed out the offense several times. The offense was sorely lacking in scoring. The Chiefs’ red zone offense was horrible. They would move the ball just fine until the team got down inside the five with a first a goal situation. Succop had eight field goals from less than 29 yards, meaning the ball was spotted at the 12-yard-line or closer to the end zone.

The Chiefs will likely draft an offensive lineman high in the draft as they need players to replace aging veterans that can open up holes for running backs and who can protect quarterback Matt Cassel.

William Browning is a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs after latching on to the team during the lean years of St. Louis football. Born in the gateway city, he is also a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan. He currently resides in Branson, Mo.

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The Kansas City Star reports Sporting Kansas City manager Peter Vermes likes how his team’s training camp has gone so far. SKC has been sheltering from the cold indoors at the training facilities of the Kansas City Chiefs.

The veterans and new players have been brought up to speed as to how training works. Fitness levels are fine and injuries are few and minor at this point. Three notable players are absent due to U.S. Men’s National Team duty and will join their club in Tucson, Ariz., sometime after the team arrives in the desert southwest Jan. 29.

Vermes told the Star he had to slow the team down a bit and that they were ahead in their training regimen. That’s a good thing. Having an enthusiastic team is a plus this early in the season. Quality recruits can only mean players will be shuffled in and out in terms of tryouts and more players coming in.

An international player from Sierra Leone will join the team in Arizona once he gets a visa. The as-yet unnamed player has trained with countryman Kei Kamara before and the staff are familiar with the player.

Players to watch in training include the newest members of the team. Top draft pick and England native Dom Dwyer. How he fits into the offensive scheme will determine if he’s a starter or even first off the bench early in the season. Cyprian Hedrick from Congo may also fill a need in the defense. Another player to watch is Stefan Antonijevic. The 6’6″ defender will be a towering presence in the central defense and will add another dimension to Kansas City’s back line. If he can win a starting spot early in the season, Sporting’s defense on set pieces and crosses will be top notch.

Sporting will train in Arizona and Kansas City before playing preseason games in Florida in late February.

The defending top team in the Eastern Conference will begin its 2012 season March 10 on the road against D.C. United. By then, the roster will have been trimmed and a consistent starting XI will be in place.

William Browning played soccer for ten years growing up in the St. Louis area. He has been a fan of Sporting Kansas City ever since Major League Soccer starting playing in 1996.

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The Kansas City Chiefs announced Friday that Ted Crews has been named the club’s Vice President of Communications. Crews has 14 years of NFL experience with three franchises and joins the Chiefs as the club’s primary contact for the team’s communication needs.

“We are very excited to welcome Ted to the Chiefs,” said Chiefs General Manager Scott Pioli. “Ted’s experience, proven track record of success, and enthusiasm for leading our efforts to continually connect and communicate with our fans will make him a great addition to our team.”

Crews joins the Chiefs after spending the last three seasons as Senior Director of Communications for the St. Louis Rams. He served as the primary contact on all football matters for the owner, general manager and head coach, in addition to serving as the team’s official spokesperson.

“I want to thank Clark Hunt, the Hunt family, Scott Pioli and Mark Donovan for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this storied franchise,” Crews said. “I am excited and honored to join the Chiefs family and I am looking forward to getting involved in the Kansas City community and working with the Chiefs staff as well as the local media.”

During his tenure in St. Louis, Crews reshaped the team’s communication efforts and played an integral role during the Rams’ ownership transition from the Rosenbloom family to Stan Kroenke during the 2010 season by working with the NFL league office and media affiliates. In 2010, Crews’ staff received a nomination for the prestigious Pete Rozelle Award, which is annually presented by the Pro Football Writers of America to the league’s top public relations department. Crews has been selected by the NFL to work at the Super Bowl for three consecutive years.

Crews joined the Rams after four seasons as Football Communications Manager with the Atlanta Falcons. With Atlanta, he provided media support for the general manager and head coach, in addition to the coaching staff and players. Crews served as the Falcons’ public relations representative for the 2008 NFL Draft in New York City. On five separate occasions, Crews was selected by the NFL to direct publicity for the Pro Bowl in Hawaii, coordinating all media and public relations efforts for the NFC squad each year.

