The Kansas City Chiefs are undergoing renovations at Arrowhead stadium that plan to keep us not-as-far-behind the new billion dollar stadium craze.  The new stadium and practice facility will bring with it an array of LED screens, revamped club-seating and suites, and many other treats that all the up-to-date stadiums have these days according to the Kansas City Business Journal.

The new screens will be nice.  If I ever get tickets in club-seating I'm sure I would enjoy the renovations that are being done to them.  But these aren't the reasons I go to Arrowhead stadium.

I go for the tailgating, the somehow-still-astonishing sea of red, the fans and most of all for my team.

I like that I can go there and look at the names of the past on the Chiefs Ring of Honor.  Well, those are being replaced by LED screens.  Okay, I can live with that.  The LED screens will display those contained on the Ring of Honor sporadically throughout the game.

I like that I can challenge anyone to top the gameday experience at Arrowhead stadium. 

The renovations cost money.  From whom?  A combination of people, including sponsorships.  Tammy Fruits, VP of sales and marketing for the Chiefs said, "Some of these teams have absolutely crazy amounts of revenue they can raise through sponsorships. Revenues from naming rights are so significant. Even if we land ours, the naming rights for cities like Dallas and New York are probably going to be five times larger." [Ed. Emphasis mine]

Um, naming rights?  Like my challenge for the best gameday experience might be changed to Sprint field at Arrowhead or something else completely not KC?

Fruits continues, "It is certainly our hope to incorporate the Arrowhead name and tradition into whatever we end up doing, not unlike Invesco Field at Mile High, that sort of thing."

Tammy, Tammy, Tammy.  One thing you do not do in this town, at any point in your life, is compare US to the Denver Broncos.  But even that's besides the bigger point.

I thought our charm was the tradition.  The fact that we weren't sell-outs.  The fact that we did sell out.  No matter what.  The Dallas' and New York's of the world can spend billions on their stadiums but they can't match our gameday experience or our tradition at Arrowhead.

Unfortunately, the second we change the name of Arrowhead to Corporate whatever, is the second we lose our edge

RIP Arrowhead Stadium: You fell to the (necessary?) desires of a front office to bring in an extra $5 million per year.

One of our many series that may or may not finish, I'll be taking a look at what I think to be the most interesting individual match ups next season. First up in Week 1, the New England Patriots.

With a new starting cornerback, a second year player in the nickel spot and two safeties with combined experience of four years, the easy answer this week is say watch the Kansas City Chiefs secondary compete against the record setting, All World, yada yada yada New England Patriots offense. I'll admit if the Chiefs are able to at least feign containment on Brady and Moss in Week 1, I'll be impressed. And I do that that would at least vaguely point to developing talent in our secondary if they performed well against the best. But if the Pats destroy the Chiefs secondary, then what will we say? That's what we expected?

That's why I'm going to tell you to watch the Chiefs' Jared Allen-less defensive line against the Patriots' foundation, their offensive line.

Right at the beginning of the season, the Chiefs will have a difficult test to gauge how far (or how steady) the team's 2007 strength has fallen. The Patriots offensive line, while a fantastic unit, is more dependent on the influence of Brady and Moss in that offense than the actual skills of their entire line. For example, only left tackle Matt Light and center Dan Koppen were cemented in their positions last year, with the guards and other tackle able to interchange quickly.

So, if the Chiefs are able to develop a successful pass rush during the game on September 7th, we'll know we have something to build upon.

Frankly, it's time for Tamba Hali to either become a pass rushing force or relegate himself to the "Also played" category of NFL players who had a couple of decent seasons. We will see in Week 1 if Hali is a player on his own or if he needed those dozen or so sacks by Allen the last two seasons to skate under the Chiefs' radar.

The same goes for the defensive tackles in Week 1. Glenn Dorsey gets a big time NFL test in his first game and we hope, we hope to see progress from Tank Tyler or Turk McBride, or both.

In other words, the Chiefs will get to see how immediate of an impact their '07 and '08 draft picks will have.

I know this is a lot of hot, hypothetical air over a game the Kansas City Chiefs will likely get whooped up so bad in that we won't be able to glean any lessons from it. But you see where I'm going with these? As this team changes and grows, what will be revealed to us this season about our current condition? We may lose, but what are we learning? Who can't cut it anymore? Or never could?

Because if you're not a Chiefs fan who is thinking in terms of two to three years down the road, you're setting yourself up for angry disappointment.

Ha. Good luck trying to swing your "false positive" excuse again.

A highly placed source in the NFL told Fox 31 sports reporter Josina Anderson that if Henry failed the test that the troubled player would be "up for a suspension".

This comes after Henry had successfully appealed a positive test taken prior to last season. Claiming the test was a "false positive", Henry won his claim against the NFL, though as part of the agreement he remained in the NFL's substance abuser program.

Earlier this spring the Broncos released Henry stating that the former Bill and Titan was "too inconsistent as a person. When you're too inconsistent as a person, you usually aren't going to win championships."

When the source was asked if Henry knew of the positive test, he replied, "I was told this result is recent. [Henry] should already be informed. If he didn’t know, he knows now."

There isn't much more to say that hasn't been said the other times Henry has tested positive in a league drug test. Stupid. Cocky. Can we get him the hell out of the NFL already? I suppose he's almost there.