The Devastating Hunt, Episode III

Clark Hunt likes Andy Reid.

One of the truly endearing things about Clark is his loyalty to those given the task of nurturing the Chiefs Kingdom. It is a hallmark of the Hunt legacy. Yes this entire blog series is about examining this thing Hunt that somehow afflicts Chiefs success through the eons, and indeed when a power broker within the organization stays with an ineffectual operative for far too long, it is painfully detrimental.

On the other hand, Clark's loyalty can be a good thing. It means leadership has faith, patience, and confidence in you to get the job done. At times Hunt has done that well, at other times, not so well. Clark himself has always wrestled with when to move and when not to, and to his great credit he is always deeply contemplatively considering everything, the Chiefs and the individual, whenever he must make a difficult personnel decision.

Right now the braintrust is Clark-Brett-Andy. We'll talk much more about Brett in later posts, but for right now...

What about Andy?

Let's face it, Chiefs fans do consider themselves fortunate to have Andy Reid as head coach. He has led the Chiefs to winning regular season records for all five of his years with us. He does that with the quite accomplished qualities that enthusiastically encourage Clark to keep him signed and sealed for as long as he wants, really. Reid is genuinely terrific at managing the team, keeping all the pieces working as they should. The troops practice and play with purpose and they have a robust respect for the man -- a lot of that is because Reid demonstrates a vibrant appreciation for the contributions of each of his players. He is also a tremendously skilled play designer and game-plan arranger.

And from what I hear he's a genius working with quarterbacks. Chiefs fans are slavering to taste the fruits of Pat Mahomes' progress -- this is a veraciously exciting benefit of Clark's intensely deliberative style: Mahomes can be confident the Chiefs will stand by him. A work colleague mentioned that he'd recently seen on television ESPN guys analyzing the optimum quarterback-coach situations for next season, and they felt the Chiefs had the best one. Very very very cool -- who can't wait for next season to start?!

These are the areas in which Reid deftly excels.

But then there is the very bad Andy Reid. In three key areas Reid sticks out like a sore buttock. You know what they are.

First, he simply cannot be organic -- this is one of the critical factors to our continued playoff failures. Often in the heat of a postseason battle you must rely on your intuition and do things that might deviate a bit from the original plan, simply because you just know this player or that player can do something for you that you really need to win that game. This feature of good postseason coaching has been woefully absent in all four of our playoff losses in those five years, three of which were lost by a total of four points. For cryin' out loud Andy get your face out of that play-sheet once in a while!

Second, he simply does not make the right adjustments. Sure enough, before that playoff loss to Tennessee I predicted that to win, even against a much weaker team, Reid simply must make adjustments to counter their adjustments, even make further adjustments to adjust for their added adjustments. He didn't. He flat-out didn't like he didn't in those other playoff losses, and it relates to the failure to be organic because he stubbornly refuses to go in a direction that is not The Game Plan. This just kills us.

For a bit of the ugliness of that Tennessee game, you know we scored zero points in the second half. I went ahead and looked, checked to see if we'd ever done that in the regular season. Sure enough, we scored points in every second half of the regular season, quite a few even, averaging 13.4 second-half points over the 16 games. Yeah, go ahead: ::whimper:: The fewest second-half points we scored was in the Giants game, when we had 6. Horrible -- but at least we had 6! The most? That first splendid win against New England, we scored 28 second-half points. I hear more whimpering -- that's okay, I got ya.

Really, that Tennessee game was the most horrific evidence that Andy Reid just won't be organic or adjust as he should. Now maybe he can learn, maybe as he comes into his own as a veteran, seasoned, lion-of-the-NFL-coaching-fraternity with something left in the tank -- maybe he'll humbly dedicate himself enough to work at getting that going.

Third -- and you'll see this ties in with other two as well -- he won't admit when he's messed up. I did not watch it because it was too agonizing, but I'd heard about it and I'd seen a very brief clip of it, and it was painful -- in his post-game press conference he actually had the temerity to deflect responsibility away from himself and blame everyone else for not doing what they were supposed to do.

Excuse me, but this just destroys all that great leadership stuff you'd already engendered among the Chiefs Kingdom. Even if this guy or that guy didn't come through on the field, as a strong leader you take the hit.

I can't help but think of something notable in a Joe Montana biography I'm reading right now. In every instance he possibly could Montana would always give his players the benefit of the doubt and assume the responsibility for anything that went wrong. Sure he'd urge his players to do this thing or that thing, but whenever he did he gave them an enormous amount of confidence that he'd come through for them.

See, Joe Montana had that thing I've mentioned frequently before in this blog.

He had "got-it." It is what separates the winners from the also-rans, and I'm sorry, but there is a Chiefs arrowhead right next to the word also-ran in the dictionary.

I think back to the Alabama-Georgia NCAA football championship game this year played the Monday night after the Chiefs-Titans debacle. There you watched tons of got-it coach Nick Saban pulling his regular quarterback for a freshman who hadn't played a snap all year, a player who eventually led Alabama to the win for the title.

Huh, Andy Reid, really, shouldn't you have been truly organic in our game and put in Pat Mahomes when Alex Smith was simply not getting it done in the second half of that game? Showed the Titans a totally different look like Saban did to the very good Georgia defense? After all, we all saw what Mahomes did just the week before in mile-high conditions against one of the best defenses in the league. Did you miss that? For more on this, I had a special post in middle of the regular season related to our exasperation with Reid not going with Mahomes during the regular season when Smith was playing horribly.

Now maybe sticking with Smith was the right call then, I understand. Smith did finish the regular season well for us, that's fine.

