Larry Brown Sports

Andy Reid is reportedly close to agreeing to a deal that would make him the next head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. Earlier this week, we heard an extremely similar report about Reid being on the verge of signing with the Arizona Cardinals, but according ESPN’s Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen things have changed.

On Thursday morning, Schefter tweeted that he and Mortensen had spoken to sources who say Reid and the Chiefs have agreed on all of the major issues regarding a contract and are now in the process of ironing out minor details. Schefter said during an appearance on SportsCenter that the “feeling and expectation” is that the two sides will be able to reach a deal.

While nothing is certain and Reid has reportedly yet to cancel scheduled meetings with the Cardinals and San Diego Chargers, the ESPN report sheds some light on the Twitter beef we showed you between NFL reporters Mike Florio and Jason La Canfora earlier in the week. Florio questioned La Canfora’s report about Reid meeting with the Cardinals on Wednesday, saying that he believed La Canfora’s information came from Reid’s agent, who simply wanted other potential Reid suitors to present their best offers sooner rather than later.

Should Reid indeed end up agreeing to terms with the Chiefs, Florio would come out of this whole thing looking pretty good. So would the Chiefs.

Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher fatally shot his girlfriend and then committed suicide on Saturday morning, according to Kansas City police. Early reports indicated that an unnamed player had killed his girlfriend and then driven to the Chiefs practice facility and shot himself. Jason La Canfora of CBSSports.com later reported that the player was Belcher.

The first shooting reportedly took place at around 8 a.m. in a neighborhood about five miles away from Arrowhead Stadium. The Chiefs were preparing to take on the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, and sources say the team has been told to travel to Charlotte as scheduled.

The team issued a statement on Saturday morning confirming that there was an incident but witholding any details while an investigation is underway.

“We can confirm that there was an incident at Arrowhead earlier this morning,” the statement read. “We are cooperating with authorities in their investigation.”

To make matters even more disturbing, ESPN 980 in Washington, D.C. is reporting that Belcher may have shot himself in front of Chiefs head coach Romeo Crennel and GM Scott Pioli:

Word out of Kansas City is that linebacker Javon Belcher, killed his girlfriend then committed suicide in front of head coach and GM.

— ESPN 980 (@ESPNRadio980) December 1, 2012

Our thoughts are with Belcher’s and the victim’s families. We’ll have more on this as details unfold.

The Kansas City Chiefs have been featured in several headlines already this week, and as you know there is nothing positive to say about their on-field performance this season. During Monday night’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Chiefs were dancing machines. They were penalized for excessive celebration on a touchdown that ended up not counting. Dwyane Bowe was penalized for taunting after scoring another touchdown — which also didn’t count. And then there was the Kid N’ Play dance that a couple of Kansas City players busted out after sacking Ben Roethlisberger.

The now 1-8 Chiefs obviously planned some of these antics before the game began, and head coach Romeo Crennel is not amused.

“I have no idea,” Crennel told the Kansas City Star when asked what inspired the dance party. “It was a surprise to me to see some of those celebrations, per se. The rules are explicit about no celebrating, particularly group celebrations. You cannot have those. Our guys, they know the rules and they should not have done it. I will talk to my players about that, and I don’t expect it to happen again.”

The Chiefs are so bad that they couldn’t even take advantage of an ice-cold Byron Leftwich being tossed into the lineup after Roethlisberger went down. They ultimately lost in overtime, cementing themselves as one of the worst teams in the NFL. No team should be dancing as much as Kansas City did on Monday night, let alone one that’s season has been over for several weeks.

Helmet knock to Around the League

The 1-7 Kansas City Chiefs were penalized in their game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday night for excessive celebration on a touchdown that didn’t end up counting. I didn’t even know that was possible.

The Steelers had a third-and-seven play from their 26 during the third quarter when backup quarterback Byron Leftwich had the ball come out of his hand as his arm was finishing a throwing motion. Linebacker Justin Houston recovered the ball and ran it into the end zone for a touchdown. The real fun happened when Houston began swaying back and forth in a celebration. He was surrounded by his teammates who formed a little dance circle and joined in on the fun.

Unfortunately for the lowly Chiefs, the scoring play was reviewed and overturned because it was deemed an incomplete pass rather than a fumble. That reversal didn’t stop the referees from penalizing Kansas City 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct, which gave Pittsburgh a first down at the 41.

That’s the sort of thing that really only happens to 1-7 teams. On the bright side, Kansas City finally claimed its first lead during regulation of a game. It only took them until Week 10. Congrats fellas!

And on a previous play in the third quarter, Dwayne Bowe took a pass to the end zone and showed the ball to the defender in a taunting move. That play came back because of a holding call, but could have easily been penalized as well.

The Kansas City Chiefs: much better at celebrations than actually getting the ball into the end zone.

By creating their own Twitter accounts, professional sports teams are accepting that the benefits of using social media outweigh the negatives of having to listen to fans air out their grievances. Twitter makes it easy for fans to voice their frustrations directly to the team after a tough loss, and that’s exactly what Missouri resident Travis Wright chose to do after the team’s loss to to Atlanta.

“I’m not much of a @kcchiefs fan anymore,” he wrote. “(Chiefs owner) Clark Hunt’s yearly 30m under the cap bulls*** is unethical. Greedy (expletive) owners can (expletive) off cc @nfl.”

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When Scott Pioli took over as general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs in 2009, he vowed to change the culture of the club. The team has gone 21-27 in his three years and has undergone many changes. More than half of the 155 people employed by the team since Pioli was hired are gone. Many current and former employees describe the work environment as uncomfortable, and built on secrecy and fear. That includes former head coach Todd Haley, who was fired in December.

The Kansas City Star interviewed several current and former employees who suggest that “intimidation and secrecy are among the Chiefs’ principal management styles — and that Haley wasn’t the only one with paranoid thoughts.”

Haley stopped talking on his phone, believing that his conversations were being monitored. He even though his personal cell phone, which he had prior to taking the Chiefs head coaching position, had been tampered with.

The Star described in great detail some of the franchise changes aimed at secrecy.

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After a horrendous start in which they were blown out by the Bills and Lions and lost a tough game to the Chargers, it appeared the Kansas City Chiefs’ season was a lost cause.  Todd Haley was — and still likely is — on the hot seat as the Chiefs offense looked stale and their defense could not stop a nosebleed.  Fortunately for Haley, the last two weeks have been a different story as Kansas City was able to take care of lesser opponents in Minnesota and Indianapolis.

How is it that the Chiefs were able to prevent their season from becoming a lost cause and keep their squad in contention?  According to the Kansas City Star via Pro Football Talk, the bean bag toss showed them the way.  That’s right, the Chiefs began playing the bean bag toss game — known to some of you as cornhole — as a team-building exercise.

“We’ve been trying to figure out ways to create togetherness, and it’s been great,” Haley explained. “It’s a way to keep guys hanging around and interacting with each other, and winning helps out. We’re going to get two more because the line to play gets too long. We’re trying to create an atmosphere that’s fun to hang out in. … Had we not won the last two weeks, they might be being used as firewood.”

We are no strangers to slump busters here at LBS, having shown you baseball players cutting their hair, teams sacrificing chickens, and others beating the crap out of a toolbox.  That being said, playing cornhole is one of the more unique exercises in team unity we have seen.  If it makes the Chiefs feel better to say they won their games because of a tailgating game rather than as a result of facing two of the worst teams in football, more power to them.