The Kansas City Chiefs and the Month of January, Part II

Last week I'd touched on the curse against the Chiefs in terms of the Scorecasting premise, that the officiating is at least some significant part of making it so the NFL has enough media-darling teams featured in postseason action. The plain truths about how these teams are showcased is evidence enough of that. There are indeed other factors that enter into the elements of that thing, that thing that is the curse -- notice I've stopped capitalizing it, why give it that strength. It is a mean mnfkngnkknfer, yes, but hey...

There are a lot of things the Chiefs can do themselves to rise above it.

We'll get into that momentarily.

The interesting thing is that as much as the curse is one against the Chiefs, it is as much against the entire set of teams once comprising the AFL, something I've addressed several times before. Just for review, there were ten teams, now present in the AFC alive and well and -- um, maybe not well but certainly trying to play winning football -- they are the Chiefs Raiders Broncos Chargers Titans Bengals Patriots Jets Bills Dolphins.

And they all suck at winning Super Bowls.

This year the beat went on as three non-AFL teams again qualified for the playoffs, the Steelers Ravens Colts. Remember there are only six non-former-AFL teams in the AFC: the aforementioned and the Texans Jaguars Browns. The Colts are still in it ready to face the Patriots tomorrow to see who goes to the Super Bowl. Just to see, I looked back to try to find the last AFC Championship matchup that had two AFL teams not the Broncos or Patriots. As I scanned through the list of AFC title game matchups, it was actually pretty amazing. The Colts were there all the time. The Steelers were there all the time. The Ravens were there often enough. Of course the Broncos and Patriots appeared for their requisite share.

Last time?

2002 season, Raiders vs. Titans. I looked further back to see when the last one was before that. Do you know what it was? Sure enough...

1993. Chiefs vs. Bills.

Yeah.

I noticed the common thread among the three things related to the curse here, see if you can divine what that is: Super Bowl, the AFL, and the Chiefs.

Yee-ehp. They all have a very profound connection to Lamar Hunt.

I went back to read Michael MacCambridge's terrific biography of Hunt just to see if I can mine for anything Hunt did to put this crap in motion. I thought I'd go through MacCambridge's account of Hunt's involvement in the silver-cornering scandal just to see how much of an impact that may have had. It started in the early 1970's when they had an interest in silver investing, and it reached a head in the early 1980's when they got tapped out -- in a big way. For those who are just not well-versed in what happened, Lamar's brothers spearheaded a campaign to corner the silver market, and after prices shot up they came crashing down, severely damaging the Hunt fortune and destroying the reputation of the Hunt family. They took many investors down with them, and the profound severity of it all cannot be misunderstood.

While Lamar was not a major player in it, he was still meaningfully involved. It is my contention that this terrible event was so distracting and so infectious that the Chiefs were dragged in with it. And yes, at the cost of being dismissed by more materialistically minded readers, I believe this whole thing does have a spiritual dimension to it.

When people do rotten things that ruin the lives of others, there are spiritual consequences. Lamar Hunt did pay the price with comprehensive resolutions of restitution claims and prosecution requirements, all fulfilled by a man who did have a sincere desire to clear his name, honor his family's legacy, and yes, to his credit, protect the integrity of his greatest pride, the Kansas City Chiefs and his contribution to the NFL.

Yes, I do firmly believe Hunt deeply cherished the Chiefs and the NFL to the extent that he clearly did -- demonstrated in a number of different wonderful things he did for both. I'm not denying that, and no one would say Hunt wasn't exceptionally dedicated in that commitment.

But again, I truly think Hunt's involvement in those financial crimes, as well as his attention to those other leagues -- that soccer thing and that tennis thing, both horribly debilitating distractions -- set in motion a long string of Chiefs failures that have carried over all the way to this day. I'm sorry, but the two failures -- Hunt's silver/sports leagues involvement and the Chiefs woeful play on the field -- both starting in the 1970's, cannot be merely coincidental.

Just so you know, much of this is detailed in Chapter 14 of MacCambridge's book. Read it yourself, it is frightening. One of the things that particularly struck me was what Hunt did after the Levy firing and failure to draft one of those better quarterbacks in 1983. Suffering through more Chiefs losing, instability, and dissension, Hunt had a press conference to announce that he was going to take care of business, that the Chiefs were first and foremost, that he was committed to making things better, and all that stuff. At first I thought, hmm, that sounds great. But then I thought, damn. That's exactly it.

It sounds great.

Owners just don't do that kind of thing. They don't announce, "I'm on the job dang it I'm really trying hard." Who does that? No, the best owners just take care of business. The NFL is just too damn competitive to not have and hold and nourish that one thing that gives you the edge -- whatever it is. And if things at the top are a mess, then you've lost the game already.

Look at a team like the Patriots. There are two things they have that give them the edge every single time they take the field. Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. I don't think I know of anyone in the NFL who are as brilliantly persistent at their craft than they are. Neither is a genius, really. Some will use words like "genius" I know, but they really aren't. What they are is good -- so very good. And you can see it in their eyes, relentlessly driven all the time, take no prisoners, the whole 100 yards.

Again, I don't think Lamar Hunt was a lousy owner, I really don't. I think he was a pretty good one, in fact. I am firmly convinced, however, that he did things that put a world of hurt on the Chiefs in whatever way that happened, and you can't deny that two 21-year playoff winless droughts in a 45-year history of being in the NFL is plain evidence of that.

