Made to Rule Part 3: Kansas City Chiefs(2018-21)

An orchestra is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “a large group of musicians who play many different instruments together and are led by a conductor”. The orchestra is divided into 5 different sections: woodwinds, brass, percussion, strings, and keyboards. The musicians are all talented in their craft, often among the very best in their profession. Yet with all the talent and dedication in the world, an orchestra wouldn’t be able to truly function as an orchestra without a conductor. The conductor gives the musicians structure and direction, functioning as an anchor for the whole orchestra.

The same can be said for an American football team. Like an orchestra with its various sections, a football team has different positional units that demand a high level of specialization from its players. The skillset of the wide receivers will be very different from those of the offensive linemen, even though they are always on the field together. The same can be said for defensive tackles and ends compared to safeties and cornerbacks. Heck, you even have the kicker and punter doing their own thing, separate from the rest of the squad.

A team can have all its separate units staffed with elite talent and operating at a high level, but that does not guarantee success. Countless NFL teams have been stacked and crowned as offseason champions, only to flop in the regular season. Others have performed consistently season after season, only to buckle in the playoffs.

Every year the harsh January winter claims new victims.

The Chiefs fit this description perfectly. They had suffered painful defeats in the playoffs four separate times in the Andy Reid era, but if you expand it further it had been going on longer than that. A lot longer. Almost 50 years of failure in the playoffs.

And so many times the smoking gun for the playoff failure had been the quarterback position.

Those 90s Chiefs teams headlined by Hall of Fame legends such as Derrick Thomas and Marcus Allen and coached by Marty Schottenheimer were among the most successful teams of that decade. They won during the regular season, but like clockwork January always brought misery.

The early 2000s teams featuring Tony Gonzalez and Priest Holmes also promised great things, but things always seemed to unravel during the playoffs.

The Chiefs have always had talented ensembles, but had long lacked a true franchise conductor, one that would direct them to the ultimate goal of the Super Bowl.

A North Texas Gunslinger

For all the young star quarterbacks that are anointed as the future of the NFL and the next big thing, it’s interesting how the unquestioned face of today’s NFL was relatively unheralded, flying under the radar in the backwaters of north Texas. Patrick Mahomes was only a 3 star recruit, ranked 12th in his recruiting class. He did not receive offers from any of the blueblood college football programs and ended up at Texas Tech, a school overshadowed by at least 3 other bigger schools in its own state.

Mahomes was arguably more recognized for his abilities in an entirely different sport. Following in his father Pat Mahomes’ footsteps, Patrick Mahomes had enjoyed a successful high school baseball career and was taken in the 2014 MLB draft. Just like fellow multi-sport stars like Russell Wilson and Kyler Murray, Mahomes chose to focus on football and forebear playing professional baseball.

Though he may have stopped playing baseball, Mahomes did not completely abandon his baseball skillset. His abilities as a shortstop have given him an uncanny ability at improvisation and throwing long balls under pressure. “I think a lot of my improvisation is from baseball and how I could sling the ball across the diamond,” Mahomes said in 2018. His experience in baseball, as well as basketball, gave him a truly unique set of skills that would suit him for the passing and scrambling game of the modern NFL.

Mahomes lit up the Big 12 as Texas Tech’s quarterback, but was routinely let down by his defense. You can argue that despite never winning any championships or competing for the Heisman in college, Mahomes got to enjoy the best of both worlds if you think about his long-term career. He got to play an open pro-style offense under Kliff Kingsbury and develop his game while avoiding the scrutiny that quarterbacks at big college programs usually receive.

By never becoming a star while in college Mahomes avoided the intense pressure and expectations that followed stars like Tim Tebow, Andrew Luck, Baker Mayfield, Deshaun Watson, Trevor Lawrence, and Mac Jones. All of these quarterbacks enjoyed immense fame and won championships while in college, and received great fanfare while entering the NFL, but I truly believe that all this would end up hurting each of these guys as far as their development as a pro quarterback was concerned.

By the end of his Junior season, Mahomes had accumulated the best numbers for a college quarterback in the nation, capping off his college career by throwing for 586 passing yards and 6 touchdowns in his final game.

His tenure as Texas Tech’s greatest ever player had reached its end, and now the NFL beckoned.

Patrick and Deshaun(and Mitch)

In the history of the NFL, there are certain drafts that stand out for the sheer amount of talent that gets taken. This is even more so when looking at the quarterback position. The names taken become almost the stuff of legend. Elway, Marino and Kelly in 83. Rivers, Eli Manning and Roethlisberger in 04. Even in 2012, you had Luck, Russ Wilson, RG3, Cousins, Tannehill, and Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles.

