Chargers at Chiefs - Week 17 - Record: 12-4

Well how about that. What a phenomenally exciting end to the regular season. As I posted a week-and-a-half ago, we Chiefs fans are tremendously blessed. We have had a number of wonderful regular season finales, we have. I can't help but think about that miracle New Year's Eve set of games in 2006 that got us into the playoffs. I think about two years ago when Patrick Mahomes in his first full game, also on New Year's Eve, led the Chiefs to the thrilling close win in Denver to close the season. Even just last year when we throttled the Raiders to ensure we got the bye then.

Thing is, now we need some wonderful splendid spectacular play in the postseason.

But that is for a preview post for later. For now, the joy. I did get to see the very end of the game when I was at a restaurant having lunch with my dad, and I watched on the big screen TV Damien Williams pull off a terrific twisting driving touchdown run to put the Chiefs up by 10 with just a few minutes left in the game. A mere few seconds after that the Dolphins Ryan Fitzpatrick rifled a touchdown pass to his tight end in the back of the end zone to put Miami ahead of New England 27-24 with less than half-a-minute left. The Patriots then just could not pull off another of their charmed wins.

We got the bye.

Watching everyone in Arrowhead and all the players on the sideline go bananas was really fun. Yeah, it seems odd: the fans can't see that extra Chiefs game this year and they're cheering for that, but really, you really do want the bye for extra rest and time to prepare. As it is we get the home game for the division playoff game in two weeks.

We'll need it too because we've got to try out a new free safety. We lost Juan Thornhill for the entirety of the postseason with that notoriously wretched ACL-tear. More on where we are with that in a preview post next week, but it is encouraging to see Juan already eager to work hard to be back soon.

As for this game, a couple of real quick shout-outs to people.

There's Damien Williams, wow oh wow, what a day. He had a number of grinding runs getting key yardages throughout the game, but his highlight reel included two spectacular touchdown carries, both of which saw him hammered at the point of attack, but he stayed on his feet and took them to the house. One of them went for 84 yards. He was also fantastic coming out the backfield catching passes.

I also want to give a shout-out to Steve Spagnuolo, our defensive coordinator, who has just done wonders with getting the most from the defensive players we've got out there. The thing that is most encouraging as we go into the postseason is that he was the defensive coordinator with the New York Giants in 2007 when they upset the undefeated Patriots in the Super Bowl, largely because of their defensive performance against Tom Brady and company. It is good to have him out there getting us tuned up for what we are all again hoping is a very deep playoff run.

Well yesterday it got pretty deep already with the stunning game results, and yeah, adding another fine chapter in the storied history of the Kansas City Chiefs. I like being able to say that because there is good reason to justify it. Four straight division titles, seven straight winning seasons, a record of something like 48-2 against division rivals over the past six years, something like that -- they even mentioned the team had set an NFL record for most total points in a two-year period.

Oh yeah it is all very very very fun.

More and more and more as we get ready for the postseason next week!

Playoff preview post then!
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