High Time for a Chiefs Playoff Warm Front
When it comes to playoff football for the Kansas City Chiefs, they are the Titanic, and success is the iceberg. But at least a slight thaw has come lately in the post-season ice age for the franchise under Andy Reid, and we soon will find out if there will be actual post-season success beyond a lone win.
The history since the Chiefs won the Super Bowl fifty years ago is an all too well-known story to fans young and old. I am old enough to have seen that epic moment in Chiefs history, and in fact living fifteen hundred miles away from Kansas City won two hundred dollars in bets as a junior high student wagering on that legendary team (only one hundred was paid off…another story). For older fans, the tale of misery since then is longer and more miserable, but at least has the oasis of an AFC Championship game in 1993, which at that time purged a stretch of one playoff win in twenty years. Perhaps even worse, they had endured a fifteen-year run when they didn’t even see playoff football for their Chiefs.
For slightly younger fans who didn’t get to savor the run by Joe Montana and the boys, it was another epic run of failure to absorb, this one different and perhaps even more frustrating since there were more tries, more hopes, more dashed dreams. Well, not that many more, six fruitless playoff appearances without a win, until the 2015 walkover in Houston that ended a twenty-year playoff win drought. Worse, some of the games actually have names, like “The Lin Elliot Game”, the “No Punt Game”, and one that doesn’t have one saw a four-touchdown lead evaporate
Even very new fans have had their tastes of bad medicine, with an eighteen point lead spit up to the Titans, and furthermore, those who have just been Mahomesed into the party got a dose last year with the Dee Ford offside, the coin toss loss, and the offense never to see the field in overtime against the Patriots.
Okay, I get it, enough. In tiny steps, Andy Reid has chipped away at the iceberg. Ever so slightly. They DID get the playoff schneid off their back in 2015, last year they did get a little revenge on the Colts bogey man. They DID get the kiss last Sunday to give them the bye with the Dolphins upset of the Patriots. But a scarred cynic can rightly posit that they are merely 1-4 after receiving one. But that one came last year. Yes! However, the stark reality still is that since the 1993 run, they have never won multiple playoff games in a single season.
The time is now to change the narrative and the Chiefs are nicely positioned to do so, and it’s also not as if the window is closing since they have their generational quarterback in place. But it also is true that this season will be a disappointment without a Super Bowl appearance. Not a disaster with a road loss at Baltimore in the AFC title game, but still a disappointment. Truly a disaster without an appearance in that game, or a divisional round loss, or a home loss in the AFC title game if circumstances smile and it is at Arrowhead.
There is more than enough reason for optimism. This is a team that has absorbed some adversity and fought through it. There is no concern they have peaked too soon, something Ravens fans are likely thinking about. They lost four of six in mid-season, but have bounced back with six straight wins, looking better and better with each succeeding week, particularly on the offensive side where injuries and inconsistencies put the Chiefs in the recently odd position of winning games with their defense.
Yes, that defense. It’s not just the numbers, which have them ranked over the period of the winning streak among the best in the league, because you could poke some holes in that due to the quality of the opposition. But the eye test passes easily, with speed, swagger, and an aggressive game plan on clear display. Last year the Chiefs were only going to succeed one way and they almost made the Super Bowl merely by outscoring teams. Now they can win two ways, and heck, they even got a boost from the special teams in last weeks game, a unit that had been one of the surprises of the year, in a totally negative way.
Even on the offensive side, we have seen greater flexibility. The magnetic ring leader Mahomes himself had to go through a little bit of introspection, as either through caution with his leg injuries, or just sloppiness, had turned the pocket into a all too movable liability. He now seems his old forceful self, but has added in an element of accepting lesser plays that still move the ball down the field. During the latter part of the season, the Chiefs have put together several drives quite reminiscent of when Alex Smith was at the controls, but with the big play still right there in the holster.
They have the rest, they have the setup, they can’t play the worst first round matchup for them (Tennesee), and they seemingly have the vibe. But until they actually do it, until they are actually playing a game in February, fans have every right to be nervous. There are no givens. They aren’t the favorite, and rightly so. Beating the Ravens in Baltimore would be a difficult feat, but even getting ahead of yourselves to think about that is dangerous.
The way that this season began it appeared that once we got to this time of year, the Chiefs and their fans would be in a more difficult situation to handle. They looked like a team that would be the unquestioned favorite, with only downside if they didn’t win it. Now it’s Baltimore that has to carry that burden, that of a team that hasn’t even been there, but has almost been coronated.
It is not at all as if the Chiefs are playing with house money, but there is slightly less pressure on them. Slightly. The history that is all too familiar does create its own challenges. Also, this will be the final year that the Chiefs will operate with an inexpensive star quarterback. Aaron Rodgers has played in one, count ‘em one, Super Bowl. Each opportunity is precious.
Chiefs fans will watch this weekends wild card round with relaxed curiosity, and then start to rev up for the first of what they hope will be three steps. Three steps that haven’t been taken in twenty seven years.
It’s about time to take them.