Chiefs Doing Nothing in the Post-Season Yet Again

This blog is wholly about addressing games the Kansas City Chiefs play and only those games. I do nothing but look at the games. With some few exceptions (like this one) I make only one post a week--the one regarding what happened in the game of the day.

But since this is playoff time and I should be writing about our Chiefs playoff games (but am not, thank you Carl Peterson) I wanted to blog a bit about the very sad history of Chiefs playoff activity. I have no delusions that this may be considered one great big whining session, but oh well. For one, it's my blog, and for two, I know the Chiefs must win games with wise front office decisions, deft tactical leadership, and plain flat-out on-the-field excellence.

But if luck is a component in the mix, then over the many years the Chiefs have had very little of it.

So you may call it what you want, but henceforth this shall officially be my year-end bitch session, and I've got the statistical goods to back it up.

For one thing, I updated the latest Kansas City playoff drought numbers, a statistical nightmare I put together and posted on my blog at the end of last year. This year it was no better. There it is, KC's football and baseball teams still sucking and reaching a 40-year combined team playoff drought. It is updated right up to the present moment with today's NFL playoff action included. Annnnd, there we are there at the top, us Kansas Citians. Next up is Cincy at 33. Then Houston at 22. Then Detroit at 21.

Everyone else, every single stinkin' other city--20 of the 24 in all-- with a playoff drought fully half of Kansas City's, or less.

See, I happen to be kind of a Royals fan, too, and it was as if the sports gods watched Bret Saberhagen leap for joy putting away the last Cardinals batter in Game 7 of the 1985 World Series and said, "This just cannot be. The Royals winning the championship? Especially after a gift call from an umpire the day before and all the things we did to hose them through the 70's no matter how good they were? We'll never let that happen again."

Now I don't attribute the Royals suckitude since then solely to supernatural forces. It has a ton to do with the fact that major league baseball itself knows it would die should anything like the sustained success that the teeny tiny market Royals had through the 70's happen again. I made some notes in a post from last year about how exactly it is that the Royals cannot win, and it is here (right after last year's playoff drought list).

But let's talk Chiefs futility.

One thing I did was get a feel of how the team did versus the key teams they must do well against, namely those teams in the rest of the AFC West, the Broncos, the Chargers, and the Raiders. Indeed since this is the 50th anniversary of the AFL, it is worth a look at this classic divisional set-up and how things have gone through the five decades.

First, let's look at division titles. The Raiders have 16, the Chargers 15, the Broncos 10, and the Chiefs 6. (The Dallas Texans don't count because that's not Kansas City, and the Seattle Seahawks had a few in there when they were in the AFC West.) Then I looked at how many playoff games were won after winning a division title. Here's that list: the Raiders 18, the Broncos 13, the Chargers 9, and the Chiefs 3.

Now, just look at that. Fifty years, and a puny 6 division titles for the Chiefs. FIFTY YEARS OF AFL/AFC EXISTITUDE, and a pitifully putrid 3 playoff victories coming off a division title.

Now yes, the Chiefs did win a few playoff games as a wild-card, and yes they did win the Super Bowl coming out of being a wild-card in 1969. For that I am bountifully grateful that we had such a phenomenally great team like Hank Stram's Chiefs and we could blow away teams as a great team like that should. At least for that one beautiful, glorious, splendidly marvelous year.

But again, the sports gods...

"What? The Chiefs? They can't win anymore, they're in such a teeny tiny market, and they didn't really deserve it because they didn't even win their division, so we'll just have to hose them for the rest of eternity..."

So then, what about the whole divisional title thing? Just FYI, here are those titles, and here are those playoff wins. Don't worry, it won't take up much blog space--whew, good thing... The titles: 66, 71, 93, 95, 97, and 03. The wins: against Buffalo in 66, against Pittsburgh and then right after that against Houston in 93.

Thaht's it. Thah end.

In only two years of the entirety of this 50-year thing we're all celebrating right now, two of fifty, a whopping four percent of the time did we have a year in which we won our division then went on to win at least one playoff game. There it is, those years again: 1966 and 1993.

You'da thought we'da had more in that 90's decade, but lest you forget that once we breathed playoff air we choked nearly every time. We now have the current on-going record for consecutive playoff losses. Yes, uh-huh. We do. When I saw that stat just after the Colts loss after the 06 season I was stunned. Thinking back to that glorious win over the Oilers in January of 94 I just never woulda thought. But yep, right there, the Chiefs have a record six-game playoff losing streak and counting, meaning if they get in again and lose, then they'll be the sole holders of that distinction. (Seattle had six in a row a while back until they won, and Dallas also shared the record but their six game streak ended last week when they beat Philly. For the record, those six in the Chiefs ledger: Buf 93 season, Mia 94, Ind 95, Den 97, Ind 03, Ind 06.)

I still shake my head.

But wait. There's more.

Just this week I thought, hmm, on this year of the 50th anniversary of AFL/AFC wonderfulness--the whole of which commenced, I might add, by the intrepid catalysm of Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt--I would  look at total playoff victories through the fifty by all the original AFL teams. Total, meaning all of them, all wild-card, divisional, conference, Super Bowl, all of it. Well, let's look at that shall we, and for our weaker Chiefs fan brethren, you may want to look away.

Here's the list.

1. Oakland/Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders (25)
2. Boston/New England Patriots (21)
3. Denver Broncos (17)
4. Buffalo Bills (14)
4. Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans (14)
6. Los Angeles/San Diego Chargers (10)
7. New York Titans/Jets (10)
8. Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs (8)

You must note that the Chiefs-not-Texans have only had seven playoff wins in the fifty years. And to think that there have been times when I've actually been kind of sad the Raiders have themselves sucked so thoroughly these past several years (BTW, this year they set an NFL record for seven straight seasons with at least 11 losses--are you sad?), or even thought those who thought the Chiefs should not have beaten the Raiders in the 1969 conference championship game might have a point. Or that since we've pretty much had our way with them for some time (for practically all of the 90's and most of the 00's) that somehow it is their turn...

Somebody, please whack me in the head with a two-by-four, I give you permission.

What really makes me crazy is that I look at all of this just knowing in the very depths of my soul that we are so, so due for at least a teeny tiny bit of success, yet I also know that the sports gods will just do something to hose us and of course, yes, this is precisely why I spend zero time looking at any Chiefs item outside of actual gametime. I only end up going and getting my hopes up and then another Christmas Day 1971 happens. Or a Lin Elliot bricking three FG attempts happens. Or an Elvis Grbac thoroughly ignoring his outlet back for an easy game-winning TD happens. Or a young Peyton Manning converting on 57 third-downs happens.

I dunno. Sure this blog post is just one massive vent. At this point it's really all I have. Until next September when I can see if Scott Pioli has put together a team that can actually do great things for a long, long period of time. See if Todd Haley has taken those parts and assembled them deftly. For everything I have in me as a Chiefs fan I wholly expect them to, I really do.

So until September when maybe, just maybe the Kansas City Chiefs can begin to be the dominant team of the second half of the AFL/AFC Century.
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