Of course, I feel like chatting a bit more when serious therapy is required. As it was in droves back in 2012.
And... as it is now?
In last week's post I plugged in a sentence that I thought, hmm, maybe that's a bit melodramatic. I noted that this whole thing was "devastating". I mean, there's still lots of season left. Why so despondent? After thinking more about it, I believe the reason wasn't as much the crushing nature of the Bears loss. No, it was the simple fact that the game's result was just more pronounced evidence that
The curse simply has not gone away.
That's what is so devastating. It just never never never never ever seems to end. Last week the immense despondency of that realization was just so palpable, and there is no way it couldn't be expressed in the post.
You know how many times I hear about the storied history of the Chiefs? Sure there're those 60's - 1969 Hall-of-Famer packed teams. Sure there's the whole Martyball-Christian Okoye wonderfulness. Sure there're the Joe Montana thrills. Sure there's the Priest Holmes resurrection and the Dante Hall excitement and the 2006 miracle season's end. Sure there's some splendidness to all-things-Chiefs.
But please.
"Storied."
Puh-lease.
The only thing we're storied for is our choking, our abject failure to do anything meaningful in the postseason for years upon years upon years. How many teams in any sport have two droughts with no playoff wins of 20 years or more? Yeah, the Chiefs have two of those droughts, the second one still going.
Let me ask you this question: How many games can you remember in this "storied" history when the Chiefs were down and just came back and won the game with a victory of epic proportions? Really, how many? Think right now, just from what you remember. Know how many I can think of?
Two.
That playoff game against Pittsburgh after the 1993 season when Montana tied it on a TD pass to Tim Barnett with seconds left to send it into OT, and that Monday Night Football game at Denver in 1994 when Montana led the winning TD drive with a minute left. There may be more, but I just can't think of any right now. That's pathetic. And I know tons of Chiefs stuff. Tons and tons and tons.
Now, in our history how many classic chokes can you think of? There've been two this year alone.
Our playoff history is an entire encyclopedia of chokes. Sorry, I just have to do this.
1971 - Jan misses easy FG's he should never have missed, and a half-dozen other stupid things happen.
1990 - The Chiefs are up 16-3 in the 4th quarter and let the Dolphins storm back to win by one point.
1995 - Key guys, like our quarterback of all people, play like crap, but we're actually still in it!... Until the kicker misses three very critical very makeable FG's. We lose by three points.
1997 - The infamous Broncos game featuring a dozen different distinctly stupid things.
2013 - A 38-10 lead in middle of the 3rd quarter evaporates in a perfect storm of injuries, misplays, and the unluckiest breaks you could ever see.
(Notice too how often our chokes have some atrocious thing having to do with field goals, just so often. It's almost as if the curse relates to something revolving around Jan Stenarud, ya know? The number of Chiefs field goal related chokes is suffocating, really. Just look at the last two weeks. Against the Bengals two weeks ago Cairo Santos -- who has shown he's actually a decent kicker -- banged in seven field goals, all for naught as we lost the game. Against the Bears he kicked one, then right after the Jamaal Charles injury the salt was ground deeper into our souls when Santos' FG attempt was blocked. On the last play of the game he gallantly tried a 66-yarder, but, well... We needed two FG's against the Bears and only got one, and lost by a point. That's the Chiefs history, right there.)
And these cited playoff games are just the most crushing chokes. The catalog is bulging. "Oh you're such a downer, Dave, I like the Chiefs, I'm looking to the future, what's wrong with you, continuing to bring all this up..."
Well, it might be different if there were some legitimately well-earned invigoratingly finely-performed Chiefs wins in amongst all the wretchedness. But there aren't. There're zero. We're holding on a record eight straight playoff losses. We've had three total playoff wins since 1970, and two of those were against pathetic teams (the Steelers win the only exception). Sure the Lions are just as bad, but they have their curse too, so what of it?
The reason I bring it up is because there are some critical things the Chiefs have had going with them that definitely make the curse what it is. Those things in a moment. But I will iterate that there is a spiritual dimension to all this, and I'm convinced it somehow started right after we won Super Bowl IV. What has to happen to take out that impediment? I dunno. I'm still praying.
