I’ll be honest: when Dick Vermeil first became head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs on January 12, 2001, I didn’t want to like him.
It wasn’t because I had developed a distaste for him during the years he had been head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles and St. Louis Rams. Like I always tell people: I’m a Chiefs fan first and foremost. To me, what happens with other NFL teams — unless it somehow impacts the Chiefs — is just background noise. So I just didn’t know enough about Vermeil to have a legitimate reason to dislike him.