Bengals at Chiefs - AFC Championship Game

This one shredded the Kingdom's nerves right outta their skins, for sure. It was way too close way too close way too close for too long -- against an excellent Cincinnati team that had one of the best quarterbacks and two best wide receivers in the game, all facing essentially an all rookie defensive backfield -- I mean, McDuffie-Watson-Williams-Cook were all forced to play huge minutes against these world-beaters, and several times they made big plays to help us win.

Whah-oww.

I was tracking things like I usually do for these kinds of affairs, you know, Chiefs playoff games when we've always seemed to be so painfully afflicted by those stupid things to happen to us. And yes, in this one, there were a number of huge ones. The injuries and the Mahomes fumble were the most egregious. But hey, there were some very very very very very nice unstupid things that happened for us too. I thought I'd share with you here the Ten Major Wonderful Things That Happened in Favor of the Chiefs.

In order:

1. The crowd noise. The fans came to play today. It had much more of an impact early, but I have to think they kept it up enough to keep the Bengals at bay enough late when it counted the most.

2. The Mahomes-to-Kelce TD. Patrick held it just enough there in the pocket before getting crunched to see Kelce get position in the end zone for the score. On 4th-&-1 no less.

3. The D-line's ferocity. We definitely knew we needed it today, and got it. It was particularly effective early resulting in four sacks. Later the Bengals brought in help and their fine QB Joe Burrow started making connections. But there were still enough times when he didn't get the pass or had to ditch it.

4. Marquez Valdes-Scantling's play, throughout the game but in particular that series when his sudden stretch to get a clutch first down that was initially called short but reviewed in the Chiefs' favor. Just a play or two later he caught the TD pass to make it 20-13 us. What made his play that much more significant is we lost Toney, Smith-Schuster, and Hardman to injuries relatively early in the game. Wow did we need him to produce today, and he did.

5. The McDuffie tip. Again, the step-it-up play of those rookie D-backs, you can't give them enough credit. This particular play kept them from getting a 1st down late in the 3rd quarter forcing a punt.

6. The Cook-tip-to-Williams-pick. Bryan Cook was overly wild today, not quite being in position (just being a rookie, it's all good) and committing a critical PI. But when it counted most he came through, batting up a long perfectly thrown Burrow pass so Joshua Williams could intercept it stopping the Bengals late in the 4th quarter.

7. The Chris Jones Sack. Okay, melodramatic giving it a cap, but it was awesome. The Bengals had been moving the ball from their own 6 at the start of their last drive -- all they needed was to get into FG range to win it. On 3rd down with :48 left, the ball at their 35 yard-line, it was on. Or rather, Joe Burrow went down. They had to punt...

8. With our regular punt returners Toney and Hardman out, Skyy Moore was back there, the guy who was demoted when he simply couldn't cleanly field punts. He did great with the fielding thing on a number of punts, and he did even greater with his return on that last punt. He took it and shot up the right sideline getting all the way to midfield. :40 left for us to get into FG range, and all I could think about was 13 seconds -- if we did it last year we can do it again with 40.

9. The Mahomes' run for the first down at :08. On 3rd-&-4. From midfield. On the bum leg. Really, limping around all game he was just less-than-Mahomes, he was, nothing against him. In fact, this run was everything for the guy, the gamer that he is. After he sprinted to the sideline as much as you could sprint on that ankle, he got that first down then a Bengals defender shoved him when he was clearly beyond the area allowed for contact out-of-bounds. The personal foul penalty got us the extra yardage...

10. Butker does nail the 45-yarder. His kicking has been rails the past few games, and it was this game too, solid kick-offs including the squibber to end it, three FGs, two PATs, every one of those points needed today.

There are any number of things we could add, but it can't be emphasized enough how amazing the play of Patrick Mahomes was. particularly since he got hammered over and over again back there in the pocket. Again, it wasn't the perfect Mahomes effort -- we knew all he had to do was be decent -- and that he was. In light of all that he endured, the leg, the pass rush pressure, the having to face an excellent Bengals defense, the not really having much of a running game today -- what a heroic effort.

Now the real question is what about the injuries. Besides those three receivers we also lost Willie Gay and L'Jarius Sneed -- two guys we couldn't afford to lose.

Now on to the Super Bowl again! -- How amazing that we're saying that on a somewhat regular basis.

