The game started with the Chiefs D stopping the Colts O cold. Yay! Then we got a great punt return from Dexter. Yay! Then our O-line split the Colts defense to get Jamaal a fine touchdown run. Yay!
Yepp, it sure looked like it'd be a long day for...
The Chiefs.
Why? It's simple.
The Curse.
Right after Jamaal's touchdown, it was clear that Odin was so angry at himself for forgetting to activate the standard Colts curse against the Chiefs before the game that he put an extra ruthless spin on it. I mean, really -- that first few minutes of the game, that silly hope we'd have that we'd actually beat the Colts. Ha!
Or was it the ghost of Johnny Unitas? Or the spirits of the American Indian dead buried underneath... Okay okay, I'll spare you. But there is a curse. You can't convince me there isn't. Today's loss makes it 12 in the last 14 games against these guys. Until the Chiefs henceforth beat the Colts five or six straight times -- with a good team and a bad team, in the playoffs and not -- you cannot tell me this blight is just the product of anything far more benign. You can't.
Do you want me to regale you with the gory Colts-vs-Chiefs details from the past several years? Why. For one you probably already know about it. For two I'll be getting to a bit of it when, yes, very possibly we play our first playoff game in two weeks at the Colts yard.
I mean, how about just this, from our second-to-last game from last year? Yepp, it was against the Colts, at Arrowhead, and we actually played so well that we ran the ball on them for a blistering 352 yards rushing -- and still lost. Remember that? Probably not because it was lost in the sputtering out of an abysmal season, but the thing is, if you do remember, that mark is an NFL record -- most rushing yards by any NFL team ever in a losing effort. Neat.
Today featured some of the worst from The Curse. The Chiefs looking like shit and the Colts looking like champions. What's new when these guys meet. Remember the last time the Chiefs beat the Colts? In '11 they had Curtis Painter at quarterback and we still had to come from way behind and squeak out a 4th quarter win. Never mind that whole Painter-filling-in-for-an-injured-Peyton-Manning-helping-the-Colts-stink-so-much-that-they-get-top-quarterback-stud-Andrew-Luck-with-the-first-overall-pick-in-the-draft-the-year-before-the-Chiefs-stink-so-much-they-get-the-first-overall-pick-but-discover-no-such-quarterback-there-for-them-when-they-were-the-one-single-NFL-team-ever-that-needed-one thing. Never mind that. Oh, no, there is no curse, of course not.
So putting the brutal reality of The Curse aside, let's pretend that this is indeed all about who plays better and who is the better team and all that. Today it was proven the Colts are a better team, I admit. No shame in that. The crazy thing is that they really weren't by much. This whole thing just makes it that much more crazy.
The Chiefs curse: Alex Smith had an atrocious game, but so did the whole pass protection team. He got sacked and roughed up and threw picks and coughed up the ball. When he did get the ball off our receivers were still not getting separation. Our vertical passing game, let me just say it with one simple noise: ::Whimper::. Today Dwayne Bowe was back to his pathetic Dr. Jekyll self -- simply not running good, clearing routes. The Colts charm: Andrew Luck managed to get his receivers untracked and wide open at just right times. He really wasn't any major world beater, it's just, his team managed to make the plays. In fact the score should've been 30-7 because on one play Luck threw a perfect strike on a deep pass strike to a receiver who'd beaten our defender and he just dropped it.
The Chiefs curse: The Chiefs stuffed their run game today probably about 99.992815% of the time, but the one time they just didn't their guy got a spectacular run for a critical touchdown. And this was one of the several plays in which we just forgot how to tackle out there. The Colts charm: The Chiefs running game was actually pretty good, but their defense got the key stops just when they needed them. What did I see, the Colts something like 27th in the NFL in run defense? You have got to be kidding me -- them 27th in stopping the run, us with Jamaal Charles, and we score only seven points on the day? Come on. The Curse was turned waaay up today...
The Chiefs curse: Maybe the vibes of Lin Elliot are in the mix somewhere here. Youthfully robust Ryan Succop came in to attempt one field goal, a piddle 40-something yarder, and he utterly, thoroughly, embarrassingly bricked it. The Colts charm: Even though he did miss one, dodderingly aging Adam Vinatieri still easily made three, from all over the place with all kinds of swirls.
The Chiefs curse: Our pass rush is nothing without Justin Houston. That's extraordinarily scary come playoff time, mainly because even if he's in there I'm not sure we're nearly as good as we were the first half of the season, and when he's not in there our pass rush is completely vanilla. The Colts charm: So many little things that went their way it wasn't even funny, much of that was just the feel that they knew everything we were going to do. Give them credit for being exceptionally prepared for us, give them that. But we helped them a lot with not only the uninspired play and the turnovers, the blown coverages and missed marks, but the stultifying penalties. Oh my, it was grotesque. One of them was a taunting call on 3rd-and-long by a usually very composed Dontari Poe. I shake my head even more as I write this.
Damn, that's what makes all of this so scary.
We have a playoff game coming up in two weeks dammit.
We still haven't made a statement win, still. (Oh, and BTW, just FYI, the Colts have already registered three pretty major statement games, beating the Niners, Seahawks, and Broncos -- yeah, all of them this year.)
We've been beast against the least in the NFL, but we look like we're carrying a load of Kryptonite on our backs when we play the Denvers and Indys and San Diegos.
Speaking of which, we have the Chargers next week in San Diego. There's a phenomenally powerful Curse of Sid Gillman against us there, having lost 9 of the last 11 against them. The last time we won there was in 2007.
We have nothing to play for, either, having already clinched the 5th seed. We'll be having to travel to somewhere, some other team's stadium to enjoy playoff hell -- New England, Cincinnati, Baltimore, or Indianapolis. Whatever. Yes, I am very discouraged. I'm just resigned to the inevitable, I just steel myself for it, and if by some miracle The Curse won't crush us again and we actually win then I'll be that much more ecstatic. But as it is...
I know, I know, why should I feel that way. We were 2-14 last year, and we're going to the playoffs this year. What a turnaround. We should be happy. We've been the talk of pro football. We should be proud. We've got a fine team no matter how many think we're overachieving. We should still be exuberant, joyful, contented...
Why can't I be happy about that.
Sorry but... Okay, to maintain some decorum here, I'll just stop talking about it. There'll be plenty of time for that when appropriate. Whatever anything is about anything, for the next two weeks we can revel in being a playoff team -- for now, that's actually a terrific thing, and after today wears off a bit it'll be nice to feel the hopefulness however much there is.
There's that.
_
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