No Excuses

By Seth Herrold
“They just have had too many injuries.” That is what I kept telling people last year when the Chiefs followed up an AFC West championship season with a sub-par year. Some called it a terrible year, but to me, coming within three points of winning the division again and going back to the playoffs without your leading rusher, without your prized second-year free safety, without your red-zone target tight end, without your Pro-Bowl quarterback (Yes, Matt Cassel was a Pro-Bowler in 2010) all in a season in which your head coach was fired part-way through the season is not a terrible season.

Last year the Chiefs weren’t very good and the fact they came within three points of making the playoffs speaks more to the quality of the AFC West division than it does of the Chiefs’ abilities on the field. But the worst part of last season was it gave the Chiefs and their fans excuses.
Now here we are, two weeks into the 2012 season and the Chiefs are again languishing at 0-2. The difference now, however, is there are no excuses. Nobody is hurt, your coach has had an entire off-season at the reigns, but the Chiefs still look like the team that stumbled and bumbled their way down the stretch en route to missing the playoffs by a mere three points. You hear a lot of teams and coaches refer to the old cliché, “no excuses.” If you look at it, that really is a good saying because excuses only get you in trouble.
If a team says “we’re too young and inexperienced,” then they better start winning next season, otherwise, what was the point of complaining the previous year about the youth? If a team says “they caught us on an off day,” then you better beat them the next time you play them, otherwise you end up looking a little foolish. All excuses do is set you up for failure. Are there times when excuses are legitimate? Sure. Sometimes young teams do blossom with experience and sometimes you truly do have an off day, but ultimately, if you truly are a great team that caught a bad break, there is no point making the excuse, just prove the naysayers wrong the next time around.
I have to admit I am guilty of this. Last year I was uttering the “They just have had too many injuries” line about the Chiefs and look now, things aren’t much different this year with everyone healthy. Don’t get me wrong, the Chiefs still have a lot of time to turn things around and the AFC West again looks like it will be up for grabs for any one of the four teams to take. Even with the Payton Manning acquisition, the Broncos haven’t looked like they are going to run away with anything. Take it from me, though, I’m not making any excuses for the Chiefs’ failures in the early going.
Sometimes in sports I think the eternal optimism gets a little old. Almost every team goes through a down period and the quicker they acknowledge things aren’t going the way they had hoped the sooner they can get over the hump and get back to winning.
Working at the Republican-Times for over five years now, I have really come to respect head football coach Wes Croy. In six seasons of doing interviews with him before and after games, I have never once heard him give me an excuse for why his team lost a game. You will never hear Croy complain about a lack of size, whether it be player size or school size. He doesn’t make excuses for the turnovers, injuries, being caught off guard or anything. The guy is fearless, too. He would rather bus his team out of state to play a tradition-rich Class 3 school as take a bye on the schedule.
So, the next time you are going to make an excuse for your team, just save it. Let it play out and then, if your team does turn things around, you can go back and explain why things weren’t so great the last time around.