Denver writer likes Arrowhead but, no culture, style? hmm...

GRID · Post by **GRID** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 9:12 am

By Adam Schefter Denver Post Sports Writer

Not long ago, fellow Broncos beat writer Patrick Saunders asked which was my favorite NFL city to visit. Initially, he might have figured New York, with its familiar sights and family members. Or San Francisco, with its sophisticated style and romantic mood. Or Chicago, with its big buildings and beautiful beach right across the street from each other. For others, maybe. Not for me. For me, my favorite NFL city to visit is Kansas City. No other NFL city is as easy to get to. You can leave Denver on a Saturday afternoon and still be in Kansas City in time for dinner at Lidia's - a superb 9-football meal. No other NFL city has a stadium as good as Arrowhead Stadium, which has aged even better than Sharon Stone. Talk about an old-age beauty. Wow. Its got color, energy and spunk. All kinds of new stadiums keep sprouting up all around the league, and none is as nice as the model for how every stadium should be built. Arrowhead is, in my mind, the NFL's best stadium. Bar none. No other NFL city has the atmosphere Kansas City does. Walk out of your hotel room early on a Sunday morning, and the scent of barbeque coming from tailgate parties 20 minutes away wafts through your nostrils. It is the only time that bratwurst at 9 a.m. on a Sunday actually seems appetizing. Then there are the actual games themselves. In each of the past two years, the Broncos and Chiefs have gone into overtime. They also staged what is still the greatest game I've ever seen, the January 1998 divisional playoff that was hold-your-breath good. Kansas City might not offer much in the way of culture or style. But who cares. When a city transforms into one large college town, when the entire area turns Chiefs red, there is no place on NFL weekend that is better to be. This weekend, it's off to my favorite NFL city to visit. It's off to Kansas City.

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 9:14 am

backhanded huh? Culture compared to DENVER? Do they even have a contemporary art museum yet?

Somebody might tell him mountains aren't culture.

GRID · Post by **GRID** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 9:20 am

But they do respect our fans:

Article Published: Thursday, October 02, 2003

mark kiszla
K.C. tops in parade of homes
By Mark Kiszla
Denver Post Sports Columnist

Broncomania is dead and buried in a stadium parking lot.

The best home-field advantage in the NFL has gotten out of Denver, baby.

It has moved to Kansas City.

Forget Lambeau Field in Green Bay, where the old ghosts got cold and went home. Oakland Raiders games are populated by lame geeks wearing bad Halloween costumes. Our own Invesco Field, site of America's dullest cocktail party, is not even a contender.

Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Chiefs since 1972, ranks as the toughest destination in the NFL.

The loudest, proudest, most intimidating crazies in pro football scream for the Chiefs.

Broncomaniacs should be ashamed of themselves.

If the wise guys in Las Vegas usually assign three points to home-field advantage, then Arrowhead Stadium is worth a touchdown. And Invesco Field is worthless.

When it comes to pumping up the volume, there is no comparison between the fans of Denver and Kansas City. Asked which stadium was noisier, even Broncos linebacker Keith Burns reluctantly had to shake his head and admit Arrowhead rocks louder.

"It can be so loud and noisy, it's overwhelming. It can get deafening," Burns said Wednesday. He was not trying to diss Denver, merely shouting the truth about Kansas City.

When the Broncos tore down Mile High Stadium, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

As a football facility, Invesco Field is a great wine bar. When is franchise owner Pat Bowlen going to plant silk trees in the aisles?

Sure, Denver eventually overcame those paper Lions from Detroit on Sunday, but no thanks to the local fans. Even when the scoreboard was aglow with tension during the fourth quarter, most eyewitnesses acted about as excited as commuters stuck on Colfax Avenue, waiting for an RTD bus running 10 minutes late.

Invesco Field is often so whisper-quiet, you would think that rather than the Snake scrambling 25 yards for a first down, a Tiger was standing pensively over a 25-foot putt for birdie.

If the Broncos advance to the Super Bowl this season, they will have to carry those yuppies in the club seats every inch of the way. Of course, these tired, old baby boomers with outrageously expensive tickets probably have good reason not to stomp their feet and bring down the Rocky Mountain Thunder. Might spill some gin out of that martini glass.

