Post Season Report - One Single Thing the Chiefs Need Most

I am a recovering Chiefs addict.

Because of that, I don't see, watch, read, or listen to anything other than Chiefs games on Sunday. While I've already shared some of the key parts of my sports celibacy, there are some reasons that rise above the rest that keep me from paying any attention to any sports things. One of the problems, however, is that my radar picks up sports things all over the place -- well, I really should say things-that-affect-my-teams type of things.

As far as the NFL goes, I only care about the Chiefs. But everything else in the NFL does affect the Chiefs. For instance, I would've only paid attention to teams like Dallas and Seattle to the extent that they shared the record for most consecutive playoff losses with the Chiefs. Now that the Chiefs are the sole holder of that distinction (with seven, see last post), I must now manage the serious disconsolation attending that fact.

I am also always picking up whatever the Raiders, Broncos, and Chargers are doing because whatever happens with our AFC West rivals affects how the Chiefs do through the season -- although again, I never deliberately pay a single lick of attention to any of their games or progress.

I can't. Knowing the things that so viciously rack the Chiefs just too deeply shreds my soul. So even though I step way back from all the Chiefsitude off the field, it is one reason I write about it. I admit this blog is part of the good therapy for a recovering Chiefs addict. But before you scamper away fearing this is just one pathetic whine session, please bear with me because it does get to a critical aspect of the Kansas City Chiefs and their future.

Yesterday was no different in the plain fact that my Chiefs-things radar locked on to two gnawing things that have happened with some regularity, and is certainly one of the most profound reasons this fan is so resolutely celibate. I don't have a clue as to what happened in these two events, because beholding them for any length of time requires enduring torment that is best avoided altogether.

Those two things were that the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers won yet another playoff game. (I will tell you one reason I was eager for an Atlanta win was because I was really rooting for Tony Gonzales and hoping he'd finally get some Super Bowl glory. Sadly, it won't happen this year and probably never will.)

Here's the context, just so you know. I don't necessarily have any animosity toward the Steelers and Packers. My affection for the Raiders is miles beneath any consideration I have for these two teams. If it were any two other teams doing the same thing, I'd be just as jealous. It doesn't matter. (Oh, and yeah, the intense jealosy -- not good. Another perfectly fine justification for staying so far away.)

I will say the one key thing about them in particular is that they are small market teams and ones that are wildly successful. I've always lamented how the Chiefs are a small market team and as such will never get the advantages the Grand Sports Powers-That-Be afford the Patriotses and Giantses. I think the Steelers get a lot of recognition because they've had such a fine organization and a rich winnning history, and the Packers catch the media's eyes simply because they are in the smallest market in professional sports and have this small-guy darling status in the media, kind of like Notre Dame does in college football. The Chiefs have just been done in by poor front office management and wretched playoff stupidness (again, see last post).

So yeah, the aggravation stirred up by the intense jealosy in all of this is just too much. Please know that I'm terrific with small market teams doing great and sticking it to the Powers-That-Be who zealouly labor to manipulate competitive integrity! I just want it to be the Chiefs doing that, that's all.

I can't neglect to share the gory details with you.

Remember just before the '96 season -- I'm pretty sure it was then -- Sports Illustrated had on its cover three key Packers guys (in a spiffy fold-out front cover) right next to three key Kansas City Chiefs guys. "Next Super Bowl: Packers vs. Chiefs" or something like that. Well, the Packers did go on to the Super Bowl that year, and won it. But they did it against the Patriots, and that was even before they had Tom Brady. (Oh, and the Chiefs didn't even get to the playoffs that year, starting 9-4 but losing their last three games.)

Do you know how many playoff games the Packers have won since that SI cover? Eleven. Do you know how many the Chiefs have won since that time?  Don't bother, the number wasn't even invented until the Mayans did it. In fact the Packers have won a total of 14 playoff games since the Chiefs last one a single one. (Oh, don't worry, there's a very good reason for that, one which I'm getting to, stay tuned!...)

Then there is the Steelers. Remember when we beat them in the '93 playoffs? Saturday, January 8th (in 1994). What a wonderful, wonderful game. The Chiefs played them hard, trailed by a touchdown in the last minute, got a clutch pass from Joe Montana (what other kind are there?) to Tim Barnett in the back of the endzone at the very end of regulation, and then got a splendidly splendid field goal from Nick Lowery in overtime to win it.

Oh yeah, we were finally on our way. We were finally a perenniel contender. We were finally among the elite of the NFL. We were finally going to have playoff victory after playoff victory and be wonderful and splendid and all the rest of it.

Well, ahem. While we did win our next playoff game that year against Houston, that would be the very last playoff game we would ever win. Now, how many playoff victories do you think Pittsburgh has had since then? :: Gulp ::

Seventeen.

They've also had two Super Bowl victories, and one of the reasons the Steelers are so successful and the Chiefs aren't is demonstrated in what happened in those games. It is as if the Steelers have precisely the opposite what the Chiefs have, and that is beneficially opportunistically fortunate things. The Chiefs just have rotten stupid things anytime they're in a postseason game.

Remember, the '05 Super Bowl? The Seahawks dominated that game. But the Steelers won going away, 21-10. Huh? There were four amazing critical plays in that game that either went against the Seahawks dooming them and their intrepid play, or going for the Steelers and giving them the whopping edge. I don't remember all of them, but one was a play in which they had a fourth and 57 or something like that and QB Roethlisberger scrambled all around then heaved a pass on his back feet all the way across the field for a touchdown -- I mean it was something incredibly stupid like that. Stupid? Yeah, stupid because not only do the Chiefs never get these kinds of things happening for them in any playoff game, they are always victims of them!