The 2017 quarterback draft class featured Mahomes and two other college quarterbacks, Mitchell Trubisky and Deshaun Watson. These 3 had established themselves as prime candidates to be taken in the 1st round and become franchise quarterbacks.

In the end it was not the gunslinger from Texas or the national champion from Clemson who was taken at #2 by the Bears. Mitchell Trubisky ended up donning the Chicago Bears hat, a decision that has lived on in infamy as an all-time bloop. It’s 2025 and the Bears are yet to recover.

This left the Chiefs to choose between Mahomes and Deshaun Watson. Both Quarterbacks were immensely talented, and the Chiefs faced a monumental decision. The organization’s chain of command between Andy Reid, general manager John Dorsey, and personnel director Brett Veach set about making the decision that would start a new era for the NFL.

The story of how Mahomes ended up in KC can only start with Veach and his admiration for Patrick’s game. Patrick Mahomes was famously not on Andy Reid’s original top 50 draft board,

In the annual tug-of-war that goes on in an NFL organization prior to the draft, Veach became Patrick’s biggest cheerleader, persistently advocating for him and showing his highlights to Reid and Dorsey. His vision steadily gained traction in the organization as draft day neared.

For many coaches in the NFL at that time, Mahomes’ unorthodox style of play would have been cause to steer clear, but Reid had already enjoyed success with quarterbacks such as Donovan McNabb. When Mahomes visited the Chiefs for his pre-draft visit, the leadership was left in awe at the young quarterback’s precociousness.

Described by Veach as a “gauntlet,” that lasted “two-three hours,” the session was a true baptism of fire for Mahomes. Reflecting on how the visit went, Mahomes was emphatic on how well he felt the experience went. “I feel like it went really well, and we got along great. It felt like a great relationship already.”

By draft day Veach and Reid were all-in on Mahomes, but in order for the Chiefs to be able to take him they had to move up in the draft from the 27th pick. It was here that general manager John Dorsey came through. Aware of the interest several teams such as the Saints(picking #11) and Cardinals(picking #13) had in picking Mahomes, Dorsey engineered a trade with the Buffalo Bills for the 10th pick. In exchange for moving up 17 spots, Dorsey gave them the 27th pick as well as their 3rd round pick from that year, and their 1st round pick for 2018’s draft. The trade got them to #10, ahead of the Saints and Cardinals, and in position to draft Mahomes.

The image of a smiling Mahomes putting on the red Kansas City Chiefs hat as the draft pick was announced would go on to define the draft, and serve as the unofficial genesis of the Chiefs-Bills rivalry.

Trust the Process

It would have been so tempting to put Mahomes on the field right away as a rookie. As Kansas City’s highest ever drafted quarterback, there was so much buzz and hype for Mahomes. Yet Reid did not want to throw the rookie out into the meat grinder. As fun and exciting as he was, Mahomes had a lot of development ahead of him, and he had the perfect teacher to learn from in Alex Smith. Hence the mantra became something akin to trust the process for the Chiefs, letting Smith be the starter while Mahomes learned from the sidelines and assimilated the daily grind of being an NFL quarterback.

It was the best thing that could have happened for Mahomes and the Chiefs. So many rookie quarterbacks get thrown to the wolves, chewed up and spat out, their confidence shattered into a million tiny pieces. Some even start seeing ghosts.

The Chiefs avoided any chance of this happening by protecting Mahomes and integrating him into a stable support system that prioritized his development above all else. The winning culture that Alex Smith had helped create took the immediate pressure off Mahomes. The team was already good. The Chiefs didn’t need a savior to drag the franchise from the doldrums of NFL mediocrity, they needed a conductor to take this talented squad to the next level.

When asking yourself why the Chiefs have been so successful these years, and why other teams have not, this tells it all. The Chiefs had organizational discipline and refused to deviate from their plan, even as their season unraveled in the playoffs due to poor quarterback play. Contrast this with how the Panthers have handled Bryce Young, or how the Jets handled Zach Wilson and Sam Darnold. It pays to be a focused and disciplined NFL franchise with a clear vision.

Magic Man Arrives

When the locomotive was invented by Richard Trevitchik in 1804, nothing was ever the same. When Ford started mass producing cars, America was changed forever. Television, telephones, the internet, and Twitter. All marked a before and after, a seismic altering of the landscape in every regard.

Patrick Mahomes was the locomotive, the Ford car, the television, the telephone, the internet, and Twitter for the NFL world. When he played his first game as the full-time starter for the Kansas City Chiefs in Carson during Week 1 of the 2018 season, the NFL thought it understood itself pretty well.

