Every single one of them, and not just a few.
It is indeed like hell, interminable -- you just never believe it will ever end. As I've written a number of times before, some is the NFL itself loathe to have a small-market Midwest team in its premier showcase event. Some of that is mixed in with the Scorecasting Factor, the proven reality of officiating favoring the team preferred by the higher-ups -- even if they do so unwittingly, they still do it. Please remember, games turn on single plays and if that one single play may be decided a certain way, you are more likely to get the outcome you like. There are other factors that hopelessly derail our postseason chances, but yeah, most just consider that it is putrid luck.
Thus, the comic panel shared here. It sure does seem like the Chiefs are always calling tails. Look, the losing guy is even in a red jersey.
I just have to share with you this. My son played soccer a number of years ago and was on a really good team, should have gone all the way. But yeah, sure enough, in a key playoff game, the official was abjectly wretched and made the worst critical calls costing us the game. Funny, his team wore red. Funny, the coach (a terrific coach, by the way, a young enthusiastic 22-year-old) interestingly, was a Chiefs fan. And the thing is, every time something bad happened he would say, "Unlucky." Just that, he shouted instructions to the team all over the place then -- something bad happens even if a player messed up -- "Unlucky." Bless his soul. Let it go and move on, I like that.
I guess this is why I put the comic panel there as the featured part of this post. Because in some ways, all of this is just like that. I noted last year that some did cite losing the coin toss to the Patriots in overtime as the reason we lost. No, we lost because of that stupid offsides call the line judge made against Dee Ford. But ya know? I got ya. The defenses had to have both been gassed, and if we had the ball first we should have easily marched down the field and scored a touchdown.
I dunno. There are still too many things that could've happened just to keep us out of the Super Bowl.
There have been so many before.
See, this decade is shaping up to be exactly like the 90s, maybe even worse. Remember what happened in the 90s? The Chiefs were a dominant team, through the whole decade. Really. They had the best regular season record of any in the NFL except the Bills, and won a grand total of three playoff games. Again, the Cowboys, with not-as-good a regular season record for the decade, won three Super Bowls.
The Chiefs are so far holding one of the best regular season records over the course of this decade. I haven't done the math yet, I just don't know if I will, some stats wonk can probably dial it up easily. But I'd venture to say the Chiefs may even have the best record of the decade of any NFL team except for the Patriots. Really. Go ahead and show me I'm wrong. Of the nine years in the 2010s so far (2019 being the tenth season) we've had seven winning seasons. We've been to the postseason six times.
And we have a grand total of two playoff wins.
Really? An excruciating decade like the 90s Chiefs repeated?
And don't tell me about all the teams who rarely get to the playoffs to begin with. I understand, I feel for you. But this isn't about a bad team being justifiably bad, or a mediocre team getting there every once in a while on some fun lucky play. This is about a consistently very good team being dumped on when it counts all - the - time.
Unjustly? Ehh, that's something I've racked my brains about for eons. One decade of going through it is plenty, now we face a second? With the kinds of playoff losses we've had this decade just a recurrence of the nightmares we endured in the 90s?
What about the idea that we've just played "over our heads" each of those times, and playoff action has always just exposed us? Excuse me, but, huh? A legitimate point, but not this often -- it just doesn't happen.
Remember this -- I could certainly cite the legion of excellent players the Chiefs put on the field and regale you with myriad instances of their consistently fine play. But remember this:
In the 2014 regular season we blasted the Patriots (even leading to Tom Brady's benching). They went on to win the Super Bowl. (We didn't even make the playoffs, much because of poor officiating in one particular game late in the season)
In the 2015 regular season we smeared the Broncos, in Denver even (leading to Peyton Manning's benching). They went on to win the Super Bowl.
In the 2016 regular season we bested the Falcons, who went on to the Super Bowl and almost won except for a furious comeback by the Patriots.
In the 2017 regular season we handily defeated both the Patriots and Eagles, both of whom went on to play each other in the Super Bowl.
