Do you remember that splendid regular season-nightmare of a postseason Chiefs '90s decade? We were in the playoffs on seven different occasions in those ten years, and won a grand total of three playoff games. We had a better regular season record that decade than the Dallas Cowboys -- the team that originally formed specifically to put a Texas-sized hurt on Lamar Hunt simply for wanting to have a pro football team -- and the Cowboys won three Super Bowls over that time.
No one should ever have to endure a decade like that. It is unlikely any team could, it is really hard to have such good regular season records yet have so many one-and-outs.
Well, the Chiefs are about to have another decade just like that one, again. In case you haven't noticed, so far in this decade we've made the playoffs six times and won a grand total of two playoff games, at this point a worse ratio playoff-appearances-to-playoff wins than in the '90s.
This doesn't just happen.
So again, assuming we're merely a hard-luck tough-breaks snake-bitten NFL franchise: which playoff loss do you consider the most wrenchingly heartbreaking? I've thought about it sometimes, and gone back and forth between this one and that one, and realized something, really.
No, the worst one is always the last one we had.
Always. Every time.
You see, after a bad playoff loss you agonize (mostly unnecessarily) about it over the course the off-season (aren't we used to that), then there is another fine Chiefs regular season (most times) to make you forget about it and you say to yourself, "We've got this this time!" We get to enjoy a spectacular season very much like this past 2018 affair -- definitely one of the best ever, certainly -- then...
The heartbreak.
So yeah, that AFC Championship debacle is now the worst playoff loss we've ever endured. And you know? When you look at the horrific officiating calls impacting our game yet again, I do believe the case can be made objectively it was one of the worst.
I've mentioned that neutral zone penalty on Dee Ford more times than anyone, but I thought about another rotten consequence of that event. I discovered it watching just a couple plays of this new Alliance of American Football thing. I tuned in for a bit doing some down-time channel surfing and sure enough, as the teams lined up for a play one of the defensive linemen was lined up in the neutral zone. The play went off, and as usual, no flag.
So yeah, now guess what? Guess what's going to happen this upcoming NFL season every single time, among the dozens of times I see anyone lined up in the neutral zone, the play continues unabated?
Every single freakin' time I'm going to be going,
"There's another player lined up in the neutral zone -- yep -- there he is, way over the line, annnd, no flag. That's nice."
Once again I don't care that it's not called. Let the game go on. It just isn't that big a deal. Don't stop the game all the time for that. If anything have the line judges give the players some help. Tell them to scoot back a bit -- I'm sure they do that all the time anyway.
Just don't call it on us costing us a legitimate chance to win the biggest game of the season, one of the biggest in the history of the franchise, when officials themselves like to boast that they are all about not being the ones deciding games. Please.
The NFL's disdain for the Kansas City Chiefs extended into the signing of Kareem Hunt by the Cleveland Browns last week. It was indeed bound to happen, we all know, but it doesn't make it any better. Again, the NFL should have taken care of business back in February of 2018 when there were all those issues they needed to address, and then ensure Hunt do all the apologizing and make all the amends and start all the counseling and all that. Because of the NFL's brazen ineptitude and borderline duplicity the Chiefs were pressured and forced to release a franchise-caliber running back.
Once again, I've shared this before, but it bears repeating: if what Hunt did was so egregious, he should be out of football, permanently. Why isn't he, NFL? You dropped the ball on that one, or better, you dropped the Chiefs. If what Hunt did wasn't so bad, why isn't he still on the Chiefs? Why is he now helping win games for another team? You screwed us there too, NFL.
Taking nothing away from Damien Williams, I think he did great. Taking nothing away from Clark Hunt, I think sending a message that the Kansas City Chiefs organization is a top-notch above-board enterprise instilled a deeper sense of pride in the Kingdom. Taking nothing away from Brett Veach, I think our fine GM, maybe even picking up someone like Le'Veon Bell, will take care of business wonderfully.
But a colleague of mine who's pretty keen to NFL things told me he felt if the Chiefs had Kareem Hunt, we don't lose that AFC Championship game. He may be right. I just think if the NFL didn't have it in for this awesome Kingdom-strong entity The Kansas City Chiefs, that we'd not only be celebrating a Super Bowl Championship right now, but we may very well have at least a couple more trophies in glass cases showcased at Arrowhead.
And I just think, forgive me, uggh, what will happen in 2019 when a rejuvenated 9-7 Browns team comes to face the 15-1 Kansas City Chiefs in a divisional playoff game, and the Browns just go off with Kareem Hunt and... ::shudder:: ...That'll be seven playoff appearances -- again, just as in the 1990s -- yet this time a scant two playoff wins total for the decade of the 2010s.
Why do I write about all this stuff, above and beyond my perhaps, granted, too-obsessive passion for the Chiefs? Why do I continue to put this stuff into my blog when, my word, damn, WE GOT PATRICK MAHOMES DANG-IT! It is because, honestly, I'd love to see a bit more fight from the Kingdom. I'd like to see a bit more than just "Oh well." "Yeah that was ugly but so." "They bested us again wait until next year." "Stop your whining." "We lost so get over it." "Don't complain so much we had a good year." "Don't be such a conspiracy nut."
I'm sorry, but I happened to see New Orleans fans really fight for their team when they got robbed in the NFC Championship game. Banners and signs were up everywhere. There were people urging a boycott. Some were suing the NFL. Many even insisted the commissioner kick in Rule 17, Article 2, Section 1 to simply change the score to reflect what should have been or to replay the game after the point when the foul should have been called.
Sorry, I love the Kingdom, but, ahem, where were all the Chiefs stakeholders doing the same for their team?
Again, I'm not in any way advocating for any special privileges. Don't try to make up for calls (as they did against the Rams in the Super Bowl -- everyone knows that the officials did that!) Just get the calls right, and for that matter help make that happen by putting two officials in the booth with television monitors and original call ability.
How many people in the Kingdom, indeed people who have any interest in the integrity of pro football, are calling for this plain, simple, obvious solution?
::Sigh::
Well, Patrick Mahomes is indeed one thing that may very well keep that from happening. Awesome. So to add the positive to this post, I was looking up the latest from Jon Bois over at SB Nation, see what he was up to, and I found this.
"Patrick Mahomes was not meant for our stupid little television sets."
It is worth looking at. Check it out -- take your time, savor it -- it is a tremendous amount of fun. Just the idea that a standard-width television is not big enough to capture the size of Mahomes' contribution to pro football excellence. Bois comes up with the most amazing sports things, and yes, he's a Chiefs fan.
So as we get ready for the next delightful agony-eliminating regular season, we can now still revel in the amazing exploits of our future Super Bowl championship field general.
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