Yes, Chiefs should be playing Sunday
Yael T. AbouhalkahLife goes on.
That’s the cold, hard - and in the end - uplifting fact regarding Kansas Citians and their professional football team.
So I fully support the Chiefs’ decision to play the Carolina Panthers on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium, barely a day after linebacker Jovan Belcher shot and killed his girlfriend before killing himself.
It’s a tragic murder-suicide that’s getting all kinds of attention - from Mayor Sly James, sports talk radio and regular citizens - because of the high-profile involvement of a professional athlete.
But the fact is, life goes on for all the remaining people Belcher left behind with his very selfish behavior.
The good that will come out of it?
More people will perhaps talk about domestic violence, anger management and depression, talk to others about their problems and, along the way, perhaps prevent such a tragic situation happening again with a few people in the metro area.
The bad?
Let us count the ways.
Many people will jump to conclusions about Belcher’s state of mind - when only he knew what it was.
Football will be demonized - correctly or incorrectly - in this situation, again with no one really knowing the role it played in the decisions of a man like Belcher.
And we’ll get told that society is too mean, that we need to pull back on our criticisms of others, a theme that James broached in one of his statements Saturday afternoon.
But neither James nor anyone else really knows what made Belcher snap.
Here’s what we do know: Life goes on. The professional football game will be played Sunday, because it starts the healing process for the players, the fans and anyone else touched by this incident.
The fans will wear more red than black this week, people will still boo the NFL’s worst team (probably a lot less, though) and - after the game - people will go back to their regular lives.
In the end, that’s all they can do, as they try their best to make better lives for themselves and for this city. The murder-suicide will not change that fact, nor should it.
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