Chiefs at Raiders - Week 15 - Record: 2-12

What a great game for the very best Chiefs unit!

Was it our scintillating passing game? Was it our grind-it-out running game? Was it our ferocious pass rush? Was it our clutch game-winning field goal kicking?

Of course not.

But hey! We have a great punting game! Woo-hoo!

Really, Dustin Colquitt's average today was around 50 yards a punt. Zowie! We got the ball downed within the 10 a few times, even within the 5 at least once. Yowza! He even had what they said was his career long, a 70-something yarder. Yabba-dabba-dooski!

Other than that, it was typically abysmal. In fact, I really think it was worse than abysmal. Very recently I'd talked in this blog about this being easily the worst Chiefs season ever, and I truly believe this game could be classified right up there as one of the worst ever. Just before the Chiefs got some very gratuitous yardage in the third quarter, they were talking as if this'd surpass the worst Chiefs game ever yardage-wise, which itself was a game against the Raiders from 1963 when they'd gained only 60-some yards total. Today we got a few more than that, but not much.

And here's how abysmally abysmal this all is.

The Raiders are one of the worst rushing teams in the NFL. We let them take off for 200 yards on the day. The Raiders are also dead last in points allowed on defense, giving up 30 a game. We scored zero.

Last week we made the Browns look like a championship contender as they torched us. This week the Redskins' offense went up against the Browns with their second string guy at quarterback, a rookie replacing an injured Robert Griffin III, and they torched the Browns.

Here we were playing two of the worst teams in the entirety of all present En-eff-ellitude, and in both we clearly showed we're not even in the same multiverse.

And I have to tell you I was thinking this. In my mind I am thinking, really, "We just can't be this bad." But then I actually thought back to what I'd written in a post at the very beginning of the year, that we should just try really really hard to pretend like we're playing hard but make sure it isn't good enough to win so we'd just flat-out get that first round pick this year.

And then I thought today, are we actually doing that?

Of course there are very, very disturbing things about either of the answers to that question. If the answer is yes, that they are doing that, what a bunch of gutless wusses these guys are. That they'd deliberately lose on purpose. Sure we'd like a very very very high draft pick next year, but whichever pick we get, even if it was going to be the greatest quarterback ever which it won't be anyway, that guy is not by himself going to come close to fixing what's wrong with this team.

Now I seriously don't think the Chiefs players are doing this. I do believe our players are working and playing hard to hold up the honor of Kansas City and pro football there. The still disturbing thing is if the answer to that question is indeed no, they're not faking being bad, then -- ::gulp:: -- we truly are a very very very bad team. I'm just not going to go into the litany of our awfulness -- again... Been doing it all year, will certainly do it again before the season is over.

The most frustrating thing in all of it is something we all continue to agonizingly wonder.

What is the reason? What is the real reason for all of this???

Just look at Jon Baldwin. Today he had three or four passes thrown his way, and he was flailing miserably for every one. What gives here? He has a ton of talent, and yet he's been utterly worthless so far. I could blame the quarterback, but it seemed to me those passes were in his vicinity. So again, what gives? Is it just him -- he's just way worse than we all thought? Is it Crennel and the coaches for failing to show him how to run routes? Is it Pioli for being that faked out before drafting him? Is it Clark for just not running a comprehensively quality organization? Is it Odin for just persisting in his abject refusal to stop tormenting us from the Halls of Valhalla or wherever he malevolently resides?

What is funny (as much as these things can be funny) is that, yet again, it isn't just the Chiefs that are sucking but it is, yes, the entire original contingent of American Football League teams. Except for two of them, all the others are royally sucking as well. AGAIN. For the past few years during NFL playoff-time I'd been writing in this blog about how woeful it has been for those AFL teams in the postseason. Thought I'd get a head start on it now because already is it miserable. Go ahead and look at those teams and how they're doing this year, you'll see. From best-to-worst:

1. Patriots - Great. Still doing awesome. The reason? They've had a great head coach and a great quarterback together for, what, 12-plus years now? The last time the Chiefs had either a decent head coach or quarterback was in 2005. (After suffering a major concussion in the first game of the '06 season, Trent Green was never the same.)

2. Broncos - Great, again. Reason? Do I have to say fine coach and great quarterback?

Now for the rest, with the added gratuitous note that the last time a non-Patriots-or-Broncos AFL team won the Super Bowl was nearly 30 years ago.

3. Jets - Sucking again but amazingly still on life-support for a playoff spot.

4. Chargers - Sucking again.

5. Titans - Sucking again.

6. Bills - Sucking again.

7. Raiders - Sucking again.

8. Chiefs - Is there any way to say it that reflects the most abysmal sucking of them all?

Now to be fair I could add the Bengals and Dolphins here, two teams still in the hunt for the playoffs, but they're not original AFL teams.

The point is that as much as the Curse of Odin's Revenge is still still still crushing the Chiefs, the Curse of the NFL's Revenge is still hammering the AFL.

Yeah, ahem. Just something to talk about because it is so depressing talking about the Chiefs right now.
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