Okay, okay, I'm belaboring the point. Sorry. But remember this whole Chiefs-fan-Chiefs-blog is really only one thing.
Therapy.
And I do appreciate you joining me. Group therapy is good.
"Hi, my name is David and I'm a Chiefs fan."
"Hi David."
Thanks for being there.
In fact I must interject, my devotional just this morning was from Ecclesiastes. What a great lesson for us here. "And I saw all the toil and achievement from one person's envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after wind." So true, and count me guilty! I must tell you I do hold on to a greater perspective in all this, and I wrote about it here. And really, ultimately, everyone who wins in these sports things are winning just because the coin toss went their way, let's face it. Healthy perspective in many ways.
In the meantime, as we zealously indulge ourselves in this engaging diversion, there are very good things about the Chiefs we can cherish now, no matter what happens. Since this is a Chiefs blog, might as well still highlight those things. Here's the deal with this year's team, going forward. Very good things. In fact three of them are key, tremendous Chiefs assets, we all know:
We've got Clark, we've got Brett, and we've got Patrick.
Yes, sorry, I did not mention Andy. Once again, I hope we go to Super Bowl after Super Bowl with Andy from here on out, I really do. He is a phenomenal enough playmaker to do it, he really is. But I honestly don't think we will until either (a) he gets a smidgen of play calling adjustment ability especially late in games, or (b) we just get another coach.
With Clark, maybe that will happen. He has at least shown that he's going to take care of business when he needs to, and maybe he'll soon make the right call with regards to getting us to the point when we're not dropping game after game after game because we just don't know how to "put the hammer down" late in the 4th quarter. He did the right thing most recently in letting Bob Sutton go and bringing in Steve Spagnuolo to run the D, and he did it in properly summary fashion. Clark does that, that's very good.
With Brett, we have a general manager who also knows what to do to take care of business. He really does his homework. Besides all the other fine moves he made, an example of one of his best was snatching up Charvarius Ward for practically nothing. This kid has learned and grown and while he still needs to keep it up, his play has actually been very nice. On the same token he was extraordinarily wise in not picking up someone like Jalen Ramsey for what would have been most of the entire farm -- just not worth it. I'm also eagerly looking forward to more amazing draft work from Brett, and hoping we just go crazy drafting a lot of strong defensive players.
With Patrick, well, you know.
Thing is barring some other unforeseen insane thing that happens to us -- and here's to having our turn to not have anything like that happening -- we'll have Mahomes at the helm for at least the next decade. Yeah I'd like to win ten straight Super Bowls, definitely. I'm with you. But even with Brett putting a fine team around him, right now I'm just hoping for one. really. If we can get at least one, that'd be really nice. Last year in a similar post as this one I'd already written about hoping we can at least get that one. Yeah, it just seems we've had so many chances, how many more can we have?
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| Print by Anthony Oropeza |
And the rest of this season? A very good thing about Andy Reid is his coaching skill against teams in our division. We have three of them in the remaining five games, all at home. We also have a meeting with the Patriots in there, so that'll be a nice tune-up for playoff action.
Overall, even if we don't take it this year, or the next... to tell you the truth, this upcoming decade looks to be very promising, I know. Detractors disperse, please. And really, I'm preaching to the choir. Most Chiefs fans are hopeful, very much so, and for very good reason. They always buoy me in my therapeutically-massaged funk, even if vicious in reminding me that each season is a new one and there are very good reasons to be expect great things in the Kingdom no matter what happened in the past.
You know, last year during the regular season the Chiefs had something like ten straight coin-toss wins. Typical of their regular season, just dominant. Then in that one postseason coin toss we needed, we lost. Well, maybe the same thing will happen here sometime soon, only in reverse. All the horrific postseason "coin-toss" losses, one after the other after the other...
It's time for a win, for once.
1969.
Nice.
Still looking forward to looking through Michael MacCambridge's new book about it.
Again, here's to the next one we have.
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