By the time Mahomes completed arguably the greatest year 1 performance in the history of the sport, the NFL was on the verge of a major landscape shift.

Mahomes stepped out onto the field and instantly delivered on the hype that he had generated during cameo appearances in preseason games as well as the dead rubber game he played against the Broncos the previous year. Back then it was just a fun experiment, but now it was for real. Mahomes led the Chiefs to a 12-4 season which was marked by a scintillating offense and a succession of thrilling games that established the Chiefs as a national TV draw.

Mahomes threw for 5097 yards and 50 touchdowns in one of the most dominant seasons ever seen in the NFL. As impressive as he was in leading the Chiefs to the 1 seed, he was arguably even more impressive in two of the losses. In Week 6 Mahomes went to Foxborough as a still unproven young gun and threw for 3 touchdowns in a 43-40 loss to the Tom Brady Patriots. Then, in a Week 11 showdown with the LA Rams, Mahomes threw for 6 touchdowns and 478 yards in a 54-51 loss.

Both losses took place on the road in hostile environments against stacked teams, yet Mahomes and the Chiefs proved that they belonged among the league’s best. Even as the Chiefs lost star running back Kareem Hunt due to personal conduct, the team remained grounded and kept moving forward under the leadership of Andy Reid and his quarterback.

Darkest just Before the Dawn

Reflecting on my memories as a sports fan, there have been way too many tough losses that have hurt and still hurt to this day. Considering how things have turned out in the years since, I have found that the pain from those Chiefs losses in the past has numbed a considerable amount. One loss in particular has taken on an almost mythical place in the lore of how the Chiefs dynasty came to be, a rite of passage for Mahomes and the inexperienced Chiefs in their quest for immortality.

They say that setbacks become motivation, fuel to power one’s march to greatness. In this sense, you can say that the Chiefs-Patriots AFC Championship made the dynasty we all know today.

That game served as the ultimate learning experience for Mahomes, Reid, and the entire Chiefs organization in general. They got to see up close in person what made the reigning dynasty of the time so terrifying. The character and mentality of every single player on the team was tested. Even the Chiefs Kingdom fanbase was pushed to the limit, coming to the very edge of tasting the sort of victory that had eluded it for 49 years, only for it to be taken away in such a cruel and back-breaking manner. The Chiefs lost in a manner that can only be described as testing. The Kansas City Chiefs would never be the same after that cold Arctic night.

Sure they had endured losses before. In the Reid era alone they had blown a 4 score lead and lost a game where the opponent failed to score a single touchdown, but this was different. To have the Lamar Hunt trophy snatched away in such a terrible manner, and seeing the hated Patriots celebrate on your field what was supposed to be your trip to the Super Bowl was something altogether different.

Every team inevitably gets punched in the gut at some point. Many teams are badly wounded and never recover, but the ones that do find great power in recalling those painful memories from its past. Michael Jordan’s Bulls, the 04 Red Sox, and Messi’s Argentina all used its crushing defeats not as an anchor, but as an inspiration to lift them to the ultimate and most satisfying of redemptions.

In the case of these teams and so many others, it can be argued that the losses are what ultimately paved the way for those great teams to ascend to legendary and rarefied air. They always tell you as a kid to “eat your vegetables” before you get to the good stuff. Well, in the Chiefs’ case, losing an overtime thriller to the Patriots at Arrowhead after Dee Ford’s offside nullified your title-clinching interception, and having your defensive coordinator blow the game in overtime was very much their “eat your vegetables” moment.

The Day After

The 2019 season provided the Chiefs with an opportunity to build on their successful 2018 season, and correct the mistakes that ultimately doomed them. Chief among these was the defense, which had let the Chiefs down in the regular season against the Patriots and Rams, and most painfully in the AFC Championship.

The Chiefs let longtime defensive coordinator Bob Sutton go. Sutton had been Reid’s defensive coordinator for his first 6 seasons in Kansas City, and now the long-awaited move for Chiefs fans had finally arrived. Sutton had been in the crosshairs of the kingdom for a while, but the AFC Championship debacle was the final straw.

Sutton’s defense had failed to stop the run, and most importantly had repeatedly been unable to stop Tom Brady on critical 3rd and long downs. Out of all the blunders, perhaps the most glaring was assigning Eric Berry the task of covering Gronkowski. Things got so bad that even CBS commentator Tony Romo repeatedly predicted the plays that the Patriots were running. If Romo and so much of the nation could see what was happening, why not Sutton?

It only took 2 days for Sutton to be let go. In a statement, Andy Reid said that “change can be a good thing, for both parties, and I believe that this is the case here for the Chiefs and Bob.”

