KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The most experienced cornerback on the Kansas City Chiefs roster is entering his third year in the NFL.The best of them is entering his second.In other words, the eyes of Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers should light up when he steps inside Arrowhead Stadium for the season opener Sunday. Hes coming off a 4,800-yard season with plenty of production coming against defensive backs that have been through the professional grind.But the Chiefs seem unconcerned by their cornerback pups.In fact, they seem downright confident in them.We do have some young guys, Chiefs general manager John Dorsey said, but you know what Ive seen from preseason games? I think theyve all done a really nice job.Now its time for the real season to start. Now you take it up to that next level, and I think these guys WILL take it up to the next level.The Chiefs lost veteran starter Sean Smith in free agency , yet were still confident enough in their youngsters that they traded Marcus Cooper to Arizona for a draft pick before final roster cuts. Cooper had been losing playing time but had still appeared in 38 games, giving Kansas City some semblance of experience.Their departures left Phillip Gaines as the Chiefs elder statesmen, and the fact that hes entering his third season in the NFL is tempered a bit by the way his first two years have gone.Gaines struggled to get on the field as a rookie, the acclimation process taking longer than the third-round pick expected. And once Gaines earned the starting job a year ago, he tore the ACL in his left knee in Week 3.Gaines won back his starting job in training camp, and will pair with Defensive Rookie of the Year Marcus Peters in giving the Chiefs perhaps the youngest starting tandem in the NFL.We lost a lot of guys last year -- well, this year -- so weve got to pick it up, Peters said.That is certainly true for Peters, who was usually matched up with an opponents second wide receiver a year ago. He is now the No. 1 cornerback and will be given much more difficult tasks.Weve told him and he knows what theyre going to try to do to him, Chiefs defensive backs coach Emmitt Thomas said.Hell step up to the occasion. Were not worried about him. Hes our guy back there that can get the ball, turn the ball over and hes our best cover guy on this team. Hell be ready.Will the guys deeper on the depth chart be ready?The first two cornerbacks off the bench, and the first options at nickel back, appear to be Kenneth Acker and Steven Nelson. And while both have some experience, they are still relative newcomers.Acker spent a year on the San Francisco practice squad before starting 13 games a year ago. But he was traded to the Chiefs relatively late in training camp, so the pressure has been on to quickly learn the nuances of defensive coordinator Bob Suttons press-man coverage scheme.Nelson appeared in 12 games as rookie a year ago, though much of that was on special teams.Its the small things, he said. Playing defensive back is a game of inches back there, so working on the small things is important. Having a short-term memory is important too.No problem there: Quite a few of the Chiefs defensive backs have yet to make any memories.KeiVarae Russell was a third-round pick out of Notre Dame and D.J. White a sixth-round pick out of Georgia Tech, and both have flashed some talent at cornerback. Fourth-round pick Eric Murray played mostly cornerback at Minnesota, but hes forced his way onto the field in Kansas City at safety.All of them are quickly learning what life is like in game week.You can tell the focus has been taken up a notch, Russell said. Every game counts at this point and you obviously want to win every game and work toward that No. 1 playoff seed. Its not like preseason.In that respect, Russell at least sounds like a veteran.I dont know how often my name will be called, but its going to be exciting getting out there, he said. This has been a longtime dream of mine and its going to become a reality on Sunday.---AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and AP NFL Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/AP-NFL Quenton Nelson Jersey .H. -- Matt Kenseth made it 2 for 2 in the Chase, holding off teammate Kyle Busch to win Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Pierre Desir Jersey . "It was nerve-wracking, but we pulled through," said Collaros, who threw four touchdown passes to lead the Toronto Argonauts (8-4) to a 33-27 win over the Calgary Stampeders (9-3) in front of 28,781 fans at McMahon Stadium. http://www.coltsfansshop.com/Colts-Eric-Ebron-Draft-Jersey/ .Y. - Nelson Mandela will be honoured by the New York Yankees with a plaque in Monument Park. Jack Doyle Jersey .C. -- Charlotte Bobcats coach Steve Clifford said after all of these years in the NBA hes still amazed at some of the things LeBron James does. Darius Leonard Jersey .C. United of Major League Soccer. United chose the defender in the second round of the 2013 MLS re-entry draft. Last season, 92 goaltenders played in the NHL. Eleven of them (12 percent) were from Finland. That was up from nine in the previous season and tied the record from 2009.Over the years, 30 Finnish goalies have played 4,411 regular-season games in the NHL. But only five of them played in the league before 1999.So why has Finland -- with a population of 5.5 million, one-sixth that of Canada -- been producing so many world-class goalies in recent years? One of the reasons for Finlands steady production of high-quality goalies -- there are seven Finnish goalies in Russias KHL, too -- is their tradition tracing back to the 1960s and 70s.Urpo Ylonen, Jorma Valtonen, Hannu Kamppuri, Kari Takko and Jarmo Myllys were among the Finnish pioneers, helping pave the way for a new first wave of true NHL goalies, such as Miikka Kiprusoff, Pekka Rinne and Niklas Backstrom, who have either retired or are closing in on the end of their careers.?Finnish club Pori Assat Assat produced Takko, one of the NHLs four Finnish pioneers. When Takko was 10, the Assat goalie was Valtonen, who was named best goaltender at the 1972 world championships.And when Jaakko Rosendahl, the 33-year-old goaltending coach of Assat, was 12, Finland won its first world championship gold with Myllys, who played 39 games in the NHL. Then there was Ylonen, best goaltender at the 1970 tournament who later became a goaltending coach for Finnish League powerhouse Turku, with students such as Kiprusoff, Antero Niittymaki, Fredrik Norrena, Jani Hurme and Joni Ortio.Role models are important, said Rosendahl, who doubles as Team Italys goaltending coach, in Finnish. Im sure a lot of kids wanted to play goal thanks to Myllys, and when Finns finally made their NHL breakthrough, they gained self-confidence.Winning begets winning, and goaltending heroes beget goaltending heroes.Of course, Finland has built up a great coaching training system, and the federations nine districts each have a dedicated goaltending coach who makes club visits to spread the knowledge. Rosendahls Assat is a midsized club, with 12 junior teams and the Finnish League team. The club has 18 goalie coaches.Also, with a functioning goalie factory in their own country, the clubs often have two good Finnish goalies on their roster, which creates a healthy competition. Only three non-Finns have won the Urpo Ylonen Award which goes to the best goalie in the league, the latest being Tim Thomas?in 1998.So is there a Finnish style then? Something others could copy?Its hard to say, not really, said the Vancouver Canucks Jacob Markstrom, in Swedish. When I was growing up, there was Niittymaki and Kiprusoff, and they had a similar style, but I dont see a Finnish style.Kiprusoff and Niittymaki both came up through Ylonens goalie school.Id say, generally speaking, that Finnish goalies have good hands, and we try to control the puck, use our glove a lot, said Nashville Prredators No.dddddddddddd 1 Rinne, in Finnish. I believe I can spot a Finn, but Ill admit that the styles are pretty similar everywhere these days.Everybody has his own style, which I think is great. There was a time when everybody looked almost the same. But one detail that still separates the Finns is the active hands.Rinne credits his own hands to the game of pesapallo, a baseball-like sport that was developed in Finland in the early 1920s.When I was a kid, I wore the glove all the time, and I still like to catch the puck if I can, he said. I think it can be traced back to pesapallo, but its probably not the whole explanation. I dont know any other Finnish goalies who have played pesapallo.Tuukka Rask, a goalie for Finlands World Cup of Hockey team along with Rinne, liked the pesapallo theory, even if he hasnt played the game seriously.Only at school ... but I think it makes sense, Rask said, in Finnish. Finns are good with their hands, and just look at Rinne. I think Finnish goalies are catchers more than other nationalities.Even if their national sport wouldnt explain Finlands success with goalies, Rosendahl wouldnt mind if more kids played pesapallo.Its good practice for your hand-eye coordination because you need to read the balls trajectory quickly, he said. A goalie has 0.3 seconds to make a move when somebody shoots from the point. Theres no time to look where the pucks going. You have to know it.The fact that theres no particular Finnish style is a testament to the way coaches like to start with an individual goalies qualities and then build on them.No coach in Finland thinks that his goalies should play a certain way, Rosendahl said. In Sweden, they trust their blocking style and teach it to everybody, even small kids, even if they cant really block the whole net.A big part of our coaching has to do with a way of looking at life itself. How you should only focus on the things you can control, not look at skaters mistakes, how to work every day, how to enjoy the work every day.Finlands goalie coaches have to work hard to keep the factory going. Of the 11 Finns in the NHL last season, four could be considered No. 1s -- although Antti Niemi (43 starts) and Kari Lehtonen (39 starts) split the season pretty evenly for the Dallas Stars. Rinne played 66 games and Rask, 64. Four other Finnish goalies made double-digit starts, including Ortio, who has signed with a Swedish League team, and Karri Ramo, who suffered a torn ACL in February and is currently unsigned. In the 2016-17 season, Rinne will turn 34 and Rask 30.Meanwhile, Finland has a group of young forwards on their way up in Patrik Laine, Teuvo Teravainen, Aleksander Barkov and Jesse Puljujarvi. Could change be in the wind?Maybe its not cool to be a goalie anymore, Rosendahl said. Cheap Jerseys China NFL Jerseys China NFL Jerseys Wholesale Discount Basketball Jerseys Cheap NHL Jerseys Authentic Cheap Baseball Jerseys Free Shipping Cheapest College Jerseys Sale Cheap Football Jerseys China Nike NFL Jerseys Canada Wholesale NHL Jerseys From China MLB Jerseys Outlet Canada Wholesale NBA Jerseys Canada Store Cheap Soccer Jerseys China Cheap Authentic Jerseys Canada ' ' '