Oh wow!

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The image is from Andrew Mather at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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AFC Championship Game Preview - Bengals at Chiefs

Just a quick preview before the game later today. I can't help but pound out something before our second shot in as many years at getting past the Bengals to make it to the Super Bowl.

There are only three things that really count here for this one. Lots of things have been said about this game, and I've seen a few of them -- mainly from Chiefs fans itching to get this one on. All in all it does really come down to three things:

The first is the most important one of all, really, and it is the one that has always been the key item: There have to be a limited number of absurdly stupid things happening to the Chiefs in a playoff game they should be winning going-away. In the regular season game against the Bengals there were again far too many of them, including the typical over-officiating against us and an inexplicably missed Butker field goal late.

The second is Patrick Mahomes just needs to have a decent game. That is, he can't have something like the wickedly poor second-half performance he had in last year's championship game. I don't think too many are worried he'll do that again, but there is in the back of everyone's mind the question of how he'll hold up on that high ankle sprain he suffered last week.

The third is our pass rush. Everyone knows our D-linemen have got to get to Joe Burrow. The Bengals have an injury-plagued O-line, we've got DPOY candidate Chris Jones and playoff-fever Frank Clark out there, and our guys led the league in batted passes which will be critical in keeping Burrow from making those quick strike throws between the tackles.

In each of those three losses we suffered to the Bengals last year (all in 2022: two regular season affairs and that playoff game), the Bengals played near perfect football and the Chiefs had innumerable terribly debilitating things happen to them. And in each of them we lost by three points, in each one, just three points.

Will that happen yet again? 

Back here with a review in a few hours!

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The image was from Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs website, thank you.

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Jaguars at Chiefs - Divisional Playoff Game - The Take

Five years ago this month, it was Sunday January 7 by the way, I was spending the day at my daughter's volleyball tournament in one of those large indoor volleyball complexes. It was fun being there with all the activity but I do remember the visceral emotional pain of thinking about what had just happened the day before.

The Chiefs were playing the Titans in a first-playoff game and they were up 21-3 at the half. Our team proceeded to score zero points in the second half while allowing the Titans to put up the necessary 19 to win the game. It was definitely a gut-punch felt throughout the next day. Ironically on the television screens in the snack bar of that sports venue there was the Jaguars-Bills game, and it was killing me seeing very small bits of that game thinking one of those teams was moving on and we were not.

Since then the Chiefs have won five straight first-playoff games, which is truly splendid for all of us in the Chiefs Kingdom after enduring all those first-playoff game (wild-card or divisional) losses since that first truly ugly one (which ones aren't, really?) of the merger era when we lost to the Dolphins on that Christmas Day in 1971. Just for presently fun reminiscences: 2019 Colts 2020 Texans 2021 Browns 2022 Steelers 2023 Jaguars. We are now 9-3 overall in postseason play in the Mahomes era. 

This one against the Jaguars sent Patrick Mahomes' legendary status up to yet another level, as if it could go any higher. Early in the game a Jaguars lineman landed on his leg wrecking his ankle. Limping around he valiantly tried to stay out and play, but after the series of downs was up he went back to the sideline and the Chiefs brass forced him to go get it looked at. 

Chad Henne came in and did wonderfully, matriculating the ball 98 yards down the field for our second touchdown.

Thing is, after getting the ankle wrapped, Mahomes came back out and actually played well, hopping around for much of it, his efforts culminating in a jump-pass touchdown throw off his non-injured foot to put the team up 27-17.

Thing is thing is, so many of those previous first-playoff losses had just enough tremendously stupid things happen against the Chiefs to get them to just barely lose games -- every-single-time such that the exasperation levels just became intolerable. I don't have to regale you with them, you know about them -- just in that Titans loss there was the Darrelle Revis batted pass that went right back into the hands of their quarterback who proceeded to run for a touchdown. Uh-huh! Uh-huh! You know!

My point is Mahomes' phenomenal talent coupled with the amazingly courageous play he showed yesterday has definitely had a major impact on reducing the horror of those stupid things. When I tracked the play of the game yesterday, I made special note of any of those stupid things, just to see, just to see if anything could be that stupid and would torpedo our chances to win. 

Fortunately there weren't many of them, but the first was huge, probably the one thing that would have been the most devastating of all of them through the years: the Mahomes injury itself.

