Kansas City Chiefs - Tampa Bay Buccaneers Preview

If the Chiefs are going to crawl back into the AFC West race and have a respectable season, they’ll need to take advantage of a winnable game on Sunday. The Chiefs’ next opponent, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, have won only one game this season, and have struggled on both offense and defense.

The biggest news for the Chiefs is that the team will have a new quarterback – Brady Quinn gets his first start in Kansas City after Matt Cassel’s concussion injury has ruled him out for Sunday. The Chiefs have run the ball extremely well this season, as Jamaal Charles has rushed for a league-leading 551 yards and also tallied 118 yards receiving. Tampa Bay has only allowed 74 yards-per-game on the ground this year, so this one may come down to whether or not Kansas City can get Charles going.

Tampa Bay has struggled offensively, averaging only 276 yards per game as a unit. Josh Freeman has been average at best under center this season, throwing for a pedestrian 790 yards with five touchdowns and four interceptions. The Bucs haven’t gotten their ground game going as well, as the team’s top two backs, Doug Martin and Legarrette Blount are only averaging 3.5 yards per carry. Kansas City’s defense looked very impressive against the Ravens last week, limiting Baltimore to only nine points despite often defending a short field due to Cassel’s turnovers. If the Chiefs defense continues to play well, a struggling Tampa Bay offense may have no answer.

Both the Chiefs and the Bucs are hard to get a read on, as the two teams have been incredibly inconsistent on both sides of the ball this year. Tampa Bay is coming off a bye week, while Kansas City is coming off an incredibly frustrating loss. Still, the Bucs’ offense has really struggled this year, and it appears that the Chiefs defense is coming into its own. If Brady Quinn can protect the football and make a couple of plays, Kansas City will have a good shot to pick up its second win of the year.

Tampa Bay has won the last three meetings in this series by a combined 13 points. Game time is Sunday at 12:00 p.m.

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DUI Checkpoints Planned For Lee's Summit This Weekend

Drunken driving-related accidents have been increasing in the Kansas City area lately, and police are taking measures to make the roads around the metro safer. One part of this plan is to increase sobriety checkpoints, which will occur in Lee’s Summit this weekend.

The Lee’s Summit Police Department’s traffic safety unity will conduct sobriety checkpoints and patrols this weekend, most likely in areas where DUI arrests and other alcohol-related incidents have occurred recently.

The police department has stated that its goal is to identify drivers who are under the influence of drugs or alcohol and remove them before an accident occurs. Several Kansas City residents have lost their lives in accidents that occurred in the early morning hours of a weekend night over the past couple of weeks, which has forced police in the Kansas City area to crack down.

The lesson, as always, is to grab a ride with a friend or take a cab if you have been out drinking. A little inconvenience or a few dollars is a much better alternative to losing your license, paying hundreds in fines or going to prison.

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Murder Suspect Van Note Freed On One Million Dollar Bond

Susan “Liz” Van Note, a Lee’s Summit lawyer who is accused of killing her father and his girlfriend, was recently freed from jail on bond. The bond was set at an astonishing one million dollars – an attempt to keep Van Note in prison by the judge. Where the money has come from is baffling the prosecution; however Van Note has paid the fee and has been released from prison.

By now, the Van Note murder case is well known to those in the Kansas City area. On the night of October 2, 2010, William Van Note, a 67-year-old millionaire businessman and his longtime girlfriend, 59-year-old Sharon Dickson, were attacked in front of Van Note’s lakefront home in the Sunrise Beach area at the Lake of the Ozarks. When police arrived on the scene, Dickson had been shot several times and had been slashed with a knife, while Van Note had a bullet wound in his head.

Dickson died at the scene, and Van Note was taken to the University Hospital in Columbia, MO and lapsed into a coma after having the bullet removed from his brain. Liz Van Note presented a signed document stating that she had the authority to make medical decisions for her father, and requested that he be removed from life support. Van Note died after doctors turned the life support machine off.

Only last month, a grand jury indictment accused Liz Van Note of killing her father and his girlfriend, and forging his signature on the document that granted her authority to make his medical decisions. Due to the premeditation of her actions, Van Note has been charged with first degree murder.

What is shocking about Van Note paying a million dollar bond is that she declared bankruptcy only a few years ago. A search has begun to find out where this money came from and how Van Note was able to beat the system. Until then, a woman who is suspected of murdering two people is walking free… after paying a one million dollar bond.

