Raiders at Chiefs - Week 17 - Record: 10-6

This is a playoff team?

I have to tell you there are a number of feelings that came back to me today. Feelings I've had in the past. Let me share each one with you.

1. This reminded me of the San Diego game three weeks ago, when we got shellacked there too. It was so similar to the extent that our line on both sides of the ball just got their asses stood up. It happened in the Denver game at there place where we also got blasted. Today the Raiders O-line and D-line just made silly putty with our guys. When we had the ball Raiders were all over us in the backfield -- our runners got nowhere and our QB's were sacked six times. When they had the ball our defenders looked like they were running backwards. This is a playoff team?

2. It reminded me of 2003 when we stormed outta the gate at 9-0, then just started to get really tired. Our defense was just not keeping up with the opponents' offensive weapons as the season wore on, and it really hit us in that first playoff game when a young Peyton Manning really took us apart and beat us at home. This loss to the Raiders, by the way, was our first at "The New Arrowhead." The way we looked today I just don't have much hope for next week's New Arrowhead game. We couldn't stop a very aggressive Raiders team that is generally mediocre, what on earth are we going to do against a really good aggressive team like the Jets or Ravens?

3. It reminded me of how much I loathe the Raiders. It's not personal -- it's just the Chiefs-Raiders thing. They've now beaten us four straight at home, and it was the first win by either team over the other by a score more than a scant touchdown or so for eons. The last big-scoring blowout was 49-31 back in 2000. (I should say the Raiders beat us 23-8 in '08, so there is that.) Hard to believe but the last blowout of any sort by the Chiefs over the Raiders, even with all our success against Oakland through the 2000's, was opening day of 1998, when we won 28-8. This was also the first time the Raiders swept us since 2001. It is just representative of the ugly truth that you can have wild success over a team for a long period of time, but sometime, somehow, it is going to come back around and they're going to kick your ass.

4. It just reminded me of all those games this year when I was just convinced we were just not a very good team. The ugly fourth quarter of the Houston game. The Buffalo game when we had to scratch and claw for a win. The San Diego game when I just knew we were not that good a team, after which I questioned my bad-team assessment when we beat St. Louis and Tennessee, but now am back to thinking we're just a bad team trying to wear a good-team mask.

The painful reality is that we have not had one single proven win against a good team like the Jets or Ravens all year long. We beat each team in the NFC West. Whuppy -- they all suck. We got clobbered in three of our divisional games, one by each team, Denver, San Diego, and now Oakland. The other AFC division we played, the South, also kind of sucks, with Indy right now barely trying to squeak into the playoffs.

Add to this the prospect of facing a couple of really awful stat situations, especially in light of how bad we played today. I do plan to preview the Chiefs playoff game later, but I just have to get all the bad off my shoulders now. Get it out of the way. Next blog time it'll be all good. For now, the brutal truth.

First, you must know that the Chiefs hold the record for most consecutive playoff losses in a row. Yes, the NFL record. They share it with Dallas and Seattle, by the way, at six straight futile postseason efforts. The trick is that Dallas' and Seattle's streaks both ended at six. The Chiefs' record is still active. Just for your information: If you remember, after we got wonderful playoff wins in 1993 against Pittsburgh and then Houston, we lost the AFC Championship to the Bills in Buffalo -- that was the first loss in the series. Then in 1994 we lost to the Dolphins, one and out -- two straight losses. In 1995 we lost to Indianapolis, one and out -- three straight. In 1997 we lost to Denver, one and out -- four straight. In 2003 we lost to Indianapolis again, one and out -- five straight. In 2006 we lost to Indianapolis again, one and out yet again -- six straight. Now, what is going to happen when we face a better Jets or Ravens team next week at an Arrowhead stadium that has probably been as cursed with rotten playoff luck as Marty Schottenheimer was? Get ready for sole possession of the NFL record for sustained playoff rottenness.

Second, do you know how many times the Chiefs have won the division and had a playoff victory? The answer is a whopping two. Yes, in the grand 50+ years of pro football wonderfulness in Kansas City, there have been exactly two years when the Chiefs have won the division and went on to win at least one playoff game. Just for your information: those years were 1966 and 1993. In '66 we beat Buffalo then lost to the Packers in the Super Bowl. '93 was when we beat Pittsburgh and Houston, the last year, by the way, we've even won a playoff game at all. Only Cincinnati and Detroit have longer streaks. I did once assemble the same number of playoff wins for the other three AFC West teams in years they won the division. It was a bunch. I've got the paper with that info on it somewhere and don't want to look for it, but trust me, it was a bunch for each. For the Chiefs, two. And what about the Super Bowl year of '69? Remember? We didn't win the division that year. We were the wild-card team from the AFL. Our overall postseason record since that Super Bowl win? Just for your information: 3-11. I call it Odin's revenge, the curse the Scandinavian god put on us for beating Minnesota. Yes, that's right, 3-11. Extraordinarily pukifying.

I know this is depressing, but I have to vent. Please, indulge me. Be a Chiefs fan with me. Thank you. Don't worry, there's more.

Third, if we do get the Jets, we are facing an 0-9 ongoing playoff record against teams from the old AFC East division. 0-9. After we beat the Joe Namath Jets in the '69 playoffs (the year before there was even an AFC East) our postseason losses against old AFC East teams has been in this order (its like a repulsively ugly tapestry, really): Mia-NYJ-Mia-Buf-Buf-Mia-Ind-Ind-Ind. All losses, to zero wins against any of them since. What's funny is none of the teams was New England. Think what it'll be like if we actually got so far as to face New England in the playoffs this year. ::Shudder::

So yeah, right now I'm kinda just coasting along, just shuffling through with my thoughts about how proud I am of this team winning the division. I mean that, after all that today's-game and yesteryears'-playoff blight, I can honestly tell you I am still really proud of these guys. They are a year or two away, during which we can hope for a couple more solid Scott Pioli drafts like he had this year and not like the one the year before when he drafted Tyson Jackson far too high. I hear rumers of an NFL lockout next year, but I know nothing about it because I'm only watching the Chiefs on Sunday. If there is no NFL next year, no big deal. I'd want to see my Chiefs finally start doing well for a while, certainly, to see them actually have a chance in the playoffs. But, whatever.

Yeah I know I'm looking past next week. Don't worry, next week I will be sitting eagerly in front of the television hoping like crazy the Chiefs' good team will show up.  It may be best that I think they'll suck so if they come away with a win, it'll feel great, the exact opposite feeling of those postseason instances when we should've won going away like the '98 Denver game or the '03 Indy game. And if we lose, then no big -- we're still that year or two away anyway.

I still have hope for this year though. Maybe we can be that team with the character to play well after having our faces planted on the turf -- we've done it a few times this year. Maybe Todd Haley will have the game plan to answer a horribly wretched loss -- he's done it before. Maybe the New Arrowhead mystique will be a significant part of turning away Odin's revenge this year. Maybe after all those pukifyingly rotten loss statistics, we're due. Maybe we'll just flat-out be that team that gets hot at the right time.

I hope. I really do.

And I'm also hoping to get to a preview this week, to simply go over what really must happen in real reality for the Chiefs to finally break the spell.
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(1/7/11 note: I have to add that upon further review I saw that the Raiders also beat the Chiefs 24-0 in 2002. I'd forgotten about that blowout simply because it was a loss by a demoralized Chiefs team completely out of contention in wet rainy Oakland on the last day of the season in which the Raiders would go on to romp through the playoffs on the way to the Super Bowl. Yhee. I can add, though, that it was nice when the Buccaneers whomped on them once they got there.)