Then there was the 2nd half Pacheco run when he came up barely short of the 1st down. Reid challenged it, and lost -- now we just lost time-out. We then went for it on 4th down and didn't get it -- now we've lost the ball on downs. Very stupid all around.

Then late in the game when it was still too close for comfort there was the dropped interception by Juan Thornhill in the end zone. Now to his credit it was athletic as all get-out, and just a bit earlier he'd made a super-studly defense of another pass across the middle. But those dropped interceptions so often come back to bite you. Fortunately on the very next play the Jags fumbled the ball to us, so there is a wonderful thing for us that could easily be considered extraordinarily stupid for the Jags.

To be fair we were also helped out but a number of drops by the Jags receivers, and there were a couple of times when their young QB Trevor Lawrence just misfired. One of those times was a very good thing for us, when Justin Reid's terrific knifing blitz forced Lawrence into an ill-advised throw that Jaylen Watson picked with one hand. This was right after the Chiefs three-&-out following that fumble recovery. That it was this late in the game made Watson's pick extra sweet.

This win was definitely a team effort, every player had clutch plays here and there making some measurable impact, but we can't conclude without giving yet another kudos to Travis Kelce, who balled out today with 14 catches and two touchdowns. Wow. Again, just those guys -- Mahomes-Kelce, Mahomes-Kelce, Mahomes-Kelce -- for a bit it was Henne-Kelce, but Travis was carrying the offense today.

I also have to put in a good word for Harrison Butker, who came through beautifully with every single kick when the margins needed points-wise were narrowed considerably with the Mahomes playing uncertainty. Another kudos goes to him for making what could really have been a game-saving tackle when their fine kick returner was headed for a touchdown and last-chance-Butker caught him at midfield with his helmet tripping him up. Big-time play there.

As I write this the Bengals and Bills are duking it out, and right now I have no idea how that is going. I'm sitting here at the computer. But from the little I saw earlier these two teams are loaded, here's to hoping Patrick is good to go next week -- but from what I've read about high-ankle sprains we can't count on anything.

Here's to praying for him whether he's on the field or not.

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The image of Travis Kelce was from Andrew Mather and the one of Tommy Townsend and Harrison Butker was from Gavin Liddell at the Chiefs website. Thank you.

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Jaguars at Chiefs - Divisional Playoff Game

Amazing, for the fifth year in a row we won our first-playoff game of the postseason. It seemed like forever we simply could not win a first-playoff game (wild card or divisional) for the life of us.

It was a team effort led by so many great plays (and in Patrick Mahomes' case gutsy playing out there after getting his ankle wrecked early in the game). But more on all of that tomorrow. I'm only pounding out this brief notice post because tonight I did not assemble a more comprehensive post -- it was my wife and my anniversary date out.

So until tomorrow!

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Chiefs Post-Regular-Season Pre-Playoff-Season Report

It is pouring rain here in California where we live, and with no work today (I have an on-call job) I thought I'd spend some time doing a bit of fun Chiefs blogging. I'd actually had these thoughts banging around in my head about Chiefs-oriented things, so I have a chance with some downtime to put them to paper, so to speak. Just going to riff a bit on each item individually, sort of a smorgasbord of 2023 rapt-anticipation-for-fine-post-season-Chiefs-success-yet-again things upon which to ruminate.

"The Devastating Hunt" Postscript. Five years ago shortly after our harrowing playoff loss to the Titans I wrote this blog series, and recently I'd been reviewing it -- as a sort-of "How It Started" perspective on "How It's Going" cerebral exercise. Funny, as I just think about this now, that game was the last first-playoff game loss we've had, after a plethora of such disasters in Chiefs playoff history.

You can go back and read it, that very first post gets a lot into those horror shows. Since then the Chiefs are, believe it or not, 8-3 in postseason play. Damn.

I look back at "The Devastating Hunt" and I don't believe anything I wrote was inaccurate or antagonistic. What I put down came from the heart and I did include many truthful facets of the thing Hunt, not just the negative but the positive as well, trying to be fair, respectful, and balanced about all of it.

It is just, wow, look at this team now. Right after that, the Mahomes era started -- the promise of which was mentioned in the series. Also the Veach talents at assembling this world class organization were coming to fruition -- another fine item addressed in the series. Andy Reid has continued to do phenomenal things with the Kingdom, has grown into a better coach along the way and still enjoys being out there doing what he does best. 