Some think just getting rid of the Nelson Gallery shuttlecock will do the trick, but that's just stupid. Everyone says the Royals have been affected because the sculpture went up in 1986 right after their World Series title, but right now the Royals are the talk of baseball for their excellent, exhilarating, and -- yes -- clutch play.
No, this is a Chiefs thing and it is real and it is ugly. It has nothing to do with shuttlecocks or Indian burial grounds under Arrowhead. But it is something. The things that have happened to the Chiefs through the ages make that very plain. We've had teams filled with Pro-Bowlers, especially over the past couple years, and we're still losing. Sorry -- that doesn't just happen.
It happens to the Chiefs all the time.
I sometimes think God may be telling me something. I love pro football and I love the Chiefs, but I hate several key things about the NFL. Here're a few.
- The latest is the Fanduel/Draftkings fantasy team thing. These are nothing but sophisticated gambling hustle sites, and we have to endure their commercials over and over and over again watching our pro football on television. Already they're under investigation for what is essentially insider trading, which means their people have brazenly ripped off all those who brainlessly dump their money into these things.
- The concussion situation. I confess I'm one of those torn with his enjoyment of the sport and the dangers it poses. I am 100% behind any measures to limit the physical impact between the players, and actually think the NFL should go further to reduce more injuries. Sadly I'm shouted down by those who enjoy it only as some kind of blood sport.
- This whole October thing when the players wear pink, the whole breast cancer awareness thing. Please, no more of that. Why are they pressured to declare their care for women by doing this? Can't they do that simply by giving some of their money to the cause, and simply having their behavior reflect it? There is also a very profound emasculating element to this that is extraordinarily disconcerting.
- The idiotic alcohol commercials enabling far too much drinking and loutish fan behavior resulting in fan violence incidents. This has always been something I've loathed about the sports thing, in some ways it just seems to be more pronounced today.
I think Roger Goodall is a crappy commissioner and should be fired. He doesn't provide the leadership the league needs in so many more sophisticated areas than just trying to make sure players don't commit acts of domestic violence, which is really what basic character development and district attorneys should be addressing much more anyway.
This relates to the very essential thing that the Chiefs definitely need to do to go a long way to ending the curse, to moving towards being regularly clutch for once in their benighted existence, to actually getting and exerting a full measure of got-it -- you know, that stuff that tells you when you watch a football team that they're just going to win the games they need to.
I do believe this can happen, it can, but I am declaring to you right now I won't believe it will actually be truly veritable until we all behold the Chiefs finally winning a playoff game and doing it with everything you clearly see in a team that demonstrates they are winners.
What gets us there?
Leadership.
And for this team here, that means head coach and quarterback.
Yes, it could mean ownership. I will tell you there are a few times I think that the curse will only be lifted when the ownership is no longer with the Hunt family. Could be, I don't know. Thing is, it seems to me that Clark has learned and grown and is completely above board doing everything right in his commitment to making the Chiefs great.
Yes, it could mean management. I saw someone point out somewhere that Scott Pioli, reviled as GM during his Chiefs tenure, is now 5-0 with the Falcons while John Dorsey's team is 1-4. To me, that's just more testament of the curse. Dorsey has been a million times better drafter and personnel guy than Pioli. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there are some elements to this leadership network that need purging, I dunno. But I do know this.
The Quarterback-Wide Receiver Project still lethally infects this team. This means our inability to draft and develop a good quarterback or a good core of wide receivers at any point in our history has wrecked this team. As far as on-the-field, this is the number one reason the Chiefs haven't come close to the Super Bowl since 1970. I've already written tons about this.
The key here is the head coach. That's the key right now, and we should focus on that, by miles.
I have to tell you that I once considered my baseball team, the Giants, had a curse on them that would never end. They had never won a World Series while in San Francisco, 52 long long years of futility, and they too always seemed to have the stupidest things happen to them.
But then they got Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy. It took a few years, but Sabean picked up the players and Bochy used them deftly to bring Giants fans not one, not two, but three World Series titles over the past five years. And they did it by drafting and developing fine home-grown players. Look at them. Tim Lincecum, Brian Wilson, Pablo Sandoval, Buster Posey, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Brandon Crawford, Brandon Belt, Joe Panik. All those guys critically instrumental to all this success -- all of them fine players and tough competitors and true winners.