But then I also think this. Here's the wrap-up to all of this.

How much of Reid's failures and the contemptible lack of got-it is because of Hunt?

Not Clark, just Hunt.

Stram was great -- there was still Hunt. Levy was a godsend -- we all know what Lamar did with that. Schottenheimer was amazing -- ahh, Hunt. Vermeil was incredible -- but, well, Hunt. Reid is a phenomenal coach -- Hunnnt. 

Just a reminder, when Reid coached the Eagles from 1999 to 2012, the Eagles made the playoffs nine times and won at least one playoff game in the first seven of those times. His team won ten playoff games over that span, going to the Super Bowl in the 2004 season. For the Chiefs he's 1-4, already suffering three one-and-outs. Hunt?

Here's something I think about, another historical note that to me adds to the whole protracted intergenerational thing. To me it does, even though there is so much more, and so much I don't know or understand. But I'm sharing this particular item here anyway.

Go back to 1960, when Chiefs Kingdom started. Here's Lamar, a man who was nicknamed "Games" because of his passion for playing games and enjoying sports and desperately wanting to win -- here he is starting his own pro football team he certainly wanted to win all the time. But to make that meaningful he had to get a whole bunch of teams to win against, so of course he starts the AFL. If you were Lamar, what precisely would you want to have happen here?

Naturally you want your team to win most games by scores of 21-20 and be champions at least almost every year. Indeed Lamar probably had an edge because the AFL was his league created so the Texans-later-Chiefs would be successful. The franchise did have three titles in the ten years of the AFL's existence.

Here's the thing -- Lamar was sensitive to that conception. He wanted his darling team to win but he couldn't look at all like the whole thing was stilted in his favor.

Sure enough, in the very first game the Texans ever played in the entirety of the AFL -- Saturday September 10 1960 there in the Los Angeles Coliseum against the Chargers -- Lamar's team jumps out to a 20-7 halftime lead. He very openly declares at the time that maybe the Texans shouldn't be so dominant. Well guess what happened. Los Angeles came back and won 21-20. Lamar vows never to take anything for granted again.

There is just something about the psychic in that whole thing which to me has affected the Chiefs throughout their history.

I've been thinking about a couple more things I'd thought about a bit more from my last post that I feel are connected to this.

That the Chiefs have lost a playoff game to every AFL team except the Bengals (whom they've never played) at least once. Sorry, but that is just weird. Look, here's the record! -- the Chiefs postseason record by AFL team:

Boston (New England) 0-1
Buffalo 1-2
Cincinnati 0-0
Denver 0-1
Houston (Tennessee) 2-1
Los Angeles (San Diego) 0-1
Miami 0-3
New York 1-1
Oakland 2-1

Other teams (whom they've played):
Baltimore 0-1
Green Bay 0-1
Houston Texans 1-0
Indianapolis 0-4
Minnesota 1-0
Pittsburgh 1-1

Among all teams the only ones the Chiefs have played and not lost to are the Texans and Vikings. Meanwhile the Patriots Broncos Chargers Dolphins Ravens Packers and Colts have never lost to the Chiefs.

Then there is this one. There're those eleven seasons when the Chiefs have had a winning record but not made the playoffs. I thought about that too and thought, huh, really, is that a lot? Are there other teams with as many? I did then peek at just a few teams and found none that had as many as the Chiefs had. Now I didn't look at a Bears or a Cardinals, teams that've been around for almost 100 years, they've got to have quite a few. Maybe sometime when I need some distraction time I'll look at more teams, just to see.

But eleven winning seasons with no playoff appearance in 58 years of existence -- most of those seasons featuring ten teams entering the postseason -- that has to be a lot. What this means is the Chiefs have had a lot of 9-7 type seasons where one more win for a 10-6 mark would've gotten them in the playoffs. Which means that, likely --

Eleven times the Chiefs have had even more single heartbreak games late in a season that kept them from a shot at glory.

I can think of a few right off the top of my head.

There was 1996. We were at 9-4 after a convincing Thanksgiving day win over the Lions, then couldn't win another game. The last game of the season was in Buffalo and certainly within reach, but we couldn't get it done. We could've backed in with a 9-7 record, but the Falcons' Morten Andersen (a Hall-of-Famer who later even played for the Chiefs) missed a 30-yard field goal to let the Jaguars off the hook for that playoff spot instead.

How about 1999? We're at 9-6 and a win over the Raiders at home and we're in. We leap out to a 17-0 lead, then it gets tight for the rest of the game until their kicker ties it with under a minute left, then wins it in overtime.

Or even recently, 2014? In a game against Arizona with Kansas City ahead and in control late, Travis Kelce caught a pass deep in Cardinals territory that really would've iced the game. We win that game and we're 10-6, a record that would've qualified us for the playoffs. Instead after Kelce was lying flat on his back in firm possession of the ball, a Cardinals defender batted the ball out of his hands and the officials ruled it a fumble. Turnover, ball to Arizona, they march down, score, and eventually win.

Now I KNOW there are dozens of other instances when these kinds of things happen to other teams, I got that, I'm with you -- come on Dave what's the point...

The point is undeniably that this stuff afflicts the Chiefs far more than other teams.

And I KNOW there are a hundred other factors that afflict the Chiefs in these regards, many of them questionable things related to Hunt, several of which we can see and know about.

Some of those other things are related to the present NFL itself, and that will be the subject of my next post. Enough writing for now! Whew.