And certainly Clark has a lot to do with it.

Right now as everyone knows the Chiefs are the No. 1 seed in the AFC, get the bye, and are looking to continue being that Andy-Reid-best-after-a-bye in two weeks. We all consider missing the Super Bowl a grave disappointment, but it can't be denied that this is the golden age of Chiefs football and there does not seem to be any reason it can't continue for some time.

The "Snow Globe" play. On Saturday against the Raiders, towards the end of the first half, the Chiefs ran a play designed to throw the defense off by first gathering in a circle arm-in-arm and spinning around. It looked a bit like "Ring-Around-the-Rosie" and was often mentioned as such. They broke, lined up, and ran a dipsy-doo play that resulted in a Kadarius Toney touchdown, only to be called back by, yes, you guessed it, a phantom holding call.

Afterwards haters from every woodwork crack in the NFL punditry and fandom world called it "disrespectful." No matter how they felt about it, whether sneeringly hateful or grudgingly deferential, the word came up a lot.

I bring this up here because, ahem, it was not disrespectful at all. People are just hating the Chiefs because they are good, and they are having fun out there they wish their team would have. This especially in light of the fact that there was a reason for this madness -- again expressly to keep the opposing defenders guessing. Excuse me, but every team does this with every formation they establish before every play they run.

Who cares if before a play a team's offensive players run around flapping their arms like birds, do somersaults and cartwheels, and shout "Hacka-slacka-macka-whacka!" before lining up? They still have to get the formation correct and have 40 seconds to run the play. 

Furthermore, I do agree, not every thing a team does in this vein is not disrespectful. If a team ran to the formation flipping off the opponent and shouting vulgar epithets at them, that's disrespectful. A taunting or unsportsmanlike penalty is in order.

What the Chiefs did was not that, by miles.

I'd like to think most pro football fans who truly like the game appreciated seeing Snow Globe. I'd even like to think, believe it or not, that the NFLers liked seeing Snow Globe. As you know if you've read my work, I loathe the advantages the NFLers give to the large-market media-darling teams, but in a twisted way, yes, I admit, I'd sure like the Chiefs to be a media-darling team. Already with a once-in-a-millennium talent quarterback in Patrick Mahomes they do have the attention of all of the pro football world.

I just don't believe the disrespect-blapping disrespectors nearly outnumber the authentic appreciators of fun, novel, exciting playmaking for their NFL entertainment.

I must add this here, just to add it. At the Raiders stadium Saturday were a phenomenally large number of Chiefs fans. Really, it was a sea of red there. At the Raiders stadium. I didn't see the national anthem, but my son told me the roar of "...and the home of the CHIEEEFS" was quite pronounced. It was also very clear in the massive amounts of cheering for any Chiefs good thing.

The Chiefs dominance over the NFC. Over and over again we see how dominant the Chiefs have been over the past few years, especially within its own division. In the Mahomes era they have lost only three games to the Chargers, one to the Raiders, and zero to the Broncos. There're all kinds of stats like this, but one ignored is this one.

Did you know the Chiefs beat every single NFC team in its rotation of playing NFC teams in the last four years? Every one! Look:

In 2019, their Super Bowl year, they beat the Bears, Vikings, and Lions. Yes, they lost to the Packers that year, but stay tuned!

In 2020 they beat the Saints, Falcons, Panthers, and Buccaneers -- even though they did lose to the Bucs in the Super Bowl.

In 2021 they beat the Cowboys, Giants, soon-to-be-Commanders, and Eagles. And yes, they also beat -- ta-da! -- the Packers in that extra game they got when the season was extended to 17 games.

In 2022 this season they beat the 49ers, Rams, Seahawks, and Cardinals, and as an extra added feature beat the Buccaneers also. Two wins in that time period against the Tom Brady-led Bucs (that all of us would trade in for just that one Super Bowl win against them, for sure).

There you go, all 16 NFC teams in four years, bested by the Chiefs.

Now we just need to do it again in the Super Bowl.

The still festering NFLer commitment to not-good-things. I did mention a few things in "The Devastating Hunt" that I'd like to emphasize here, things I've shared a number of times. I do believe the NFL has done some good work in these areas, but I also believe the System browbeating that afflicts anyone susceptible to the best virtue-signaling is still too prominent.

