Dolphins at Chiefs - Week 16 - Record: 9-6, Part II

Harrison Butker kicking one his five field goals
against the Dolphins December 24 2017

I started this blog venture with a Chiefs Game Today review of a Dolphins-Chiefs game. Back in 2005, right smack in the middle of the season, I realized I could blog about each game. Cool.

That game was played in very unusual circumstances, as there was a hurricane coming it was moved to Friday night -- I don't remember all the stuff about that, but I do know the Chiefs won and got two Lawrence Tynes 50-yard field goals. I remember back then I didn't write as much about the games, just a few notes and remarks.

Now I've gotten to needing to write much more, you know, for the therapy and all. You know you need it. I'm a big San Francisco Giants fan and for 50 years they'd aggravate the heck out of their fans, to the point where my good friend would frequently say, "The Giants are trying to kill me."

Well, you could sometimes say that about the Chiefs.

"The Chiefs are trying to kill me."

Of course any fan whose team fails inexplicably could bleat that, and every fan's team fails them far more frequently than not. But I'd say Chiefs fans have a really good case for getting the worst of those vicissitudes of misfortune interminably crushing our hopes and dreams.

For you see since the merger, since the 1969 season -- yes, a season that ended with a Chiefs Super Bowl championship we all know that -- since that year the Chiefs have made the playoffs 14 times (now 15), and reached the AFC Championship Game once. Among those 14 have been great teams, good teams, decent teams (and a couple just-alright teams, agreed), and in nearly 50 years of playing NFL football we've been summarily shoved right off the playoff game field before coming close to an AFC title game every single time but one, and we lost that one. Of the 14 so far, we won even a single game a mere three times ('91, '93, '15). We won two in a single season's playoff appearance once ('93).

That ratio is the worst in the NFL.

I bring all this up because right now my expectations for Chiefs success beyond the regular season have been permanently squashed. Please don't get me wrong (how many times have I had to say that after engaging in the therapy that is this blogging experience), ahem, please don't get me wrong: I am really really really really really thrilled with our success this season. I made a promise that I would work really hard to just enjoy the things we do out there no matter what (even though I confess it was really really hard to do that during our mid-season swoon).

And please don't get me wrong, I very very very very very much want our Chiefs to go on to Super Bowl glory, I veryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryvery much want that. I want to watch this Chiefs team do phenomenal things in playoff games, even if it means sweating through the closest nail-biters as long as we come out on top in the end. Ohh, that one of our playoff victories would be featured every other month on the NFL Network as one of the greatest games ever played. How many times do you see anything historically and superlatively CHIEFS on the NFL Network? Yeah. Huh.

I mean, really, aren't you sick and tired of seeing highlights -- as they gratuitously showed during this week's game against the Dolphins even though very timely we all know -- of that 1971 Christmas day playoff game? One of the greatest games ever, they say? As if any Chiefs fan thinks of it with any amount of fondness? Yeah, I was sick of it eons ago. We all know it wasn't the greatest because only Chiefs fans lament that Jan decided to have his worst game ever on that day, even to the point of looking so splendidly focused on that fake field goal attempt that long snapper Bobby Bell messed up the play seriously contributing to the disappointment that it was.

That's the Chiefs for you. Repeated over and over and over again through history.

So yeah, this is why to some extent my approach right now is, the season is over. It's been fun. It's been real. Now please, see the "really really really" and "very very very" above. Thing is I still can't get up for the postseason, I just can't. I will go over all those playoffy-type things in the next post when we find out who we're playing (it'll be Baltimore, Buffalo, or Tennessee), but for now, I'm just going to get to some of the fun things about this game.

First of all there's the achievement everyone's been talking about. Very sweet indeed. Smith with 4,000 yards passing. Kelce with 1,000 yards receiving. Hill with 1,000 yards receiving. And Hunt with 1,000 yards rushing. Only the 1981 Chargers did it, and they really should've gone to the Super Bowl that year except that they had to get past a Bengals team playing in subarctic Cincinnati, in what I think was the coldest game ever -- if not it was one of the top ones.

Anyway, I didn't catch this but I wonder if the Chargers team did it in 15 games, as we just did? Because yeah, here are the Chiefs, having done it with still a game left on the schedule. How great is that. That we do have these weapons does provide some legitimate hope for delightful postseason success, so there is reason for enthusiastic Chiefs Kingdomosity this week.

The Chiefs defense was opportunistic in this game, and how fun is it to watch Marcus Peters out there all over the field. Really, this guy is a defensive force, he really is. Even though everyone wanted to excoriate him for his meltdown in the Jets game -- for very good reason yes -- there was a play in that game that just demonstrated what a player he is.

The Jets were close to the goal line in last defensive catastrophe, and in spite of all the holding calls and the penalty flag debacle, we actually made some very good plays. This one stood out to me. The Jets runner was given the ball but he was stuffed by Jarvis Jenkins, Reggie Ragland, and Marcus Peters. All three of them just made a helluva play to make the stop well short of the goal line, and again it just showed Peters' value that defense.

The thing that everyone's been making note of also, something that I can't say hasn't been a critical element to getting Peters' head back in the game, is the presence of Eric Berry on the sideline. I guess I've always wondered why he hasn't been there throughout the season, but maybe lately he's just being more of a an industrious "coach" and "cheerleader," if you will, in inspiring these Chiefs. If he has indeed stepped it up these past three weeks, it sure has made a difference. The defense is looking much more robust, and more importantly getting the job done. Sure they had a major breakdown not tackling on the one play letting the Dolphins receiver break free for a long touchdown, but that should just get them to realize that they can't take anything for granted from here on out.

As far as our overall game plan we were able to do one of those things we can do well that helped get us the win, and that was late in the game grind grind grind. As I wrote in my last post it was a thing of beauty to watch Kareem Hunt run well throughout the 4th quarter and then when we needed it Alex Smith adjust for the defense and swing that pass out to Albert Wilson who redeemed himself for a miserable drop earlier by making the catch-and-run first down. Keep the drive alive a chew up more clock. Awesome.

There are a few things I've been chomping at the bit to share here, for the therapy yes, including addressing the whole Alex Smith question. I know we are all wondering if Pat Mahomes will play in a meaningless game Sunday against the Broncos as Andy Reid will surely rest Smith. We'll see.

In the meantime, there'll be commendations, concerns, and other notable items for playoff action in next week's post!
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