Until then...
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As I put this blog post together, major stuff has been going down with our team. I couldn't help but notice that the Chiefs are trading Marcus Peters, and have been working on this deal for some time. Major ramifications emerge from that, with some critical facets having to do with the way the NFL treats the Chiefs. It's all breaking right now, so we'll have some time to digest and then address more fully in next week's edition of "The Devastating Hunt..."
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(Episode IV)
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The Devastating Hunt, Episode II

There is hope. There is. I'll get to that, a lot. Sometime, very soon, I will.

It is just there has been that despair. Too much of it. That's what this series is all about.

Some may reasonably say move on, forget about it, today's a new day. Yeah, I understand the sentiment, I do. And I will always be optimistic about the Chiefs, even through the worst. But some add okay then what's the point of all this going over the past. It is simple, this blog series is about saying there is something somewhere somehow that impacts the Kansas City Chiefs in a wholly detrimental way, and I'm just trying to look at it, for the exclusive purpose of seeing good Chiefs things from it, that's the point. As I shared in the previous post, I confess there's a lot I don't know and there're a lot of people I have nothing against.

For instance Clark.

Here's a very hopeful thing -- an update of sorts. As any Chiefs fan knows Alex Smith was traded to the Redskins for a third round pick and a fine D-back. Now I'd be happy if we got a box of Fig Newtons for him -- nothing against Smith, really, but he was incapable of getting us to the promised land, for a lot of reasons. That's been hashed to death, not going to get into it. Pat Mahomes is good to go out there, let's get that happening already.

I will say, however, that I'm thrilled we got that pick and a terrific coverage guy on defense -- apparently I'd heard Redskins fans were furious they gave him up. Cool, we got him now.

Thing is, I'd heard later that Clark vetoed any trade that would've sent Smith to a divisional foe -- read that: Broncos. This is a terrific move. It means Clark is being a leader, making the right call here, and I believe it is.

Unless... Did Clark actually contact the Broncos? Really? Could he have said, "Look, Alex Smith is a phenomenal talent with at least a couple years left. What can you offer?" If they asked, "What do you want?" could we have just said, "We'll take the next two No. 1's, Demaryius Thomas, and Chris Harris"? See, could they have said that? Unlikely, but did we try? Did we ask for that and see what happens? Would half that deal be better than what we got from Washington?

Now maybe they did do that, maybe the Washington deal was the best we could get -- and I believe that deal was pretty good to be honest.

And I'd like to think Clark is blowing out the "Hunt" thing, the fruits of which will reveal itself in all its glory in next year's divisional playoff game at Arrowhead -- and beyond.

For you see, there is still Hunt.

There it is. Look. You cannot deny looking at it. Go ahead, try. Try to avert your eyes, you can't. But that's okay because again, the only reason to view the ugliness is so maybe we can identify what is going on that is making it happen. I have some ideas, some legitimate ones, ones I've shared a number of times here, and we'll get to some of them. For now, some more history. I want to do this just to show you, would you indulge me? It is also good for the therapy, thanks for joining me.

I had a hypothesis, and I went about testing it. It is as follows.

The Chiefs have the worst playoff record of any team, particularly in relation to its regular season record.

I went about compiling all the NFL teams franchise regular season win-loss percentages and their playoff win-loss percentages and compared them all. Would the Chiefs be the worst? Let's test it. Here's what I discovered.

First of all, some teams have hundreds and hundreds of games played in their long histories -- the most are by teams like the Bears, Packers, Lions, and believe it or not, the Cardinals which have all been around since the early 1920's. Comparatively other teams like the Ravens or Texans have not played many games at all.

The best overall regular season records are as follows, along with their winning percentages:

1. Dallas .573
2. Green Bay .567
3. Chicago .564
4. Miami .559
5. New England .559
6. Minnesota .547
7. San Francisco .544
8. Baltimore .541
9. New York Giants .540
10. Denver .538
11. Oakland .529
12. Pittsburgh .529
13. Indianapolis .528
14. Kansas City .524
15. Cleveland .511
16. Seattle .507
17. Washington .504

These are all the teams with winning records. Note the first part of my hypothesis is proven:

The Chiefs have actually been, overall, a pretty decent team during the regular season.

What is striking is that even though they rank 14th, they have been that good. They have a winning percentage pretty comparable to Pittsburgh's and Oakland's, even though those two teams have a much greater reputation for football success. One reason for Pittsburgh's lower-than-expected number is it was absolutely atrocious for years upon years before it began its run in the early 70's. Even so that run has netted them 36 postseason wins including six Super Bowl titles. Oakland's is a bit depressed because they were very bad when the AFL started and have been pretty bad over the past several years. Even so the Raiders have 25 postseason wins and three Super Bowl titles.

The Chiefs? They have nine. Nine postseason wins total total total.

Just before I did this data compilation, I started thinking, huh, you know, the Chiefs have had quite a number of winning seasons! My brain did a little mental inventory of their regular season history, and voila! There it was.

The '60's. During the 60's they dominated the AFL, and they were still really pretty good in the early 70's. Did you know they had winning records from 1970 to 1973 but only made the playoffs once in that time?

The '70's and '80's. They stank in the late 70's, but had that splendid year in 1981, then again in 1986, and in and around all that they were mediocre, sporting 8-8 marks in 1980 and 1984 and an 8-7-1 mark in 1989 -- not horrible by any means. In fact I'd always remembered that in that 1984 season four of the Chiefs losses were by a total of five points. Neat.

The '90's. We all know how dominant they were in the 90's, winning more regular season games than any team but the Bills. Yep, for review, the Chiefs were better regular season-wise in that decade than the Cowboys (three Super Bowl titles), the Broncos (two), the 49ers, Packers, Giants, and Redskins (one each). The Chiefs won a whopping three playoff games total over the course of that decade.

