2013 Season - Chiefs Playoff Hell - Postscript

For the Chiefs Playoff Hell post with the exasperated resignation, that's here.

For the Chiefs Playoff Hell post with the resolute acceptance, that's here.

I'd like to say that I've confidently shifted into full acceptance mode, but I'd be lying. Sure, since Saturday I'm good sometimes, indeed most times, but other times it still doesn't feel so good. Wanted to just share here a bit more, do more of the therapy, the processing, just work through it all. Thanks for joining me in that effort, hope this is meaningful to you in some measure as well.

On my evening walk the other night I was doing what I usually do with my cerebral activity, spending about half of it thinking about the standard stuff -- family, work, home, leisure activities, news items, devotional time -- and the other half thinking about Chiefs things (yeah, sorry, that's just how it is -- I try to make it different, but, well, there ya go).

About two-thirds of the way into my walk my mind wandered into my remarks in a couple of posts recently about how abjectly horrific our record has been for some time against first the Chargers, then the Colts. Then I thought, hmm, there is something indeed these two teams have in common. My mind ventured into very prominent but not so publically displayed logo designs of both teams that feature, yes, you may have figured it out.

Horses.

I then added the other horse team in the mix, the Broncos, and the wheels started turning.

Just for thought...

San Diego. The last time the Chiefs beat the Chargers twice in one season was 2003, and since then we are 5-15 against them. During that period they've beaten us twice in a season five times. Over the last 13 games we've beaten them only twice, the last time largely because Philip Rivers fumbled the snap when they were in game-winning field goal range. Ironically, if you remember, that game was on Halloween night. We've lost the last four in a row to them.

In the last 2008 matchup between the two teams, at Arrowhead, we were ahead 21-10 at the two-minute warning. Sure enough they got two quick touchdowns to win the game 22-21. That game was at the tail end of a very bad season for the Chiefs, who were going nowhere anyway, but still. The two games this year were heartbreaking losses, the first of which cost us our two All-Pro pass rushers which turned out to be for the rest of the season, effectively, and the last of which the Chargers won with the help of a brutally missed penalty on the last play of the game.

The one single playoff game the Chiefs have ever played against the Chargers was the 17-0 disaster that summarily ended our 1992 season.

Denver. The last time the Chiefs beat the Broncos twice in one season was as far back as 2001 if you can believe that. Since then we're 9-17 against them, and during that period they've beaten us twice in a single season four times, including the last two. Just as he did with the Colts, Peyton Manning just lights up the Chiefs with the barest lifting of his pinkie.

The one single playoff game we've had with them was that gargantuously pukifying 14-10 loss from the 1997 season.

Indianapolis. The Chiefs have a 3-13 record overall against the Indianapolis version of the Colts. The first of those three wins was the first we played against them not-Baltimore, in 1985 at Arrowhead with Todd Blackledge the quarterback. The game after that one was a classic way to start the wonderful history of the Chiefs misery against the Colts. It was in 1990 when one more win on the season would've given us the bye and the home game to start the playoffs. We held a comfortable 19-10 lead in the 4th quarter, then the Colts put up 13 to beat us. It was one of the losses in an 11-5 season that forced us to go to Miami for the wild-card game, which we lost 17-16.

The rest of the agony through the years is pretty plain and extraordinarily grisly.

Overall, comprising the totals from the three time periods above (Colts 1990 on, Broncos 2001 on, Chargers 2004 on), the Chiefs are 16-45 against these teams. In 2013 the Chiefs went 11-0 against teams not horse related, and 0-6 against the three horse teams. Through the years the Chiefs have lost all six playoff games they've played against them ('92, '95, '97, '03, '06, '13). The horse teams have a current 11-game winning streak against us.

How many times have there been in NFL history when every time a given team has gone 13-3 in the regular season they've lost their first playoff game? It's happened to the Chiefs three times ('95, '97, '03), I'd bet you they're the only one ever. How many times have there been in NFL history when every time a team has started a season 9-0 and they've lost their first playoff game? It happened to the Chiefs twice ('03, '13) -- honestly I can't see how there has been any other team this has happened to.

And all of those playoff losses?

Every one to a horse team.

Those three teams are now in the divisional round of the playoffs, all three of them, and all three there at the Chiefs' expense in some way or another. And the fourth team? The Patriots. Right now the Broncos and Chargers are getting terrific production from two former New England stalwarts, Wes Welker and Danny Woodhead, respectively. Meanwhile, the Chiefs worked like crazy to model their organization after the Patriots with the likes of Scott Pioli and Romeo Crennel, and, oh, guess you could throw in Matt Cassel too. How's that workin' for the Chiefs?