Look this year at the Chicago Cubs. They're in the NLCS, also with a lot of home grown talent and... yes... a general manager, Jed Hoyer, who's brilliant and a manager, Joe Maddon, who's a genius -- just able to do a dozen things that a quality leader and manager and coach and motivator does to win games. No trying to get guys from other teams with just a little left in the tank, none of that. Just cruising forward as a team from Day One for however long it takes.
Hey, take a look at... the Kansas City Royals. They're back in the ALCS and they've got fantastic leadership in Dayton Moore who's shown himself to be masterful at developing his home grown talent. Detractors criticize manager Ned Yost for making bonehead moves sometimes, and maybe they're right, but he still engenders great team play among his players. Ironically the Royals have shown themselves to be almost complete opposites of the Chiefs -- that thing us Chiefs fans so long for -- thoroughly and rapturously clutch. (A fascinating fact they shared on the TV: the Royals were behind at some point in every game of their ALDS series with the Astros. They still won three of them, one of them an epic comeback win in the 4th game after being down 6-2 in the 8th inning.)
My point?
If Andy Reid takes us to the promised land this year I'll be happy and it'll be wonderful and everyone'll be happy. I really don't think that's going to happen. I'll still hope that it does, I always will. I mean, this is a good team, and looking at our schedule, we can still win a lot of games this year. I'm great with that.
And please, losing Jamaal Charles isn't the worst thing that can happen. As far as I saw, Charcandrick West showed great vision and speed for the short time he was in there Sunday. Knile Davis needs to work on his vision, but he's got the speed and power to get the job done. I actually think talent-wise we're okay.
Still.
The long term...
Clark Hunt, John Dorsey, and the Chiefs absolutely, positively, unequivocally, must go out and seek and find and get that guy who'll do what should be done with this team. And here's something critically important. I'm going to put it in caps in bold lettering it is so important.
NO - MORE - RETREADS.
I like Andy Reid, I do, I like him, but he's only a fine play-caller-before-two-minutes-are-left and a nice friend-of-the-players kind of coach. Andy Reid also looks like half the loser coaches out there in the NFL. Ever notice what the loser coaches look like? They look scared. They look irritated. They look frustrated. They look bewildered. And they look that way because their souls are exposed.
We need someone who you can see inside of them -- you know they know what to do to win football games. The Bill Belichicks, the Mike Tomlins, the Sean Paytons, the John Harbaughs. And it has to be someone authentically triumphant -- someone not Herm Edwards who looked it but wasn't. And please, I do really like Herm Edwards. But he didn't have the making-it-happen deep inside of him.
Another important factor is that Andy Reid's not long term. He's a rental. Oh how many times have we put on the field a rental. One of our best coaches ever was Dick Vermeil, how great was he, seriously. But he could never be long term!
As much as I'd like Jon Gruden to come from the booth or Jim Harbaugh to come back from Michigan, I actually think the one key thing that would break this curse is to do this thing:
Get the very best, smart, inspiring, demanding head coach from the big college or the pro assistant coaching ranks and watch him do his wonders. Brand spankin' new to rev this baby up from Day One. Yes I know every team wants that and tries to get that. I know. You can't just wave a magic wand to make it happen.
But I have this silly notion that John Dorsey has just enough got-it in his soul to make this happen, that he'll know. Just really smother on the elbow grease and get to it. Get on with the search, get on with carefully examining the souls of the best among available coaches out there and find that guy. I dunno, yeah, I dunno. Just having a bit of faith.
The thing is, however, this - just - has - to - happen.
So yeah, I'll wait. I'll enjoy the ride. I'll enjoy when we finally get that D&D quarterback -- Aaron Murray? -- and we finally get some of those D&D receivers -- is Chris Conley one of them? I'm willing to wait until 2019, that's cool.
As long as we mean business.
Here's something I'm thinking. Look at who the Chiefs are playing this weekend. Could it be a sign? Could something happen that's mystical and ethereal and supernatural and...
Wonderful?
There it is. That rematch of Super Bowl IV.
Chiefs-Vikings.
How about that. It's gotta be the end of the cycle, and for
A new one to begin.
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