The '00's and beyond. We had an 8-8 season in 2002, but then exploded to 13-3 in '03, adding more winning seasons in '05 and '06. We thoroughly sucked from '07 to '09 and again in the very notorious 2012, but had a fine season in 2010. And of course we've had a winning season every year since 2013 -- five straight years.

To boot, we have a winning record against every other team in the AFC West. We've also had eleven seasons of winning records when we did not make the playoffs. That seems like a lot, but I simply haven't looked at the other teams in this area to see if it is or not. I'm sure there are a quite a few times 9-7 teams have not made the playoffs, I got that, but eleven times for a single team in their history? I'd have to think that ranks pretty high to be honest with you.

Every once in a while I hear an announcer, mostly during a television broadcast, speak about THE STORIED HISTORY OF THE KANSAS CITY CHIEFS. You know what I feel about every time I hear that? I chafe. It is uncomfortable. I think, "Uggh, he's just saying that. I know our history is actually really crappy to be honest with you. I know our history of postseason chokes is legendary -- how could he say such a thing?"

But you know, our regular season history is actually pretty stellar! It's just I viscerally feel that it doesn't quite justify the ingratiating remarks made by announcers...

And it doesn't change what's happened to this team in the postseason.

That leads to the second part of the hypothesis. How does this regular season success compare to our postseason failures, and I'm venturing to say it is the worst, by far, and any other team. The yawning chasm between our regular season success and our postseason failures is the largest, that's what I say. Let's see...

Here are the rankings for postseason winning percentage, from worst on down. I'm not going very far because the Chiefs appear so soon, of course.

1. Cincinnati .263 (What? A team worse than the Chiefs?! We'll get to that, stay tuned...)
2. Kansas City .333
3. Detroit .350
4. Los Angeles Chargers .393
5. Tampa Bay .400

The numerical difference percentage-wise from regular to postseason for the Chiefs is an earth-shattering .191. That's pretty major. Here are the rankings in size of differences:

1. Cincinnati .194
2. Kansas City .191
3. Minnesota .139
4. Detroit .110
5. Los Angeles Chargers .105

Again these are measured drops from how they did in the regular season to how they did in the postseason. Interesting that Minnesota comes in after the Chiefs on the good regular season-bad postseason flunky list, but the difference is that Minnesota has still won 20 playoff games in its history (to 29 losses). Yes the Vikings have had crushing playoff (and Super Bowl!) losses, but their regular season record is so good (6th in NFL history!) that this make sense. I also can't help but think about how Minnesota was most notorious for so disrespectfully shafting Lamar Hunt when the AFL started -- I just wonder if there is something about that in the mix.

Let's talk about the other sore festering thumb that's shoved into all of this: Cincinnati.

The Bengals right now are riding a seven-game losing streak in the playoffs. Their latest loss, a Wild Card Game for the 2015 season, was a disaster -- they were comfortably leading Pittsburgh late when Vontaze Burfict and Adam "Pacman" Jones committed the most egregious personal foul penalties that essentially cost them the game. Ironically this game was the one played on the same day right after the Chiefs won their only postseason game in 25 years. Huh, an odd connection between the most brutal playoff teams ever.

But look at this team, the Cincinnati Bengals. What is their history like? I don't know 98% of it, but I do know some. And I surely can't say one thing or another about certain things, but I can write about my thoughts anyway.

The Bengals originated in 1966 by Paul Brown, who'd wanted to have his own franchise after he did amazingly innovative things for the NFL with the Cleveland Browns (not named after him). With his coaching skill Brown led the team to several pro football championships in the 1940's and 1950's. With a different coach the Brown-built Browns team even won the NFL title in 1964.

But that was the end for the Browns. They have never been to a Super Bowl and this past season they finished 0-16, one of the few teams ever to go completely winless in a season.

The very interesting thing is in 1995 owner Art Modell considered the Browns were going nowhere in Cleveland, and he moved the team to Baltimore completely reinventing the team as the Ravens. (A newer Browns version was created in 1999 and that is the one in the league right now.) Here's the interesting part.

The Ravens have been phenomenally successful in the postseason.

In fact virtually right outta the gate in 2000, the spankin' new Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl. They did it again in 2012, and each time they had to win four postseason games, entering as a Wild Card team and running the table. The Ravens actually have the very best postseason winning percentage of any team in NFL history, a .652 clip. To amplify this I looked at the records of these teams in first game playoff games, whether Wild Card or Divisional.

The Bengals are 3-11 in first playoff games in their history. Yes, they've only had three years of their history when they've even won a playoff game at all. They did go to the Super Bowl in two of those years, losing to the 49ers both times, which represents another intriguing twist to all of this which I'll get to in a minute.

Meanwhile the Ravens are 8-2 in first playoff games. 8-2! Oh the envy of Chiefs fans the world-round. Thing is, I then thought, huh, I wonder what the Ravens regular season record was for each of those eight wins... I should compare it to the Chiefs regular season record for each of their 14 first game losses.

Yes, you read that right. The Chiefs have 14 first game losses in their postseason history (make sure you vomit with the window open please). The Chiefs have a 6-14 record in first postseason games. Yet another stomach-churning truth -- they've only enjoyed a pathetically scant six years (of 58 years in existence) when they've won at least a single playoff game, and one of those was that 1962 AFL Championship when they were the Texans. Otherwise, yep, there it is, '66, '69, '91, '93, and '15, tha's it. Ughck.