Prior to joining Atlanta in 2005, Crews served five seasons as Media Relations Assistant for the Carolina Panthers after originally entering the NFL as a departmental intern with the franchise for two seasons.

A 1999 graduate of South Carolina State University, Crews is married to the former Michelle Willis. The couple has two children – a son, Tesdell Jacob IV and a daughter, Olivia Celeste.

The Kansas City Chiefs are a franchise with a rich history. Fans of the Chiefs are as loyal as any in the NFL. Despite more than 40 years without a Super Bowl title, Kansas City still boasts one of the top 10 attendance figures in the league.

That’s loyalty to the extreme, even if the team’s performance doesn’t warrant such good deeds in return. The New York Times reports three other teams have Super Bowl droughts as bad or worse than the Chiefs. The Detroit Lions, New York Jets and Cleveland Browns have been absent from the NFL’s title game for longer than Kansas City since they won Super Bowl IV.

Yet among those teams, only the Jets had a higher attendance in 2011. ESPN’s attendance figures place the Jets at just under 79,000 for eight home games and the Chiefs had just over 72,000. Detroit had just over 63,700 and Cleveland just had 65,900 per home game.

That loyalty among fans will be rewarded if head coach Romeo Crennel has his way. The Chiefs’ website recently posted the “Romeo Rules” as compiled by sources in Cleveland when he was the head coach of the Browns.

Crennel’s loyalty streak comes from his father’s upbringing. The elder Crennel was a sergeant in the U.S. Army. If any unit in the world preaches loyalty above all else, it’s the U.S. Armed Forces. It is the same loyalty that kept Crennel in defensive coordinator positions for so long before becoming a head coach himself. He stuck it out with Haley even though he was fired with three games left in the season.

The entire team’s attitude changed when Crennel took over as interim head coach. If the team is as loyal to Crennel as he is to the Chiefs, it will be a fantastic year in 2012 should the team remain healthy. Crennel’s rules stem from being both a good instructor and good listener. He expects the best out of his players, yet isn’t afraid to tell them how to get it done.

I can’t wait to see how the Crennel experiment pans out in 2012. It all begins with spring training in July.

William Browning is a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs after latching on to the team during the lean years of St. Louis football. Born in the gateway city, he is also a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan. He currently resides in Branson, Mo.

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Tim Tebow gets one more chance to show what he can do on the football field during the regular season. The Denver Broncos take on the Kansas City Chiefs to decide the AFC West on Sunday, Jan. 1. The scenario is pretty simple for Tebow and his Broncos in that if the team wins, they clinch the AFC West. If they lose, the Oakland Raiders can win the division by beating the San Diego Chargers.

The Week 17 game is also a chance for Tebow to put up more fantasy football points for leagues that still count stats this week. Last week, Tebow had a rough game against the Buffalo Bills, throwing 3 interceptions and losing a fumble. He did have 185 passing yards, 34 rushing yards, a passing touchdown and a rushing touchdown, but Tebow finished the week with just 15.8 fantasy points. That made him the No. 17 ranked quarterback for the week and not exactly what fans were looking to see from him with seasons on the line.

Now Tebow faces a team that he didn’t have a lot of success against in Week 10, but it is a team that he also helped his Broncos to beat. While the Broncos won the game 17-10, Tebow was 2-of-8 in passing with one touchdown and he also rushed for another 43 yards and a touchdown. Overall those aren’t great numbers, but it was good enough for the Broncos to win the game. Now the team hosts the Chiefs in a Week 17 must-win situation and Tebow goes out for a second chance to put up big numbers.

It doesn’t seem likely that Tebow will have great fantasy football numbers in Week 17, but many also predicted he wouldn’t have them against some of the other teams he has beaten either. The truth is that you never know what to expect from Tebow in games like this one, but the likely scenario is that he will put the Broncos in a position to win the game in the fourth quarter. It’s a risky start if you are trying to figure out your Week 17 quarterback situation and simply looking at his performance in Week 10 against the Chiefs, I wouldn’t advise going with Tebow in this game either.

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Sources:

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