I have indeed ranted and railed a number of times at Chiefs leadership for any number of things we've all seen, yet much of it comes from the exceedingly high expectations we've all had for this team. Thing is, it is very difficult to win in the NFL -- 32 teams play a slough of games every year and only one emerges as Super Bowl champion. To lay all of our past failures at the feet of Andy Reid or Clark Hunt is somewhat unfair.
It doesn't mean we fans and pundits and bloggers can't feel it sometimes. To my own credit, I've always had the most hope that Chiefs Kingdom would thrive beyond whatever observations I've had about this misstep or that poor decision, whether on the field or in the front office. And while I have often been very harsh on people like Andy and Clark, I've always respected their character and the many things they do well. I've also shared very clearly that, hey, wow, this whole enterprise is supposed to be a fun thing. If I screech about some baaad Chiefs thing no matter how emotionally visceral, it really is just that -- just me venting, just me doing the therapy.
So yeah, my confession is that my abrasive approach was not justified in many instances, because when you look at the entire picture of what Andy and Clark have done together, the Chiefs Kingdom has been built with a very strong foundation and we tend to take that for granted when watching some single turnover or poor officiating call however crushing it is in a given game.
Again, the nature of the way NFL football works tends to get any fan of any team to think things are worse than they really are. For Chiefs fans it has always been quite pronounced, with all the tremendous misfortunes that have befallen us in playoff football. That's all well-documented.
But it is interesting, I look at a team like the Saints, who for a second year in a row lost a playoff game because of a pass interference call not made. Yes, I'm sorry, but the Vikings Kyle Rudolph totally pushed off his defender when he caught the game-winning TD in their playoff game. In the Super Bowl George Kittle's OPI penalty was totally justified, but how many times have the Chiefs just not gotten that call?
How many times have we thought those playoff rotten-call things have only happened to us!
I look at a team like the Ravens, scorching the NFL with a 14-2 record this year but faltering in their first playoff game. Sounds so Chiefs-like. One time I even looked at the regular season vs. playoff records of the Chiefs and Ravens and found the Chiefs had a better regular season record than the Ravens but the Ravens had such an amazing playoff record and two Super Bowl wins.
Not fair!
Well, of course it required people like Andy and Clark and all the other Kingdom contributors to make it so the Chiefs would be so good that they could indeed turn the tide and win a Super Bowl.
And that's a big part of it, just that the Chiefs have done something I mentioned in a number of posts as the one real thing that would get us to the Big Dance. That is that we've built this environment of winning, of got-it, of a -- to steal the phrase from the Raiders -- commitment to excellence that is real and rich and meaningful.
That's what the difference is in Kansas City, and it cannot be emphasized enough, it was due in the largest part of all because of all the work Clark has done and all the things he put in place so that so many others could contribute what they could. And yes, at the top of that list of people is Andy Reid, who I know I've taken for granted the leadership skills he has employed to get us not only to the promised land, but conquering it, as Mitch Holthus so wonderfully declared as the Super Bowl wound down, "The Chiefs Kingdom has firmly planted its flag on top of football's highest summit."
Funny, I have to add this just right now. I peeked at some of my ferocious remonstrations during that horrific losing streak at the beginning of the 2015 season, remember that? At one point I said, something like, "Well, let's just look to 2019." Huh.
We simply can't lose sight of the eternally truthful truth that often we must go through it before we get the rapture of great achievement. All those things happening to the Kingdom that made it so agonizing, for such an interminably length of time, in some very real sense had to happen so eventually we would get all the pieces in place to do what we did that Sunday a couple weeks ago.
It's really a good lesson for us all.
How awesome is this Kingdom.
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The image of Andy Reid and Jim Nantz above was from The Athletic. Thank you.
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