So, what is the Chiefs regular season record in those 14 years? Average: 10.9-4.7. Pretty close to an 11-5 record each of the 14 times they went into the playoffs and lost straight away. The Ravens? Regular season record for each of their 8 wins? 10.8-5.2.

Yeah.

Uggggck.

It is pretty close, but still.

The Chiefs have been better. The Chiefs went into the playoffs 14 times (of 20 all together) with a better record on average than the Ravens and lost each time. The Ravens on the other hand went into the playoffs 8 times (of 10 all together) with a worse record on average than the Chiefs and won each time.

Now yes I did kind of cherry-pick these two teams to compare, but hey, I do need rich meaningful Chiefs commiseration, that's the whole point of this. And I do believe much of this is something I've shared a number of times before, and that is for most of the Ravens success they've had Joe Flacco, a very fine drafted and developed quarterback. (Just point-of-fact, in six first-playoff-games Flacco is 6-0 -- he has never lost a first-playoff-game.) The Chiefs on the other hand have had throw-in QB's (as fine as some have been!) and none have ever been able to get us far in the playoffs. I do believe this little fact is instrumental as to why. It is not everything, there are certainly other factors.

Like a bit more of the history. Yes, more Chiefs in a moment, but I simply have to expound a bit more on this Browns-Bengals-Ravens thing, because it is curious.

While Paul Brown was one of the most renowned shapers of the modern NFL game, he did have a reputation as somewhat of an authoritarian. Nothing wrong with being a strong leader, but he had a ruthless grip on power over his franchises. I do know this affected a lot of people adversely, and while I don't know details about all of that, I do know that Brown infamously and quite foolishly refused to hire Bill Walsh in 1975 to coach the Bengals. Walsh very famously and quite brilliantly went on to elevate the San Francisco 49ers to world-class status, winning three Super Bowls in the process including two over the Cincinnati Bengals.

See, I just don't think all of this happens just because. I'm not God, I can't see everything, and I know 98% of folks just think when you go to Vegas and keep rolling everything but sevens every-single-time it's just the breaks. It's just coincidence. It's just luck.

And the Chiefs have just been unlucky time after time after time.

I don't know. Yeah, maybe -- maybe the ball just bounces around goofy against you way more times than not, maybe. But I don't know -- for you see, here's another peculiar thing about the Brown-to-the-Bengals-Browns-to-the-Ravens thing. It is that the present owner of the woebegone Bengals is none other than Mike Brown, the son of Paul Brown.

Ahh, there's that intergenerational thing going there, and yep, I'm telling you, whenever I've seen the Bengals play in the postseason they've kiiinda had that same deer-in-the-headlights play that is so prevalent among Chiefs players every time they're there. I haven't really seen much at all of anything postseason Bengals, I admit, but I did see enough of that 2015 Wild Card Game to see them thoroughly implode. I do know Carson Palmer in his prime had his knee shredded in another earlier playoff game against Pittsburgh that pretty much ruined their hopes to win (and certainly a lot more beyond that).

Talk to a Bengals fan, I'd venture to say the things they say about postseason stuff wouldn't be much different than what Chiefs fans would say.

Except that another factor is the way they lose. I really don't know a whole lot about those Bengals postseason games, and I do know a lot about the Chiefs ones. In their recent playoff games decided by seven points or fewer, the Chiefs have lost the last seven in a row, often in the most horrific ways imaginable. The average score of those last seven playoff games the Bengals have consecutively lost was 25.1-12.9.  I just don't see the reality of much in-game heartbreak there like the Chiefs Kingdom has had to suffer.

And yet another kind of goofy thing -- there are so many! -- of all the teams present in the AFC at the merger in 1970 (meaning excluding the Jaguars, the Texans, and the present version of the Browns) the Chiefs have played every one of them in the playoffs -- and, by the way, lost to every one of them at least once -- except, get this, the Bengals.

One more incidental note before concluding this post with the Chiefs, just another kind of interesting thing. The last Bengals regular season game of this year was against the Ravens -- remember the Ravens (formerly the Browns) have had a number of years of winning at least one playoff game that is over twice as long as the Bengals have had in less than half the time of existence in the league.

So here is the final game, Bengals at Ravens. Bengals are already out of the playoff picture, but the Ravens simply need a home win against the 6-9 Bengals to make the playoffs -- ironically Baltimore's first game the next week would've been against the Chiefs! Baltimore was ahead 27-24 with under a minute left and the Bengals facing 4th down and long at mid-field. They just needed this stop, game over, the Ravens go to the playoffs. The fans were on their feet effusively anticipating a raucous celebration!

Bengals QB Andy Dalton then fires a strike between five Ravens defenders to Tyler Boyd who sprints past them all for the touchdown, stunning Ravens fans everywhere. How delicious was that. Of course right after that the Chiefs were allowed to face a much weaker Titans team in that first playoff game, and the Titans still won.

So we finish here with that Bengals-Chiefs comparison, with the proving the hypothesis. One could say the Bengals have had it worse, winning percentage wise. But the hypothesis is essentially this.

The Chiefs have the most ridiculously abominable record when it comes to being a winning team in the regular season, then suddenly finding ways to inexplicably lose in the postseason.

And by that measure, the Chiefs "win" hands-down.

The Bengals have not had a very good team, ever, in the regular season. Their percentage is .457, ranking mid-pack among teams with losing records for the total franchise (by the way the worst is Tampa Bay at .358). For most of their history they have simply not made the playoffs at all. They've not been terrible, just not consistently very good.