The Chiefs named Steve Spagnuolo as the new defensive coordinator. Spagnuolo had previous experience working with Andy Reid in Philadelphia, and he had famously been the defensive coordinator with the New York Giants when they beat the undefeated Patriots. Needless to say, us Chiefs fans were excited for the new hire.

The other major move the Chiefs made that offseason involved Dee Ford, who had been responsible for the offsides call that nullified the game-sealing interception to send the Chiefs to the Super Bowl. The fanbase was frustrated with Ford, and it seemed that his time in Kansas City was all but over. He ended up being traded to the 49ers, and just like that the two scapegoats for that painful AFC Championship loss were gone.

The Chiefs defense underwent a major revamping process, moving on from longtime legends Eric Berry and Justin Houston. In came Tyrann Mathieu and Frank Clark, who with their strong personalities and vocal leadership promised to give the Chiefs defense the type of swagger that lifts a great team to that next and final level.

While the 2019 offseason might now be overshadowed by the more dramatic and narrative-rich 2022 offseason, I believe that through the moves taken the Chiefs paved the road for the championships to come. The worst thing that can happen to a great team is getting used to losing, and by adding Spagnuolo, Mathieu, and Clark, the Chiefs integrated the exact type of personnel needed to give their roster that final push towards the promised land.

2019: A Rollercoaster Ride

The 2019 season ended up being as wild and unpredictable a season as one could imagine. The Chiefs started 4-0, before dropping 3 out of the next 4 to the Colts, Texans and Packers. By far the most alarming development came in a game at Denver, when Mahomes injured his knee cap on a quarterback sneak. The injury seemed really severe, but in a stroke of luck for the Chiefs, Mahomes only ended up missing a handful of games. The injury’s biggest long-term consequence would end up being the reason for the QB sneak disappearing from Andy Reid’s playbook for good.

Mahomes ended up returning and leading the Chiefs to win their last 6 games of the regular season. The Ravens had run away with the 1 seed, but the Patriots were still catchable for the 2 seed and vital 1st round bye. The Chiefs had done their part in the pursuit by beating the Patriots in the regular season rematch at Foxborough for Patrick’s first win against Brady. The game was as tense and nauseating as a regular season matchup could get; so nauseating in fact that I could not bear to watch much of the game.

Only when Bashaud Breeland knocked down the would-be game-tying touchdown was I able to breathe.

I believe that Breeland’s play began a chain reaction that would end up burying New England’s dynasty. The win gave the Chiefs the head to head tiebreaker, and when the Patriots fell at the hands of Fitzmagic on the last day of the regular season, the Chiefs seized on the opportunity to take that much-needed bye.

After the Chiefs and Ryan Fitzpatrick’s Dolphins, it was time for the Tennessee Titans and Derrick Henry to deliver the final blow. The Titans went to Foxborough and out-Patrioted the Patriots at their own game, with Henry running all over the Patriots defense and former Patriot and Tennessee coach Mike Vrable turning the tables on Belichick.

What had long been a plus for the Patriots in their dynasty run ended up coming back to hurt them in their endgame. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t get any more fitting than that.

Comeback Kings

The Chiefs faced the Texans in the divisional round, and promptly fell behind 24-0. It was as bad a start as one could imagine, and just like that Arrowhead was back to the old days where playoff failure was all but guaranteed. Much of the fanbase was already resigned to the old familiar feeling of January disappointment, but unlike previous Chiefs teams this Chiefs team was not willing to follow the script. Mahomes, Jones, Kelce, Clark, and Matthieu never stopped talking on the sidelines.

“Let’s do something special,” Mahomes kept saying to the guys on the sideline. This type of leadership has become immortalized through the NFL’s mic’d up episodes.

Before you blinked the Chiefs had scored 28 unanswered points before the end of the half to cap off the most stunning NFL comeback you will ever see. In this comeback so many plays were made. Plays that define championships, like Mecole Hardman’s punt return, Daniel Dirty Dan Sorensen’s tackle on Houston’s 4th down fake punt, the same Dirty Dan delivering a hit to force a turnover on the ensuing kickoff, and Mahomes throwing 4 touchdowns in one quarter. Kelce caught 3 of them, including the last one where Mahomes dragged his toe to somehow stay behind the line of scrimmage.

Back in the AFC Championship for a 2nd straight year, the Chiefs received a 2nd gift from the Titans as they upset the Baltimore Ravens to give the Chiefs home field advantage in the AFC Championship. The Arrowhead Invitational was already starting to become a thing.