And, by the way, isn't that a picture of Paul Revere on the Patriots helmet? And warning the colonists that the British were coming, didn't Paul Revere ride around on a...

Horse?

Call it the Horse Curse if you will, there is something going on here.

Of course the next thing I'm thinking about was our horse relationship. What's with that?

The most obvious connection is the one with Warpaint, the name of the horse upon which someone waving a Chiefs flag rides around the field. All I could think about was, is this horse being abused in some way? Is there some PETA member horse lover witch doctor somewhere putting the hex on us? I mean, really. What's going on with this?

It's now widely known and mildly amusing how much Eric Berry fears horses, but this... this... Is there something else happening here?...

Around the beginning of the season I'd seen or heard something, somewhere in which it was said the Chiefs had the look of a Super Bowl team. I didn't go anywhere near it, but I thought about the New York Giants and why this 9-7 team a couple years ago won the Super Bowl. The reason they won was because of three key things they had going for them at that time.

1. An experienced head coach (Tom Coughlin).
2. A resourceful quarterback (Eli Manning).
3. A ferocious pass rushing unit (led by Justin Tuck and Jason Pierre-Paul).

I suddenly got that warm confident feeling inside. The Chiefs had

1. The experienced head coach (Andy Reid).
2. The resourceful quarterback (Alex Smith).
3. The ferocious pass rushing unit (led by Tamba Hali and Justin Houston).

Sweet.

I forgot one thing, however.

The fourth factor in that mix.

The New York Giants: 4. A charm that allows a 9-7 team to get every break they need to run the table.

The Kansas City Chiefs: 4. A curse that prevents an 11-5 team from keeping stupid things from happening to torpedo their playoff hopes.

Errrckhck.

I'm still looking, still thinking, still pondering. Yeah, many will tell me to get over it, stop obsessing so much about it, it's done, it's over, let it go -- all that. I got all that. I'm good. It is more a simple thought experiment anyway. I'm certain The Curse is something much more prosaic, much more related to elements connected with the NFL itself even, and in some ways as insidious as that is, there's not a whole lot I can do about it.

The poor officiating and the small media market elements enter into it. Whaddya do. The inept things the Chiefs have done themselves so many times enter into it. Whaddya do. I really wonder how many close to the Chiefs really know about crap that was, has been, even now is going on however wherever whatever and they know there's little they can do about it.

And what of the Hunt family? There has never been a time when Chiefs fans wonder if there is just something going on there. But I can't for two seconds believe that all the Hunts -- now Clark -- haven't been straight-up spot-on doing their very best for the Chiefs. That Clark went out of his way to clean house and bring in the best -- and succeed in doing so -- is testament to that. A pretty damn good regular season after last year's disappointment definitely says something about that.

In some ways all of it keeps everything ripe for discussion. I see so many who think the Jared Allen trade or the pick of Fuller before Montana are critical reasons to add to the mix, but I don't think so, at all. It seems fewer see the Marv Levy dismissal or the Hank Stram meltdown as what I believe are faaar more crushing to Chiefs success. There have been so many of these.

Yeah, I'd rather there were a lot more playoff wins, thank you. It's time for a few more of those instead.

What makes me especially sad is coming across this photograph. Chiefs fans are so passionate about their team. Yeah all teams' fans are passionate, I know. But no other team has the heartbreak we do. And ours are the loudest. Sorry, but this is proof. We love our team more than anyone else loves their team.

And what we have left to do is hope that John Dorsey is a heads-up guy and will keep getting this team back to respectability (he's already gone miles doing that) and back to that 1960's-style dominance (oh glorious day!) We pick 23rd in the draft, I think I saw somewhere, so we should be able to get a fine new receiver or pass rusher. Dorsey has nothing to do with the whole paranoid Patriots thing, thank goodness, but rather he comes out of the wholesome Packers organization -- so yeah, there's tremendous hope there that he'll assemble the team we need and get it to gel and play so well that no curse can overcome it.

That's the Chiefs takeaway from all this.

The Life takeaway is just that, again, there's a blessing somewhere for someone out of this. God'll see that happen.

I was encouraged by the sunrise the morning after I wrote the acceptance post. I went out to get into my car to go to work, and the sky was lit up in red. I'm not kidding you, it was red. I took a photograph of it, of the dawn of that new day. I'll share it with you here. January 7, 2014.

Richly, deeply, profoundly, vibrantly, joyously red and gold, don't you think?
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