Three times they've gone 12-4 , the best record they've ever had, and twice went to the Super Bowl on that record. Most of their playoff losses have come in the past several years when they have indeed been very good yet done the very familiar Chiefs thing and just tanked in the first postseason game played.

But even those numbers simply don't match up with the number of times the Chiefs have dominated the regular season and then...

Ick.

Fast forward to today, 2018, a new era of Chiefs football starts right now. We do know that things do genuinely look very promising for the Chiefs. Who wants to hear about past disconsolations -- I can understand why you'd have stopped reading this post about 1/20th of the way through, I understand. I'm hearing right now Brett Veach is making moves and shaking things up that reflect a commitment to keep the winning going, and everyone is thoroughly excited about Pat Mahomes taking the reigns and seeing what he can do to not only win regular season games but -- could-it-be -- postseason games. I'm open and willing and eager to see it happen.

And Clark?

Well, there're more thoughts on all of this to come in future posts in this series -- stay tuned!
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(Episode III)
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The Devastating Hunt, Episode I

A few things about the following blog series. It could just as easily be titled "January, the Cruelest Month." Every Chiefs fan knows precisely why. It is titled "The Devastating Hunt" because I'd like to delve much more deeply into why we must endure so much heartbreak in that month.

This isn't about Clark Hunt, though he is quite prominent. This isn't about Lamar Hunt, though he is even more a part of it. It isn't about the family or their holdings or the community or their resolute commitment to Chiefs success and any other wholesome Hunt thing then and now.

This series will also not be for the squeamish, those who really just want yet another Chiefs playoff catastrophe to be sloughed off down the oblivion drain of history. No, this series will get in deep with some ideas about what happens to this team every January. It will draw no eye-opening conclusions, but it will lay on the table the reality of Chiefs everything for us to plainly see, to courageously confront.

Again, there will be hard truths shared, most of them very brutal, some of them, quite graciously, very heartening. So if you don't have a stainless steel constitution, then read another much more cheery blog. Most likely I'll be covering things I've already lamented countless times through the years in this blog effort, but someone must do the dirty work around here.

But hey, why the tone of sour desolation? I mean, let's look at the Chiefs history. Let's enjoy it together, shall we?

1970. After winning the Super Bowl on that mild Sunday afternoon in New Orleans on the 11th of January 1970, how splendid it was to repeat when we won the very first AFC West divisional crown after that one game in the middle of the season when the Raiders Ben Davidson was summarily ejected for his completely unsportsmanlike spearing of Len Dawson. Dawson, if you remember, had just run for the 1st down that sealed the victory. Later we defeated the Colts in the AFC Championship game -- after all we'd throttled them in the second ever Monday Night Football game earlier in the season. How fitting the first Super Bowl of the merger era would be the Dallas Cowboys hosting the team that so hospitably left in 1963 so the Cowboys could enjoy everything Dallas could give them.

1971. What a fantastic trick play! The one where Bobby Bell snaps the ball to Jan Stenarud pretending to kick a field goal then running for a 1st down thoroughly faking out the Miami defense and setting up the Chiefs big win. Eventually they met Dallas again in a rematch of the previous year's Super Bowl! Delightful!

1990. In the Wild Card Game Albert Lewis intercepted Dan Marino and ran the ball back for a touchdown to seal the 23-10 win and help send the Chiefs to the Super Bowl led by Steve DeBerg, who statistically had one of the best years a quarterback could have: 23 touchdown passes to only 4 interceptions that year! Impressive!

1994. Joe Montana's last year and he amazed everyone with a nifty win over Miami. His efforts were aided by the strong sure-handed running of future Hall-of-Famer Marcus Allen and impeccable defensive play by future Hall-of-Famer Derrick Thomas. The Chiefs go on to play in the Super Bowl, of all teams, the San Francisco 49ers! What a show -- the Joe Montana-Steve Young showdown!

1995. The Chiefs dominate the regular season going 13-3, and start the playoffs beating the Colts 16-10 with the help of three Lin Elliot field goals. They'd go on for yet another Super Bowl meeting with the Dallas Cowboys, how about that!

1997. Another 13-3 Chiefs team starts the playoffs with Rich Gannon leading the charge, helped by a weakened Broncos offensive line after four players were duly ejected for having illegal substances on their jerseys. The Chiefs would go on for a Super Bowl I rematch with the Green Bay Packers! How special was that!

2003. Yet again the 13-3 Chiefs stormed through the playoffs on the backs of their spectacular offense -- a slinging Trent Green and a marauding Priest Holmes and a bulldozing offensive line made up of future Hall-of-Famers, most notably Will Shields and Willie Roaf. Add to the mix the best tight end ever Tony Gonzalez and no one could stop the juggernaut.

2013. The Chiefs were led by new-but-very-experienced head coach Andy Reid and new-but-very-seasoned quarterback Alex Smith, and they start the these playoffs by blistering the Colts to later move on into the Super Bowl against the Seattle Seahawks!

2015. After blowing out Houston, the Chiefs go to Foxboro where they take down the mighty Patriots -- after all, they did wallop them just the year before, 41-14. They go on to meet the Carolina Panthers in the Super Bowl! Yet another fine appearance in the big game for the Chiefs!

2016. A strong 12-4 season propels the Chiefs into the playoffs beginning with the Steelers, who they easily defeat when Pittsburgh doesn't score a single touchdown. They go on to face the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl!

2017. Yet another Super Bowl appearance for the Chiefs after they take care of Tennessee, then defeat New England, then put away Pittsburgh yet again! How about that! Andy Reid gets to meet his former team the Philadelphia Eagles and match wits with his former offensive coordinator Doug Pederson! Is that wonderful or what?!