Look at the Super Bowl win over Arizona. Everyone knows about the two plays that ended each half. The Steelers won the game on an incredible final-play tiptoe reception by Santonio Holmes at the side of the endzone. But they also got that interception return by James Harrison at the end of the first half that went all the way across the field, and he barely got into the endzone by the teensiest of margins with no time left on the clock.

I have to tell you: do you know what I was thinking after watching that? Here was exactly the very thought I had. Ready?

"That would never happen for the Chiefs."

That's what I thought. Yes I'm sure bazillions of fans of other teams felt the same way about their team, that's cool. But really now, seeing how the Chiefs play in the postseason over the few years they've been in it, we have proof: it really really wouldn't happen for the Chiefs.

Let's get right to the most practical reason the Packers and Steelers do so well. And I'm going to focus on one critically important thing, something I've shared before but again have to get off my chest.

Yes it could be said the Packers and Steelers just have excellent front offices. Well, we're working on that -- I do really like Clark Hunt, following the lead of his dad and having that bold commitment to the Chiefs. I also really like Scott Pioli's leadership and I have faith in his ability to get good players -- his last draft was exceptional. There is the idea that if we have people like that it'll be more likely we'll get the right mix of players to do well, precisely what Pittsburgh and Green Bay have been able to do for so long.

But there is that other major ingredient that the Chiefs have so sorely lacked, and it is indeed one I've mentioned often before. It is no surprise. You may have even guessed what it is through reading all of this sad Chiefs woefulness. What have the Steelers and Packers had consistently that the Chiefs have never had?

A great drafted and developed quarterback.

Yesteryear it was Terry Bradshaw and Brett Favre. These years it is Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers.

Both of those guys are truly great quarterbacks. Roethlisberger has been controversial for his off-field problems and on-field inconsistency, but when it comes to winning he simply gets the job done. He's gutsy and talented and has already won two Super Bowls. That says enough.

Rodgers is up-and-coming -- and I must say I take this from what I catch here-and-there because, again, I just pay so little attention to it -- but he is one of the very best in the NFL right now. Not only did he effectively send one of the greatest ever, Favre, packing, but he has led his team from the No. 6 seed in the playoffs to the NFC Championship game.

Now, this leads us to the Chiefs quarterback situation.

I promise I'm not going to rag all over Matt Cassel. Everyone knows what a stinky game he had against the Raiders, and what an even stinkier game he had against the Ravens. Everyone knows that he was one of the studlier quarterbacks before those games, even overcoming an appendectomy to return and play great against St. Louis, and then against Tennessee. Everyone knows he had a great year overall with the services of only one good wide receiver, and he plays with great dedication and intensity.

I like Matt Cassel.

But the fact is the Curse of Odin's Revenge is extraordinarily powerful. It must be overcome with something much, much more potent than anything the Chiefs have thrown at it in the past. It requires not just a very good quarterback.

It requires a great quarteback.

Now, I've written about this before. Just about everything that needs to be said about having a great quarterback is right there. I really don't need to add anything to it, except to amplify a critical point in this conversation: He has to be drafted.

The Chiefs have never drafted and developed a truly great quarterback. When you look at that list from my post in 2008, of the ten Hall-of-Fame calibur great quarterbacks, seven of them were drafted by the teams they took to Super Bowl success. Only Unitas, Elway, and Young were not, and Unitas and Elway didn't play a single game with the team that drafted them, starting their fine play with their eventual Super Bowl teams.

It simply comes down to this. It is as plain, as clear, as simple as this.

Scott Pioli must draft the best possible quarterback he can, the Chiefs front office must do anything and everything to develop him, and the coaches must teach him how to deftly play the position at the highest levels of NFL competition.

Thuh end.

That's it. Right there. That's the secret.

Yes I know there is so much that goes into it. Yes, there are so many variables to it all. The Chiefs have even tried to do this kind of thing (Brodie Croyle, anybody?) This is exactly why the Chiefs have got to have the right mix of things going on. I've already shared I have faith in Pioli, I also have faith in Todd Haley -- it seems he's really learning and growing and as he gets there we'll have a solid foundation upon which to build our great quarterback situation.

This would require Matt Cassel to do well in the next few years so our guy can develop. Hey, maybe, just maybe Cassel himself can grow into being a great quarterback himself. That'd be awesome, I really hope it happens.

But the fact is this fan doesn't want to win just one playoff game over the next 17 years (oh that we'd have even one playoff win, how delightful :: whimper :: ) I want to have 20. With a half-dozen Super Bowl titles in there.

So yeah. We do need a bruising middle linebacker. If the best player in the draft at that position is available we've gotta snatch him. We do need another wide receiver. We still need offensive and defensive line help, no question, we have needs.

But here's the thing Chiefs fans. If we don't draft a guy who's going to be the next Ben Roethlisberger or Aaron Rodgers right now and get going with this thing right now, we are going to have a really hard time overcoming Odin's Revenge. It is just never going to end.

And wait until you see the postseason stats then, in another 17 years. It's already brutally depressing. It's already blasted my red-and-gold-bleeding heart all over the place.

There's only one way that's going end.
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(A quick note about how I may note so much about all this when I've made a firm commitment to sport celibacy. As I've shared, when things happen here and there and my finely-tuned sports radar just picks it up. I may see something on a television at a restaurant, my son may simply have a game on in the other room, or we may be invited to attend a Super Bowl party. I am sports celibate, but I am not anti-social. I also do allow myself the privilege of scanning past sports information to augment the meaning of my blog takes.)
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