One of them is the vaccination issue that too many are not examining more carefully. This Bills player who suffered a cardiac arrest on the field two Monday nights ago could easily have been adversely affected by the Covid vax he was fiercely pressured to take. Yes we don't know, yes we do want the very best for Demar Hamlin, yes I'm not at all about politicizing this difficult and personal health concern.

The fact is, however, everything is political. Why is my bringing it up any less acceptable than the people who say "Don't talk about vaxxing at a time like this!" Sorry, but if the horrific pressures for people to get a terribly dangerous chemical injection contributed to what happened to this young player, then it should be addressed.

Another incident relates to the whole gambling relationship I've argued against for some time, even back when I wrote "The Devastating Hunt." Recently former quarterback Bernie Kosar, an excellent football player in his day, made a bet and said something about donating something to charity -- I'm not clear on the exact details. Thing is Kosar was dismissed from being any representative of NFL football anything. The issue seemed to have been that Kosar's official role with the NFL was somewhat fuzzy, so the question was should he have been disciplined in such a way?

As it is the NFL has strict rules about players, coaches, and any other such personnel doing any betting of any kind -- that's good. The problem is still in how much those gambling interests may still very much influence what happens on the field. Then there is the double standard -- how much the NFL polices this gambling thing in its ranks while still making a mint from these betting sites. This means all those NFL personnel everywhere still benefit greatly from the betting action on their games.

For the 57th time, get rid of any of that gambling stuff. Not just for the NFL and its integrity but for the benefit of those self-destructive fans who can't stop. It blows my mind that in just about every "DraftKings" type commercial -- and it seems there are more and more of these kinds of operations showing up -- there is some disclaimer that if you have a problem with gambling go seek help. That's nice, that'll fix things. No, sorry, it just proves this thing is so very wrong.

One more related item is just the impact of the expectations of the commercial NFLer interests. Last night in the college football championship game the easily predicted outcome did transpire: a far more talented Georgia team walloped a woefully overmatched TCU team, final score 65-7. It was 38-7 at the half. 

There were only two things I thought about. One, I sure would like the Chiefs to beat every team they play 65-7, every game, for the next, oh, 800 years straight, at least -- but then, yeah, who would pay any attention. We certainly wouldn't be a media darling team would we -- who would care about any of the spectacular Ring-Around-the-Rosie elaborate Snow-Globe-&-orchestral-music-box dipsy-doo wildly-spinning-carousel twist-a-loo slamma-blamma triple-reverse hook-&-lateral cross-field double-pass-back quadruple-leaping 99-yard-bombapalooza to score the special 17-point touchdown plays we run every other down?

Yes, sadly, I agree that would be bad. Weirdly, when you think about it, being the obsessively devout Chiefs fans that we are, it is actually a good thing that every game features the very necessary possibility you could get your ass whupped. Not-so-delightful at all, but reality.

The second thing I thought, however, is the one that is most concerning, and that is how disappointed the advertisers must have been in the 4th quarter of that Georgia-TCU game. I didn't watch any more if it after the half. I'd bet most of the country didn't either. Even fans at a watch-party had their attention elsewhere and not on the commercials these guys paid gazillions of dollars to air.

How much, exactly, does this affect eventual outcomes and indeed what may happen to work things in certain ways to get closer scores?

Honestly, I don't think this is a new concern at all. 

The best and most honest way the NFL addresses this, to its credit, is to try to have some sort of parity among the teams to begin with. This is not a bad thing, although yes, as a fan of a single team you do want your team to win every game 65-7, woo-hoo!

I just saw written by some fan or pundit -- I don't remember which -- when the NCAA puts that 12-team playoff system in place (when is it, next year? I don't know) every team qualifying to be in the "Final Four" will be an SEC team. True that. This year the teams making the playoff could have easily been, along with Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee for sure. LSU finished really strong, South Carolina looked really good late, Mississippi State was showing its chops -- indeed it has almost gotten to the point that every team wants to be in the SEC!

College football has become like that European soccer league, where they have that Premier League thing going in which teams that play well elevate themselves into a higher level while teams that don't play as well are just dropped to lower levels. I do not know the details of any of how that works exactly because soccer is supremely boring to me, I simply do not pay any attention to it.