A total of eleven Super Bowl victories for the vaunted Kansas City Chiefs! Including that last three in a row! Anybody ready for a FOUR-PEAT! Yowza!

Okay okay, enough of the pathetic comedian stuff. I know.

None of this happened, of course. Thing is, none of it came close to happening, in spite of the fact that there were some extraordinarily damn good Chiefs teams in there, playing in some extraordinarily close hard-fought games. Yes, teams lose playoff games all the time, I got that.

Just not like the way the Chiefs have. No team has come anywhere close to the misery the Chiefs have had in the playoffs. Yes I could myself name a few who've had really tough breaks -- recently New Orleans got stunned by the Vikings Stefon Diggs on a last-second miracle catch and TD run. Minnesota has its own history of misery, just a few years ago they had Seattle easily beat if their kicker hits a gimme field goal -- he bricked it. Very very very bad things happen to playoff teams.

It's just, the Chiefs. Please.

Let's go back, shall we, and you'll note that for some reason the 4th quarter always seems to kill us. No, the 4th quarter rarely kills the teams the Chiefs play the way it murders the Chiefs. (I say "rarely" instead of "never" because there was one time the 4th quarter was kind to us, just one time in our playoff history, and that was against Pittsburgh after the 1993 season).

So here it is again, in all its gruesome and -- ee-yeeg, truthful glory.

1970 vs Oakland (regular season 7th game), 4th quarter score 17-14 Chiefs. Len Dawson does indeed run for the clutch 1st down against the Raiders in that regular season game, allowing the Chiefs to then run out the clock to get the win. Ben Davidson does indeed spear him after he was down. Because a Chiefs guy defended their quarterback and shoved Davidson, the officials called offsetting penalties. The play was nullified, had to be replayed, and the Chiefs then failed to get the 1st down, allowing the Raiders to come back, kick a game-tying field goal, essentially keeping the Chiefs out of the playoffs.

1971 vs Miami, 4th quarter score 24-17 Chiefs. The Dolphins do tie it to send the game into overtime and everyone knows what then happened. I don't know when the Stenarud failed-fake-field-goal-attempted-run happened, but the botch was one of his three missed FG's on the day. Miami would go on to face the Cowboys in the Super Bowl. 3-point loss.

1990 vs Miami, 4th quarter score 16-3 Chiefs. Yes, you read that right, the Chiefs were dominating Dan Marino and led 16-3. The pass that Albert Lewis juuust missed intercepting, seriously by an inch, was caught and run in for a TD by Mark Clayton. The Chiefs just needed a field goal late in the game and looked to get a chance when Christian Okoye ran deep into Dolphins territory until, yep sure enough, Dave Szott was called for holding. It was brought back and Nick Lowery came up short on a 50+ yard field goal attempt. 1-point loss.

1994 vs Miami (again errgh), 4th quarter score 27-17 Dolphins. Yes this was the final score, but the Chiefs were actually ahead in the 2nd quarter 17-10. Thing is in the second half Joe Montana threw a stupid pick when the Chiefs were at the Dolphins goal line, Marcus Allen had the ball yanked from his arms as he got wrapped up after a run, and Derrick Thomas committed a costly defensive holding call when I can't imagine what he was doing dropping in pass defense to begin with. 10-point loss.

1995 vs Indianapolis, 4th quarter score 10-7 Colts. Still, only 10-7! The Chiefs had a point differential on the season of +117, while the Colts were at +15. Oh my. But then of course the dead buried American Indians underneath Arrowhead somehow conjured up one of the worst weather days in NFL history, plenty bad to turn Lin Elliot's kicking foot into a rock. He missed three field goals earning the nickname "The Player Never To Be Mentioned Again," except, hmm, I wonder what other kicker, a Hall-of-Famer, missed three field goal attempts in a playoff game once? 3-point loss.

1997 vs Denver, 4th quarter score 10-7 Chiefs. Yeah, you simply can't make this stuff up. Same score of the 1995 playoff game only we're ahead this time, except we can't keep Denver from scoring a touchdown in the 4th quarter to win it. I believe the Chiefs did not allow a second-half touchdown all year, it was something like that. Of course the Broncos linemen who cheated were allowed to correct their waywardness without being ejected or even having a timeout charged to the team. Annnd there were a dozen other ding-dong things that happened, one of which was Rich Gannon did not start even though many thought he should have. Gannon went on to win the NFL MVP just five years later leading the Raiders to the Super Bowl. Neat. 4-point loss.

2003 vs Indianapolis, 4th quarter score 31-24 Colts. Still very much within striking distance for one of the best offenses ever. It's just our not-so-great defense decided to have its most typical bad day --this day, the "No-Punt" game. That's nice because we couldn't stop the Colts on 3rd down for the life of us. 7-point loss.

2013 vs Indianapolis (again errrrrrgcgh), 4th quarter score 41-31 Chiefs. Yeah, uh-huh, we lost this one too. In fact earlier in the 3rd quarter we were up 38-10. Then a million things happened that represented essentially a perfect storm of rotten things that left us with a one-point loss. Unconscionable. 1-point loss.

2015 vs New England, 4th quarter score 21-13 Patriots. Still a close enough game for the Chiefs to make a run, even if it was a miraculous run for the Chiefs to get a miraculous playoff win for once, for once. Even so the Chiefs should have done much better barely lifting a finger because the Patriots had virtually no running game at all. But throw in all the ridiculous things that mess us up and, well, what's new. We can spank New England the year before like we did, but when it comes to the playoffs? Ugh. 7-point loss.

