Tony Gonzalez is 32-years-old. He’s in the middle of his 12th season with the Kansas City Chiefs. During those 11-plus seasons he’s played in 179 of a possible 181 games. He’s caught 841 passes for 10,075 yards and caught 68 touchdowns while becoming a serviceable blocker as well.

After a couple seasons where his yardage and touchdown numbers fell, he played 16 games in 2007, catching 99 passes for 1,172 yards and five scores, showing he was far from done.

Gonzalez arrived in Kansas City in 1997. During his rookie year, the Chiefs went 13-3. They were upset in the divisional playoff round by Denver, but Gonzalez must have thought that the NFL was a piece of cake. That was the end of a collection of playoff runs for the Chiefs, however. In the five years that followed, the Chiefs won seven, nine, seven, six, and eight games.

In 2003, they hit prominence again, winning another 13 games, but lost again in the playoffs. The four following seasons resulted in seven, 10, nine and four win campaigns, the last of which appeared to begin the bottoming out process.

Gonzalez reportedly went to management and requested the team look into a trade. He did so behind closed doors without complaining to the media. And management reportedly said they’d do what they could to meet his request. But while media reports indicate that at least the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers inquired about Gonzalez, the Chiefs decided to keep him when the best they could get was a third round choice.

Meanwhile in Detroit, wide receiver Roy Williams has been dropping passes and throwing helmets all season long. He did say in the papers that he wanted to stay in Detroit, but his actions on the field certainly spoke a different language.

After showing some promise for half a season last year, the Lions tanked the last eight games and are terrible again this year. It’s certainly understandable why some veterans might run from the team as fast as possible.

And I’m no dummy. Many of the guys in the NFL aren’t choir boys. But expecting better than pouting and equipment-throwing tirades wouldn’t seem that much to ask.

Still, the Lions decided enough was enough and when the Dallas Cowboys stepped up with a reported four draft picks, they understandably parted ways with their enigmatic and at times underachieving wideout (now added to the list of Charles Rodgers and Mike Williams as Matt Millen-first-round-receivers that failed to bring the Lions back to prominence after a half-century).

I guess I have no ill feelings about Williams getting traded. His antics will probably fit in well with those of Terrell Owens (poor Brad Johnson for the next month) and compared with Adam “Pacman” Jones and Tank Johnson, throwing helmets is a minor issue.

But I do feel badly for Gonzalez, who has by all accounts been a classy player for Kansas City. He did bust out in this morning’s papers saying “I’m shocked,” to FoxSports.com. “It didn’t make sense not to do this deal. It’s winding down for me and this team is rebuilding. If they said from the get-go, ‘No, we’re not going to trade you’ that would’ve been better than how this whole thing unfolded. But that’s not what happened.”

He said he didn’t think GM Carl Peterson could get the price he asked for Gonzalez (reportedly a second and a fifth, according to the Fox Sports story) because of his age.

But in Gonzalez fashion, he added that he’d move on. “There’s nothing I can do about it. I was pissed off about it, but I’ll get over it. I won’t let it affect my plan and my preparation.”

He also insists he’ll still do whatever he can to make the Chiefs a better team. That’s a pretty high-road attitude for a 32-year-old player on a 1-4 team who seemed under the impression that he was about to head to a contender.

It feels a little weird to be offering kudos to a player for acting like he should. While I’m sure this kind of attitude is present in many if not most NFL players the bad apples get enough play where Gonzalez’ outlook is refreshing.