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Matt Cassel Doubtful, Brady Quinn Likely To Start Against Tampa Bay

Matt Cassel’s concussion injury sustained on Sunday means he is doubtful for the Chiefs next game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Thus, the Chiefs are entering practice this week planning on starting Brady Quinn.

Chiefs fans have been screaming for Cassel to be benched for weeks, and now they finally will get to see a new QB under center. While head coach Romeo Crennel has not officially ruled Cassel out, the quarterback’s injury and poor play make Quinn the likely starter this weekend. Before getting hurt, Cassel was in the midst of one of the worst statistical seasons a quarterback has had this season, throwing for a league-leading nine interceptions with a quarterback rating of only 66.2.

Brady Quinn’s arrival in Kansas City this offseason brought a great deal of intrigue, and now we are seeing why. Cassel has struggled with both injuries and inconsistent play over the past couple of seasons, meaning that whoever won the Chiefs’ backup quarterback position would have a great opportunity to play. After a stellar career at the University of Notre Dame, Quinn was selected in the first round of the NFL draft. Quinn has struggled to find playing time in his six year NFL career, throwing for a paltry 1,934 yards with 10 touchdowns, nine interceptions and a lowly 67.3 quarterback rating. Kansas City fans are hoping that he can live up to the potential that made him a first round draft pick, but the play over his career should not inspire anyone with a great deal of confidence.

The good news for the Chiefs is that Brady is a traditional quarterback like Cassel, which means the offense does not need to make any drastic changes (as it did when Tyler Thigpen took over at quarterback several seasons ago). Tampa Bay has one of the weaker pass defenses in the NFL, which means Brady should have a good opportunity to get comfortable and have a decent game.

Kansas City fans even went as far as to fly a banner over Arrowhead Stadium calling for Cassel’s benching. Now, they will get to see if Quinn can do any better.

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Eric Winson Rips Chiefs Fans For Cheering Matt Cassel's Injury

The biggest story emerging from the Chiefs heartbreaking 9-6 loss to the Baltimore Ravens isn’t that the team had a chance to stay to knock off one of the best teams in the conference, or that Kansas City’s defense played a fantastic game. Instead, Eric Winston has grabbed all the headlines with his criticism of Chiefs fans and their behavior during Sunday’s game. Winston ripped into Kansas City fans for cheering when quarterback Matt Cassel was injured.

Winston was quoted as saying the following after the game:

"We are athletes, okay? We are athletes. We are not gladiators. This is not the Roman Coliseum. People pay their hard-earned money when they come in here and I believe they can boo, they can cheer and they can do whatever they want, I believe that. We are lucky to play this game. People, it’s hard economic times, and they still pay the money to do this. But when somebody gets hurt, there are long lasting ramifications to the game we play, long lasting ramifications to the game we play. I’ve already kinda come to the understanding that I won’t live as long because I play this game and that’s okay, that’s a choice I’ve made and a choice all of us have made. But when you cheer, when you cheer somebody getting knocked out, I don’t care who it is, and it just so happened to be Matt Cassel — it’s sickening. It’s 100 percent sickening. I’ve been in some rough times on some rough teams, I’ve never been more embarrassed in my life to play football than in that moment right there.”

Winston was not the only player to criticize Kansas City fans for their behavior. Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles and the Ravens’ Haloti Ngata both expressed their displeasure with the situation through the media.

First, credit Winston for somewhat acknowledging the frustrations of the fans and that the people who attend games to watch his team play spend a lot of their time and money to do so. Fans invest a lot into their team, and Kansas City has one of the most passionate fan bases in America.

Having said that, Winston has a point. It is no secret that Matt Cassel has played extremely poor thus far, and fans have a right to criticize him and even boo him when he doesn’t play well. However, cheering when someone gets injured is crossing the line. It shows a lack of class and puts Kansas City in national headlines for all of the wrong reasons. Fans keep obsessing over Cassel being benched, and for whom? Brady Quinn, the guy who was a disaster in Cleveland and couldn’t beat out Tim Tebow in Denver? Ricky Stanzi, who during the preseason appeared to not even belong on an NFL roster? Cassel is the best quarterback on this team, which says more about Scott Pioli’s failure as a GM.

Chiefs fans need to direct their frustration in the appropriate direction. Cheering when a home player gets knocked unconscious is a classless move, and KC fans are better than that. This was Oakland Raider territory.

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