But I do follow how sports leagues work, and the only reason I bring it up is just to think about what happens in a league that has in it any given team that is simply too dominant and worries the advertisers. They're saying Georgia will win it all again next year in college football. Will the strong competition in the SEC be enough to make it interesting? I mean really, Ohio State gave Georgia a good run in the playoff game, so I don't think we're quite to Premier League status yet.

It is just again, how much exactly do the Scorecasting or The Fix Is In realities result in, shall we say, alternative strategies to keep games closer than they should be? If that is the case, then it is frightening to think of the ways NFLers might be perfectly okay with those things subversively arranged to affect game outcomes, and that is very bad.

The 8-9 team in the playoffs. Finally I have to make mention about something else I'd touched on in "The Devastating Hunt": how much the NFLers really do prefer certain teams to be in playoff action, merely because they are simply more of a draw. I've always felt they've never liked the Chiefs, but hey, the Chiefs are looking like they are having fun, they have a terrific quarterback, they play an exciting brand of football -- so they may actually like them for now.

But they still aren't the New York team or the Boston team or the Los Angeles team or the Dallas team for that matter. Earlier I'd posited that the NFLers certainly do not favor any team in the AFC or NFC South divisions, namely (AFC) Indianapolis, Houston, Tennessee, Jacksonville, (NFC) Atlanta, New Orleans, Carolina, Tampa Bay. 

The NFLers must be happy this year because only one of those teams had a winning record, Jacksonville, and even that record was 9-8. That means the NFC South representative this year is Tampa Bay at 8-9, and yes, this team is led by Tom Brady. The luck this guy has is legendary.

Is Brady a good quarterback? Yes, indeed. But is he even more the GOAT at being lucky? Without question. Here his team has a losing record and he still gets another playoff appearance. You just can't make this stuff up.

Ultimately, though, while I understand that the rule is each division gets to have a representative in the playoffs even if that team's record is 6-11, I question that especially when another NFC team had a 9-8 record and are not in the playoffs. Whaddya know, yet again, the abject silliness of this. The luckiest quarterback in the history of just about anything anywhere gets into the playoffs with a losing record, while the unluckiest team in just about anything anywhere, the Detroit Lions, can't get into the playoffs in spite of having a winning record.

Really, I actually think that rule could be changed. If your division winner doesn't have a winning record and another team does, you forfeit your privilege to qualify. The NCAA has a bowl-game rule now: don't have a winning record? You don't get a bowl game. Why don't they have something like that in the NFL?

And please, I would be all in on this rule even if the playoff-qualifying losing-record team was the Chiefs. It would just not be right, even for my own team.

There it is, the panoply of thoughts and ideas and ruminations and remonstrations as we head into the 2023 playoff season. Wonderfully promising things in store for the Chiefs this year, and even if games are close that's a terrific thing! Sometimes I think for Patrick to play his best the team needs to be behind in the score for a bit. It's scary, but hey! 

That does make it much more fun for everyone.

As it is we'll see who we'll be facing after next weekend's wild-card games. More then!

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The first image of Clark Hunt and the Super Bowl trophy was clipped from a story about Super Bowl LIV at the "St. Mark's School" website -- apparently the Hunts have given to the school for some time. The second was simply in my file. The plot graph was assembled by Arjun Menon with date from Pro Football Focus. The other images were my own screenshots of various things widely shared on the web.

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January 11 additions. I just thought I'd come back here and add these items augmenting this post from yesterday. This tweet features a wonderful but sobering video satirizing the Covid vax hysteria -- be sure to watch it all the way to the very end. This piece by Jason Whitlock addresses that college football title game and the far-too overreaching power of the corporate interests in duplicitously distorting the integrity of the game, with an emphasis on the extreme dangers of forcing vaccines on an unwitting population especially those in the limelight such as high profile athletes. I will also mention that I did also today add the posted plot graph with the Chiefs in terrific shape both now and in the future, a testament to the incredibly good work Brett, his staff, the club's personnel, and yes, Clark, have been doing in shaping the Chiefs into one of pro football's elite organizations.

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Chiefs at Raiders - Week 18 - Record: 14-3

This Saturday game was the first after this past Monday Night Football game suspended after Bills D-back Demar Hamlin endured a critical health issue on the field. The NFL decided to suspend the game permanently making it a no-game-at-all. This meant the Bills and Bengals each would have played one fewer game this season, and that would have an impact on who would earn the No. 1 seed for the playoffs.