2016 vs Pittsburgh, 4th quarter score 15-10 Steelers. Still within striking distance! And yes, Pittsburgh did not score a touchdown the entire game. They just got six field goals. Really, how many teams, and not just in the playoffs but ever in NFL history, have lost a game in which they scored two touchdowns and the other team scored none. Don't tell me I don't want to know. 2-point loss.

2017 vs Tennessee, 4th quarter score 21-10 Chiefs. Uh-huh, it is comical if it weren't too damned depressing. In fact, I'm not even going to say a thing about this one because it was just too recent. Why. 1-point loss.

The Chiefs have now lost 11 of their last 12 playoff games. They now have seven straight playoff losses in games decided by a touchdown or less. During the regular season Mitch and Kendall regularly say right there smack in the middle of the 4th quarter, "It's time to PUT THE HAMMER DOWN," and most times the Chiefs actually do.

In the playoffs? Heh. Now we certainly wouldn't have ten Super Bowl wins after that 1970 actual real one, we may not even have any, I understand that. But out of all the above we couldn't have at least a few more playoff wins? Just a few fewer one-and-outs? With these teams?

What is the point to all this loathsome anti-reverie?

Throughout all the heartbreak, throughout all the head-scratching and despondency and gut-wrenchingly knot-twistingly mind-numbingly wretched bewilderment -- throughout it all one thing has been a common thread. One thing.

It's a four-letter word that starts with "H" and ends with "T."

Hmm, I wonder what it is?

Again, I can't emphasize this enough. This isn't about Clark. This isn't about Lamar. This isn't about anyone in particular unless that someone in particular is an instrumental focal point in all of this. Yes I do not know who that might be. Might not be anybody, not trying to call out anybody or say anything against anyone in particular.

But there is Hunt. And there are Chiefs horror-movie playoff appearances. Countless ones. Over and over and over ad infinitum. Hunt -- horror-movie playoff game. Horror-movie playoff game -- Hunt.

Doesn't matter what exceptionally fine coaches are leading the team (Stram Levy Schottenheimer Vermeil Reid), doesn't matter what exceptionally fine quarterbacks are on the field (Dawson Krieg Montana Green Smith), doesn't matter what Hall-of-Famers are playing for us (they'll show up in a subsequent post), doesn't matter that we're at home (where a number of times the Chiefs had gone undefeated during the regular season...)

Doesn't matter...

There is Hunt.

These Chiefs teams have lots of talent and smarts and drive and desire and leadership and togetherness and "fam" and passion and skill -- there is no way anyone can't see that plainly -- and yet

There is simply no got-it winningness.

That's just the Hunt thing whatever that thing might be -- I have some ideas but I'm just riffing here on all this with you in my blog here.

It is interesting though, that the latest actual horror movie in the Hollywood pipeline is getting a lot of attention right now. It definitely drew my attention.

Hereditary.

Apparently it is about the horror happenings in the home of a family whose dead matriarch did some mysterious things that are now revealing themselves in extraordinarily frightening ways.

Yeah, it drew my attention, and I will be perfectly candid with you. I do firmly believe there are such things as intergenerational issues. This means that, yes, the sins of one's ancestors may indeed be carried through into later generations. Yes it is a profoundly spiritual dynamic and yes, it may be addressed by those who see it and acknowledge it.

I have shared this before, and I will share it again. I share it just for contemplation -- I don't presume to know or have all the answers or assume anyone should do anything one way or the other. But please, I still just wonder how much the crazy things H.L. Hunt did when he was a gazillionaire are affecting things now? How much were the questionable financial involvements Lamar Hunt got mixed up in have weaved their way to contributing to the abject catatonia of Chiefs postseason play?

And Clark? Again I can't emphasize this enough -- Clark seems to be a truly upstanding individual in every respect, it just isn't about him per se. It is about Hunt. I even noticed that among all the posts I'd written referencing Clark's ability or inability, this one stood out. I posted it at the end of the 2008 season, just asking, wow, is Clark doing a good job or not? We could ask that question nine years later -- and it is a fair question to ask of any prominent leader anywhere anytime. I honestly don't think he hasn't done a good job, I really don't!

There's - just - that - postseason thing.

Yes I do get that football is just a dumb game with super muscular overgrown kids tossing a goofy looking ball around -- there are hundreds of other life things a million times more important, you don't need to tell me that. But I also think many who say that are doing so merely to shove their heads in the sand to avoid confronting that particular thing I'm talking about right now, the thing I'm going to explore a bit more about throughout this series.

If the Chiefs weren't important would so many people put an ounce of energy into it whether front office personnel working to get a decent team on the field or players laboring for hours each day getting prepared or fans for showing up or anybody for seeing the game as a valuable social and emotional construct for the purpose of providing several beneficial items to community cohesion.

At its worst we go into each season with all kinds of slathered window dressing and Chiefs Kingdom wonderfulness, and quite often we do fantastic during the regular season! Yay! But the crushing postseason horror story that inevitably happens is simply never addressed. If this is indeed a Hunt issue, let's confront it. Will people see it? Will people call it out? Will there be a reckoning?

At its best a number of phenomenally positive things can come from it, and I will close all of this with those things. Yes, I have been doing some thinking about the benefits of interminable playoff failures -- "the benefits"? Are you kidding? -- well, there are some! But again, with the premise established, let's look at all things Chiefs as far as where we've been and where we are and where we hope to go.
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(Episode II)
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