In Kansas City, however, the crowd is ready for some football from the opening snap. Heck, they're lubed on Bud and ready to roll two hours before kickoff. The first sign the Chiefs play in serious pigskin country? Check the badges in the parking lot.

The bow ties of hard-working Chevy trucks outnumber the three-pointed stars that adorn chic Mercedes sedans by at least 25-1.

The Chiefs proudly wear red. The team's loyalists proudly wear blue collars. Kansas City fans are throwbacks. Back in the day, rough-and-tumble players knocked heads with leather helmets. The die-hards in the stands at Arrowhead Stadium still play with leather lungs.

"You have 85,000 fans, all dressed in their red. The very first time I went out there during the national anthem, instead of 'home of the brave' they're saying 'home of the Chiefs.' I got goose bumps," Broncos tight end Shannon Sharpe said.

Invesco Field has every amenity imaginable in its 1.7 million square feet except one: a soul.

How do you know this is an NFL Sunday in Kansas City? Easy. A visitor can smell Arrowhead Stadium before seeing it from Interstate 70. There is more haze outside a K.C. game than a Grateful Dead concert. But this smoke is not reefer madness, it is the aromatic scent of ribs and dogs sizzling on a thousand grills. When tailgating, Chiefs Nation makes fire better than the Cherokee Nation.

Denver coach Mike Shanahan still remembers a January 1998 playoff game in Kansas City. Not fondly.

It made his ears bleed. The din hit like a tidal wave three minutes before kickoff.

"I'm trying to talk to my son, who is right next to me (on the sideline). I am yelling, and he cannot hear me. I'm yelling at the top of my voice, trying to get him to get something. And he has no idea what I'm talking about," Shanahan said. "That's how loud it is. That environment doesn't happen very often."

Ah, that is how crazy Coloradans voiced support for the Broncos, once upon a time.

In Denver, it now requires a proclamation from the mayor, the cameras of "Monday Night Football" and Raiders at the gates to create any orange madness.

In Kansas City, all it takes to pump up the crowd is to pump up a football.

In a showdown between 4-0 teams that figure to compete for the AFC West championship all season, both Denver and the Chiefs need every possible edge.

Who are the No. 1 fans in the NFL? It's no contest.

Broncomaniacs should be seeing red.

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 9:24 am

nice to see we don't have the only media that tries to push envy.

Nice to see us being the standard to compare yourself to instead of what is common place around a lot of people around here, comparing us to something else.

If that makes any sense.

StL_Dan · Post by **StL_Dan** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 11:43 am

having a little bit of objectivity, i think the overall tone of these two commentaries are positive and complimentary through and through.

the first guy is undeniably ignorant about the heritage and historicity of KC, but, hey, noone's perfect....AND he's from a thin air elevation....how much can the guy really know about we simpleton's from Denver's hinterland?

KCN · Post by **KCN** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 3:15 pm

Damn, Grid, I was just about to post that article. It's great to hear that kind of praise from a Denverite.

trailerkid · Post by **trailerkid** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 3:27 pm

Didn't you guys know that Denver became cultured and sophisticated once Californians started moving in? I mean, it'd be impossible to be "cultured" without the help of people who destroy the environment, create some of the worst traffic in the country and consider upscale retail a necessity

We Kansas Citians are so ordinary with our BBQ and football. We're so privileged to have L.A. of the Rockies noticing us.

QueSi2Opie · Post by **QueSi2Opie** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 11:29 pm

On the first article:

Initially, he might have figured New York, with its familiar sights and family members. Or San Francisco, with its sophisticated style and romantic mood. Or Chicago, with its big buildings and beautiful beach right across the street from each other.

I don't think the writer was implyin' that Denver has more culture or style than Kansas City. He was sayin' that we don't in comparison to cities like "New York", "San Francisco", or "Chicago."

The bow ties of hard-working Chevy trucks outnumber the three-pointed stars that adorn chic Mercedes sedans by at least 25-1.

Don't know if I'm too proud of this one. But yes, we have the best NFL fans in the country...especially for a city larger than Green Bay.