Turns out the way the NFL arranged it meant that no matter what a Chiefs win would mean the Chiefs would get that No. 1 seed no matter what Buffalo does tomorrow. If that Monday night game had been completed with a Buffalo win we'd have to have won today and hope Buffalo loses tomorrow. The only thing now that would be a concession to Buffalo is if the Chiefs and Bills both make it to the AFC Championship game, that game would be played on a neutral field.

As it is we got the win, really putting together a dominant effort against the Raiders. This does mean we get the bye next week -- we have it right now, we don't have to wait to see what happens to either the Bills or the Bengals. We really got a nice deal with how the NFL addressed this thing, we have to admit.

The play of the day was an Andy Reid spectacular, they called it the "Snow Globe," and it was neat to see it drawn up for this game, one that really wasn't nearly as important as a playoff game when it would be doubly spectacular.

About the very end of the first half, Chiefs ball at around the Raiders 10, 15 yard-line, the offensive unit huddled in a circle arm-in-arm and spun around in an 11-man circle. Really. Just like on the 1st grade playground. They surely did it because when they broke the huddle they wanted to surprise the Raiders defense. Breaking from their "Ring Around the Rosie" fun they spread themselves all over the place, with Jerick McKinnon taking the shotgun snap and Patrick Mahomes lined up behind him.

McKinnon took the ball and after a quick RPO move pitched it back to Mahomes taking a few steps to the right, who after catching it immediately threw it back across the field to Kadarius Toney who wove his way to the end zone for the touchdown. 

Wow.

Thing is they got one of our O-linemen for holding, so the play was nullified, but on the replay I just could not see where No. 52 who they called it on, or No. 62 who it may have been on, did any real holding at all.

Not to worry. Next play, Mahomes just very conventionally handed the ball to Toney for him to zip and zoom through the left flat to get the TD.

Couple quick notes. Really liked seeing Ronald Jones get a lot of reps. Most of them were in garbage time at the end, but he did get more other runs than in any other game. Good to see him get that work and do reasonably well at that, even scoring a touchdown. And our pass rush was on it today. We had something like five sacks I believe. Excellent play there will be critical for a deep playoff run.

See you in two weeks after we do the wait-see for who we'll be playing then!

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The image of Kadarius Toney is courtesy of Andrew Mather at the official Chiefs website, thank you.

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Broncos at Chiefs - Week 17 - Record: 13-3

September 17, 2015. 

That was the date of a Thursday night primetime Chiefs-Broncos game -- second game in a most promising third season of the splendid Andy Reid regime. The Chiefs had already won their opener. 

This one featured Knile Davis taking the handoff with two minutes left of game time and running it in for a Chiefs touchdown to put the Chiefs ahead 24-17. It was a glorious moment, enjoying this nice lead very late against a Broncos team that had already beaten us six straight times over the previous three years.

Thing is, we gave Peyton Manning too much time on the clock, and sure enough he sliced up our defense to score the game-tying touchdown. Shortly thereafter Jamaal Charles took his shot at a handoff, fumbled the ball, and a Broncos defender scooped it up and ran it in for the Broncos game-winning touchdown.

Darn.

What is crazy is that game was the first of five straight losses that season, and yes, I was going crazy. I think we were all beside ourselves. We win the opener, then lose five straight games -- during which we also lose Jamaal Charles to an ACL injury, effectively ending his short but brilliant career.

Except that we came back to win the next 11 straight, the last of which was a 30-0 playoff trouncing of the Texans for our first playoff win in 22 years. After so many insane playoff debacles, that was a glorious moment indeed for the Chiefs Kingdom, a game that was highlighted by the one and only Knile Davis' opening kickoff return for a touchdown.

Thing is, even though the Broncos would go on to win the Super Bowl that season, the Chiefs still pasted the Broncos in their second matchup of that season, highlighted by the -- amazing to think about -- benching of Peyton Manning. He was just having a horrible game that day, but the thing is this.

That was the first win of the subsequent now 15 straight wins over the Broncos.

This season we beat a Broncos team twice by scores of 34-28 and today 27-24 -- note those scores, they are against a team that has scored a total of 20 or more points in a game three times this season except for those Chiefs game scores. That 28 was the most they'd put up all season, against us.

