FROM THE CHEAP SEATS – Keeping up with football, basketball and baseball

If you didn’t foresee the struggles the Chiefs football team would be facing in the Super Bowl against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, then you probably weren’t paying close enough attention. It all started when tackle Eric Fisher suffered a torn Achilles against the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship game.

When you go into a football game and you’re missing your two starting tackles due to injury, you’re in trouble right off the bat. The Chiefs had a makeshift offensive line and the Buccaneers took advantage of it, pressuring quarterback Patrick Mahomes 29 times, with 3 sacks and 8 quarterback hits. Dropped passes, bad play calling and a plethora of penalties were enough to keep the Chiefs out of the end zone.

Let’s not blame the penalties for the loss though as many people have been doing. Sure, they were called for 11 penalties but only a couple of those might have been questionable. Blaming penalties for a loss is just a sign of bad sportsmanship. Let’s look at the sloppy play that we witnessed during the entire football game.

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The NCAA Men’s basketball tournament is set to begin on March 18th. All the games will be played in Indiana, with the majority of the games being played in Indianapolis. Bracketing will be a bit different as well. The top seeds will be done the same way as they have in the past, but the rest of the field will be based on rankings, and there will be no considerations for geography. Right now, it’s looking like the Big 12 could possibly get 7 teams in the tournament. I’m sure that 5 will get in and 2 might be kind of iffy. It all depends on how the final week of the season shapes out. The Big 12 has added some makeup games and several teams will be playing 3 games during the last week. Texas Tech and Oklahoma State would be considered bubble teams right now, but everything could change in a week!

Spring training began in February and I’m actually excited about the Royals this year, more so than usual. The Royals traded for left fielder Andrew Benintendi from the Boston Red Sox. They also signed 1st baseman Carlos Santana from the Cleveland Indians and both should provide immediate spark to the offense. The starting pitching is another year older and I look for them to keep the Royals in games longer this year. The starting five at this point are Brad Keller, Brady Singer, Mike Minor, Danny Duffy and Kris Bubic. Look for Jake Junis to push for a spot as well.

If the pitching can keep them in games and the offense can get timely production, there is no reason that the Royals can’t move up the standings board this year!

–Rob Mooney, Metro Voice sports writer