The Kansas City Chiefs have decided to suspend cornerback Marcus Peters for Sunday’s fairly important game with the Oakland Raiders, all (or maybe not all) because he decided to eject himself from Sunday’s loss to the New York Jets.
Thus, the Chiefs have finished the job begun by the Los Angeles Chargers, taken on after a month by the Denver Broncos with season-long contributions from the Raiders themselves.
The job? Making the AFC West a certified insane asylum.
The football has been consistently icky – Kansas City and Denver started quickly and then stopped, L.A. spotted the field four games before deciding to pay attention, and the Raiders have just been weird throughout.
But the ways in which they decline the opportunities to find any measure of organizational equilibrium have been amazing. In other words, they have chosen to be stark staring nuts.
Maybe it’s Marshawn Lynch. After all, he did get suspended for jostling an official and guiding two opponents to safety during in-game altercations. Maybe it’s Aqib Talib, who never met a fight he would avoid. Maybe it’s Peters, or maybe it’s Andy Reid for being two different coaches in the same season. Maybe it’s Dean Spanos for moving his franchise to a Home Depot warehouse.
All I know is, through 13 weeks, nobody has a winning record, which while unusual isn’t unprecedented – the NFC East had zero teams even at .500 after 12 games in 2015. It’s just the way they’ve gone about it that is so remarkable . . . and remarkably loony.
So why not suspend Marcus Peters for something so perfectly bughouse? It is 2017, the earth is on fire again, American politics is now elections, resignations apologies and plea bargains, dogs sleep with cats, and football is eating itself.
Apparently one division at a time.
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