"Chiefs Derangement Syndrome" - Preview of Bills at Chiefs AFC Championship Game

I felt I should put in a brief post for tomorrow's AFC Title Game against the Bills. It'll be brief, which is kind of funny because all those days in the past when we were even in the playoffs I tended to blog like a madman. When we won that divisional game in January 2016 against the Texans I wrote gobs since we hadn't won in 22 years previous.

Now we can't lose.

It isn't necessarily that we won't lose tomorrow, the Bills are a viciously good team. But we have won eight straight postseason games which is among the longest postseason win streaks ever. They just pointed out this morning that the spread for tomorrow's game went from Chiefs up 1.5 to Chiefs up 2.5. A few people out there think the Chiefs are just better.

I like our chances, but again, with teams pretty evenly matched and the Bills looking for blood, anything can happen. We'll see.

But with the Chiefs winning quite a lot, many out there like to blap about how much the NFL and the officiating is favoring the Chiefs. "Chiefs Derangement Syndrome" - what a crack-up. 

Along with all the delusional hysteria associated with that are also the many contrary takes and accompanying videos of the Chiefs getting absolutely jobbed on so many calls it isn't even funny. I just saw one featuring four different plainly ridiculous calls or non-calls that went against us in the Baltimore playoff game last year that, when you look at it, really, we should have won that game going away.

Regarding the Texans game last week, I originally thought that yes, Justin Reid was offsides on a Texans kick attempt. Nope. Video replays showed he got off the line right at the exact moment the ball was snapped. Thing is Reid is a really smart player and, yes, he used to play for the Texans. There were others, like the holding call against Trey Smith that wasn't anywhere close to one. He's just so good at pounding his defender that the refs feel like the must rein him in.

Pretty decent social media pundit Trey Wingo pointed out that the reffing can be not-so-good in every game, it is just the Chiefs get so much attention and they are so successful that people notice it more in their games, and rage against it more any time the Chiefs benefit. I saw a take that showed how bad it was in the Buffalo-Baltimore playoff game on Sunday.

To wit:

A Buffalo tackle was called for a hold that totally wasn't, much like the Trey Smith should-have-been-no-call. A Buffalo defensive back totally PI'd the Baltimore receiver, but they called it against the Ravens guy because in that split second time frame it may have looked like a Baltimore penalty to the official. Again, yet another reason they - have - got - to - have - officials - in - the - booth - with - monitors - to - make - original - calls - to - correct - on-field - officials - who - just - can't - see - it - like - all - of - us - watching - on - television - can.

This just isn't that hard, really. Please.

One more from that game. A Buffalo guy rode Ravens QB Lamar Jackson out-of-bounds way past the white area, and dropping him with a hip tackle to boot. No call. 

Interesting that people complained in the Texans game about our QB Patrick flopping once when the defender got a bit too close to the edge of that white boundary out-of-bounds. Well maybe -- thing is, who cares? It's not a penalty. Maybe people think Mahomes is doing too much to get calls, but that's just stupid.

I will say one thing. Let's just face it.

The Chiefs are a really good team. They just are. We in the Kingdom know that so well and are simply reveling in this stratospherically golden age of Chiefs football. And often when you are that good, you just get the calls. It isn't that most of them are not fair. Roll the tape, 97% of them are legit. The point is, when you're as damn good as this team is, things happen to make wins.

It isn't hard to see it out there.

As far as tomorrow's game goes, I like our chances simply because we have the receivers to get the job done. Last week we hardly, if at all, threw to Hollywood or JuJu or D-Hop. But those guys are so good that they must be accounted for, which left things open for Travis Kelce who had a monster game as you remember, as well as Xavier Worthy who if you forgot had five catches himself.

We've got as good a shot as any tomorrow, again, as long as something goofy or stupid doesn't happen. Otherwise we should be good to go.

Bring it on!

___

The photo is from Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs website. Thank you.

__