Thing is most all of those 15 wins over the Broncos have been really close and many of them downright crushing to the Broncos Kingdom. I don't remember everything about them, but I do remember a Tyreek Hill bumbling TD catch that was only a TD because he bumbled the ball at the goal line before clutching it. I think it was the same game when our kicker Cairo Santos kicked the game-winning field goal in overtime by banging it off the upright. I remember another game when our huge 350 pound defensive tackle Dontari Poe threw a touchdown pass to our tight end. Just last year late in the last game of the regular season Nick Bolton scooped up a fumble and housed it when the Broncos were about to score and actually very likely win one against us.

Today I can't help but add a note about the officiating that I feel unjustly went against the Broncos. I am committed to being fair with calling out the calls, and two stand out. At the end of the 3rd quarter a Broncos receiver made a terrific catch way downfield between two Chiefs defenders, but the ref called offensive pass interference. Sorry, the contact was incidental and yes, it should not have been called against the Broncos. Furthermore a clutch Chris Jones sack at the end of the game ended with him unnecessarily slamming Russell Wilson to the ground as he made a last-ditch attempt to get rid of the ball, and yes I do feel Jones should have gotten a roughing-the-passer call against him.

There was so much more heartbreak for the Broncos in all those games, but hey, good for the Chiefs Kingdom. The point, however, is that the Broncos, especially this year playing as poorly as they have, have just played us really well.

That or...

The unspeakable...

We just suck more than we think.

Chris Jones today made the game-securing play powering his way through the line to get the clutch sack late to effectively end this game, but we were still too bendy on defense letting this Denver offense move the ball and even take the lead 17-13 late in the 3rd quarter.

Patrick Mahomes made key plays -- even catching one of his own batted passes and scooting for six yards! But he was off today and our running game is just not exactly truly precisely actually what we'd like it to be, the blossoming of Isiah Pacheco and fine play of Jerick McKinnon notwithstanding.

I took a peek over at Arrowhead Addict and they had a feature on the five key players in today's game. I'll just share the names and you can go over there and look at what they say about them, but if you watched today's game you'd know why they were mentioned. They were Joe Thuney (who had to leave for injury -- his status unknown at this time), L'Jarius Sneed, Blake Bell, Trent McDuffie, and Kadarius Toney.

All fine players, all doing fine Chiefs things today.

Thing is, what else is going on that make games like these so hard to command as we should be, easily?

I know this is the NFL and "any given Sunday" and all the rest of it. I know sometimes Andy Reid just makes the most bewildering play calls. I know this very good team just beats itself way to often.

And I know the NFL has those criminal gambling connections along with all the other NFLer Scorecasting influences that afflict us. I can't neglect to add this screenshot from just before the start of today's game: Fine respectable former QBs Phil Simms and Boomer Esiason basically being showcased in an advertisement for one of those gambling sites, FanDuel, exactly the same kind of operation about which Len Dawson was excoriated for even having-been thought (incorrectly) to be associated with the week before Super Bowl IV.

Purely Chiefs-on-the-field: I just have my serious questions about this team's chances in the postseason because of all that stuff. I will say I'm really really really glad the players and coaches don't believe any of that stuff and just play their rear-ends off every game. That's a good thing. If they aren't and they're fooling us all, then shame on them. But as far as I can tell -- I've shared this a number of times before: in a kind of perverse sense Brett et al have to know what they're up against and understand they must work that much harder to take care of business.

Add to this the reality that at any time we could be most seriously afflicted by any one of the Four Horsemen of the Football Apocalypse: penalties, bad calls, turnovers, and injuries. Already we're all wondering what is happening with Joe Thuney.

But again, ultimately, the game is just entertainment. I've got to keep that in mind, that's just reality. Nobody watches anything NFL if the Chiefs blow out each opponent by average scores of 59-2 on the way to 38 straight Super Bowl titles.

Now we just wait for tomorrow night's Bills-Bengals game to get an idea if we've got a good shot at the No. 1 seed. To be honest, all this stuff is tremendous fun, regularly seeing the Chiefs somewhere way at the top of the overall AFC standings in everything they show on television and on the web around the end of the pro football regular season. 

Just gotta enjoy that fun.

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The image of Chris Jones is from Andrew Mather at the official Chiefs site, thank you.

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