Amazing that we are dispatched so early in the season. It is so unusual! The time of this playoff contention elimination is so pronounced -- in the fourth-to-last-game. That is really early for this team. You do recognize that the earliest the Chiefs have had their season end every single season over the past seven years is in overtime in the AFC Championship Game.
The earliest.
Every year for the last seven.
Some teams regularly have their seasons end by Week 10.
So yeah, for all those who are moaning the Chiefs dynasty is over, ::pshaw:: Patrick will be back for more when he returns, and if we never win another playoff game the Chiefs have already had a major dynasty. Savor it for now, for sure. Always.
Thing is when Patrick returns... will the NFLers and its pounded-into-the-pro-football-psyche Narrative let him go off. Let him go off and do what he does best, play unprecedented-quality football and win Super Bowls.
I just don't know, really.
Really...
It is very much about the integrity of the game. I've written here over and over and over again, I like my Chiefs and will always cheer them on. It is fun to watch them play hard, and most times win. I am amazed what they've done in light of what they are up against.
I say this because this year has clearly done more to get me to dial back my consideration of this thing American Professional Football.
I happened to see this piece in the news, the government issuing a new warning against the now rampant gambling craze marauding through everything. Yeah, sorry, but these gambling entities' liability goes far beyond the silly little warning notice they put at the bottom of every print or broadcast advertisement they bilge.
We don't really need a government warning to tell us how evil this whole gambling thing is. That hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars are spent on these gambling things is abominable. So very sadly this says much more about the people engaged in this stuff than the ugly NFLer wager-embracing seduction of those people.
And I'm no less guilty.
I watch it. I listen to it. I pay rapt attention to my team even enduring all the wretched alcohol & insurance commercials and racialist sloganeering and official gambling site promotions and whatever other shameful thing they promote -- much of it directed at young people who are lost and lonely and despairing because they are not finding meaning in life beyond the compelling but ultimately benighted stories the now-AI-smothered Hollywood (of which the NFL is a vibrant part) splashes in front of their faces.
Really...
As for this week's game, crazy: it has been eleven years since I've blogged about a meaningless regular season game that doesn't involve anticipation of postseason action. It was way back in 2014. And that year we missed the playoffs on the second-to-last game of the season. That year we started 7-3, then the wheels fell off. Funny we would have still made the playoffs had the officials not made a terrifically boneheaded call favoring the Cardinals costing us that game late in the season. That year also featured that wonderful Monday night game early in the season when we pasted the Tom Brady-led Patriots.
And that year we still had a winning season, finishing 9-7. So yeah, in the Andy Reid era we had a winning season every single year, that has indeed been a splendid part of the Dynasty.
Thing is, speaking of the Titans, the team we played today, that 2014 season also featured an opening day trouncing at the hands of the Titans. I mean we got beat, bad, 26-10. You could even say we lost our shot at the playoffs that year because of that loss, because one more win for a 10-6 record would have qualified us. But it didn't seem to be an issue then because it was the very first game of the season. We didn't think anything of it, it was just one loss.
The reason I mention how brutal this loss was and reasonably the one loss that cost us was the Titans that year won only one more game, and that game they barely won by two points. Meaning they beat us in that opener by 16 points, and lost to everyone else except one other team they squeaked past to win.
It is just right now a really really really good feeling that for so long, all these years of "The Mahomes Era," we have never really had to agonize over those typically stultifyingly stupid things that had always afflicted the Chiefs.
So very sweet it has been. Ahhh...
Oh, yeah, this game. Um, yeah. Why I shared that part about the Titans game from 2014? Well, this Titans team came into this Chiefs game with a 2-13 record.
And, well...
Our second-string QB went down with a knee injury early, so we had to go with our third string guy, who himself had to work behind a patchwork offensive line. Our defense started the game playing well, but the demoralization just had to have set in. We were also without key defensive guys like Leo Chenel and Trent McDuffie.
With nothing to play for it was just a practice game, really -- see what the guys we put out there can do.
The bad? Our streak of winning seasons under Andy Reid is over.
The good? We angle for a higher draft pick next April.
Hey -- dynasty establishment, Patrick coming back stronger than ever next year, high draft pick...
Some nice hopeful things.
___
No comments:
Post a Comment