It's funny, the trophy awarded to the winner of the AFC Championship game is, yes, as you well know, the Lamar Hunt trophy. There are, as you probably know, only two teams from the AFL that have never won the Lamar Hunt trophy, officially awarded starting in 1984. Those teams are the Chiefs and the Jets. And the Jets have at least had three shots at it (they were in the AFC title game in 1983 but again, the trophy wasn't named after Lamar Hunt then).

The Chiefs have only had one shot, back in 1993. They're dead last among the ten in NFL success since the merger in 1970. Dead last. The Chiefs, huh, never ever in 30 years have won the trophy named after their founder and owner. There have to be reasons why. I think I know some of them.

Many will inevitably and quite firmly say, "Well what about now? How about just focusing on the here and now, let's see what we've got for next year. Why whine about the past?"

I'm with you, I truly am. All I'm doing is looking at what is happening so I can see that maybe, just maybe we'll have some of that got-it I wrote a ton about in this post, so we can enjoy some Chiefs winning for once. And please, let's not mince words. When I say that word, winning, I mean we're such a good team with the abundance of got-it confidence and not-just-a-few of those critical intangible advantages that we actually have major playoff success. Every Chiefs fan knows what this means.

I have to say that the deeply thinking part of me starts with looking at the ownership, at Clark Hunt. He is Lamar's son, but from my perspective carries little if any of the old Lamar Hunt baggage already mentioned. In fact the things MacCambridge writes about Clark's early years are pretty encouraging. The kid was a spot-on college student, gifted in athletics, committed to academic excellence, later industriously groomed with great devotion to proudly carry on the Hunt family legacy, especially with respect to the Chiefs.

I have heard criticism of Clark's initial refusal to do things for Arrowhead and other things considered detrimental to Chiefs success. It seems like he's learned and grown as an owner, his commitment to the "New" Arrowhead and other Chiefs improvement projects have demonstrated that. I mean come on, summarily jettisoning the whole Scott Pioli ugliness with all due haste and bringing in the Dorsey-Reid regime was a bold and refreshing display of the kind of leadership we've been looking for.

I will confess I don't know everything about what's going on that maybe Kansas Citians have a real feel for regarding Clark's ownership. We have to face the fact in having any discussion of future Chiefs success, it must start with Clark. And as far as I know, again, whatever limited perspective that is, I do see him being a top-notch owner, I really do. If on the other hand, he's doing things somewhere, somehow that are anything like the things Lamar did, then you can't dismiss the impact of those things, you just can't.

As long as Clark is doing right by ownership, however, where do the Chiefs stand now? What exactly is it about the entity Kansas City Chiefs and what they do on the football field that is meaningful?

I must say that there is genuine hope for this franchise. John Dorsey has had a couple of decent drafts under his belt. In fact every draft class the Chiefs have had since the 2009 catastrophe has been solid, so we have a foundation to continue to build upon. Dorsey's drafting abilities are tantamount to our success, but Dorsey must show skill in keeping or signing the right free agents. I really think losing Houston or Hudson would be crushing blows. I firmly believe losing Albert and Asamoah last year did significantly contribute to our weakness on the O-line, something that truly hurt us especially late in the season. During last year's off-season Dorsey did sign some key guys like Josh Mauga and Jamell Fleming -- not amazing players but ones who played admirably enough. We'll have to see if he can dexterously do that again.

Speaking of late in the season, one area we need to improve is the ability to finish. The Chiefs have had a winning record over the final six games of a season only once since 2005 (in 2010). We started 9-1 last year, 7-3 this year, and piddled out each time at 2-4. That won't get it done. We also have to do better against the AFC West, and I know Dorsey has that forefront in his approach to building this team. We have not had a winning record against the six teams in the AFC West since 2006. In that time we've been 2-4 against the Raiders Broncos Chargers six times.

I'd like to see a bit more of the one thing Todd Haley did really well -- get us in shape. After a horrific start, the Chiefs actually played reasonably well through the 2011 season, much of it because of our physical resilience. We weren't going anywhere being hamstrung by the brutality of Pioli-Haley, but wouldn't it be nice to see that resilience back as one of those edges we have over the other team.

Don't know if that'll help with injuries -- sure enough, injuries clobbered us in 2014. I wonder, though, knowing that other teams also have tremendously debilitating injuries, how bad it was for us. I wonder if there is a metric for how much injuries hurt a given team? I do believe not having D.J. and E.B. (among others!) in there did hurt our run defense, and again, in the NFL any one given play that goes against you in any one crucial game could be a back-breaker.

Thing is, as I've shared many times in this blog, I valiantly try to maintain my sanity to some extent and stay away from seeing who we draft, who we sign, who we trade or trade for, pretty much throughout the offseason. I catch some of it when watching games because they talk about it -- an example last year was acquiring Jason Avant mid-season.

I'd like to continue with that thread, write more about that key thing in all of this of course... the players, who do we have, who must we get, all that. I've simply put in too much for this post, I will just have to do that next time for Part III.

Next week, we'll know, in the Super Bowl will it be New England and Seattle, two teams the Chiefs beat this year? ::Whimper:: Indeed, the Chiefs were the only team to beat both of them this year, that's nice.

Even more important, will they let Jamaal Charles not play in the Pro Bowl next week so he can recover and not get smashed up any more than he has to? Okay, wait, let me see, I'll look it up, just a sec. Let's see, I'm typing, "Is Jamaal Charles playing in the Pro Bowl," wait a sec, wait a sec...

Nope. Crap. Looks like he's not on the "unable to play because of injury" list. Looks like he's still on the roster of running backs. Errgh. Not that I want him injured! That's not the point. Again, I just don't want him playing and going through more grueling football stuff that is not the Chiefs!

Whatever. More on him and other Chiefs next week!
_