Chiefs at Jets - Week 14 - Record: 5-8

There was a commercial aired during the first quarter of this game that featured a dais upon which stood a really good pro prospect smiling in front of several camera flash bulbs going off. He was being handed a check by some exec who said to him, "You'd better cash that now before you get hurt ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha..." Sitting just to their right was an actor playing his coach, and he looked exactly like Todd Haley, I swear. At that moment he had the most harrowing look of dread come over his face as he started thinking of all the bad things that could indeed happen to his prized new player.

I don't know what the commercial was selling or anything of that, something about some financial firm accepting photographs of a check, I don't know. But one of the coach's graphically portrayed portends was this guy walking into the street looking at his cell phone at the exact time a huge bus approachs to plow into him.

What was amazing was that this guy looked so much like Todd Haley, it just made me think. That bus is not imaginary, but real. And it has a name. All Chiefs fans know it.

The Curse of Odin's Revenge.

A major feature of the Curse is our inability to do anything meaningful against AFC East teams. The Curse's most gruesome feature is something I've written about at length in this blog, our 0-9 playoff record against old AFC East teams since our last Super Bowl win and the 1970 merger (0-3 to both Miami and Indianapolis, 0-2 to Buffalo, 0-1 to New York). In fact, the highlight of this game for the Chiefs was the one-minute highlight reel the CBS broadcast team showed of the Chiefs win over the Jets in the '69 divisional playoff game. Yes, that was the last time we have beaten an AFC East team in the playoffs -- 42 years ago.

The Curse has reared its ugly head this year. Here were the scores of all our games against AFC East opponents:

Week 1 - Buffalo: 41-7 loss.
Week 9 - Miami: 31-3 loss.
Week 11 - New England: 34-3 loss.
Week 14 - New York: 37-10 loss.

Let's see, that's AFC East team 143 points, Chiefs 23. AFC East team 18 touchdowns, Chiefs 2.

See, the NFL is supposed to have this thing called parity. Really. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd love for the Chiefs to blast every opponent they have, but if I can't have that I'd at least like them to be in every game. And the fact is the whole operation is designed to make it that way.

There is just no way we can have the luck we have against the AFC East and it not be because of The Curse. I'm just waiting for the day when that thing will finally be lifted somehow, by some miracle. Maybe it will be when we do make that splendidly wonderful decision in the draft to take a QB very high and he's actually very good. Wistful ::sigh:: there if you didn't catch it...

But here's something else that I just have to make mention of.

Remember that old NFL Films clip of Marv Levy yelling "You overofficious jerk!" on the sidelines? I'm pretty sure it was when he was with the Chiefs. All we were doing today was yell that at the television screen.

There was that one drive that got the Jets their last touchdown, and practically the entire drive was penalty yardage against the Chiefs. About half were mildly earned, but the other calls, just wretched overofficiating. The most atrocious was the pass interference call against Kendrick Lewis on their wide receiver who replays showed actually was the one who pushed Lewis to get into position.

If you read the relatively new book Scorecasting, make sure you read the section on why home teams generally always have the advantage in all pro team sports. There are all kinds of presumed reasons: home teams have the fans, the comforts of home, not having to travel, all that stuff. But none of it really pans out, and the authors looked at it all with a precision examination and guess what they found.

It is the reffing.

And it isn't necessarily the refs being evil or anything, it is just their decision-making is indeed colored by the atmosphere, the pressure, and in some cases just responding to the cues from whatever powers-that-be about who should be winning.

Now, I'm the first to refuse to blame a game on the refs. Not because we shouldn't make excuses for bad ref calls or even that it all evens out (because it never does for the Chiefs, really, it doesn't), but just because they're human, and that's cool, that's fine. They even use instant replay. (Even though that never really helps the Chiefs either, as all Chiefs fan know, but I'll save that for another post.)

What we do need to cover for whatever reffing there might be is the drafted and developed top quarterback. The Willie Roafs and Will Shields back on the O-line. The Buck Buchanans and Curly Culps back on the D-line.

And yeah, we still need a coach who can call the right plays at the right times in the right games and just have his team damn well take care of business. I mean, I will tell you, I was actually cheering Todd Haley for getting that unsportsmanlike conduct call against him for jawing at the refs because they so deserved it. They really did. You go Todd, let 'em have it. And I do mean that, this isn't one of those facetious making-fun kind of things. He boldly did what was necessary to stand up for his team when the refs were being, in the famous words of Marv Levy, "jerks."

But really. This is Todd Haley's legacy? This?

We should just flat-out have a football club from the front office on down that does the job.

And is no longer crushed by The Curse.
_