The Chiefs were expected to have a rough time at the hands of King Henry, who had terrorized the Patriots and Ravens on his path to the AFC Championship. It would be up to Spagnuolo and his defense to stop the unstoppable force that no other defense had been able to stop.

The outcome was a stunning success for the Chiefs defense, as they successfully shut down Henry. Tennessee’s running back had run for 180+ yards in the previous 2 playoff games, but against the Chiefs he was held to just 69 rushing yards. “They just had a great game plan, man,” Henry said after the game. Spagnuolo’s fingerprints were all over this game. His defenses would make a habit of shutting down star running backs in the coming years.

But what about the offense? Tyreek Hill came to play and caught two touchdowns, shredding the Titans’ secondary. But the Titans still led 17-14 with halftime around the corner.

With 23 seconds left in the half, and the Chiefs driving at the Titans 27 yard line, Chiefs fans were hoping to be able to at least kick a field goal and go into the half tied. It was at this moment that Mahomes, a player known primarily for throwing the ball, delivered the most amazing play of his career. Not with his arm, but with his legs.

Mahomes took the ball, and on an improvised quarterback run he scrambled towards the sideline before getting past 5 Titans players and scoring like only a prime-Michael Vick would. Ignore that ball almost shaking loose as he crossed the goal line, this was Patrick’s moment to show that he could run the ball too and score.

After a play like that, the rest of the game seemed like a foregone conclusion. Mahomes threw one more touchdown to Sammy Watkins to clinch the game and end 50 years of waiting. The Chiefs celebrated in front of their fans amid the cascade of red and gold confetti falling on their heads. The Lamar Hunt trophy had finally come home.

The Montana and Alex Smith Bowl(featuring Dee Ford)

The Chiefs headed to Super Bowl LIV, where the San Francisco 49ers awaited. Both the 49ers and Chiefs were linked by the fact that Joe Montana had been the starting quarterback for both teams. Montana was not the only quarterback to have shared Chiefs/49ers heritage. Alex Smith had also played for both teams.

The matchup was a tough one for the Chiefs, who were perceived to be at a significant roster disadvantage compared to the 49ers. The 49ers were coached by Kyle Shanahan, who had built a balanced offensive scheme through quarterback Jimmy Garappolo, Tight end George Kittle, and offensive weapons like Deebo Samuel, Raheem Mostert, and Emmanuel Sanders. The 49ers also had a strong defense led by Richard Sherman, Nick Bosa, and Fred Warner.

Dee Ford was also a 49er.

The Chiefs struggled for much of the game, with Mahomes having a particularly rough time. He ran for a touchdown early, but would go on to struggle for the next 2 quarters. After two interceptions the Chiefs were down 20-10 in the 4th quarter,

The Chiefs needed some Mahomes magic.

Mahomes threw to Tyreek Hill on a 3rd and long in the famous Jet Wasp that Mahomes personally asked for in the preceding timeout, then connected with Travis Kelce to cut the lead to 3. Spagnuolo’s defense then managed to force a 3 and out, setting the scene for the Chiefs offense to take the lead late in the 4th. Mahomes hit Sammy Watkins to move into the red zone, then on 3rd down threw the ball to Damien Williams who just managed to reach across the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown.

The game was far from wrapped up, however, and it would have been the most Chiefs thing ever for the defense to give the lead back. Just like last year against the Patriots. But this time Spagnuolo was at the controls, and Frank Clark and Tyrann honey badger Mathieu were not going to allow this opportunity slip away.

Chris Jones came up with multiple batted balls at the line of scrimmage, Garappolo missed Emmanuel Sanders on a deep ball on 3rd down, and on the subsequent 4th down Frank Clark sacked Garoppolo to force the 49ers off the field. Damien Williams ran for a touchdown and Kendall Fuller picked off Garoppolo to ice the game.

The Chiefs had just finished playing a very mid Super Bowl. And now they were champions. Kansas City’s 50 year drought was over, and the Chiefs dynasty was officially in business.

Getting the Monkey off our Back

As mentioned in a previous section, the worst thing that can happen to a great and talented team is getting used to losing. This is what I was most afraid of happening to this Chiefs team in the aftermath of the loss to the Patriots. Thankfully the Chiefs avoided the fate that befell several talented Chiefs teams of the past. Whereas so many of them kept falling short every postseason, this talented core managed to get over the hump in Patrick’s second postseason.

The importance of getting that proverbial monkey off your back in such quick fashion cannot be stressed. Soon after Joe Burrow and the Bengals lost their Super Bowl I saw a stat that showed the history of quarterbacks who lost their Super Bowl debut. It ain’t pretty.

So many star quarterbacks, from Donovan McNabb to Matt Hasselbeck to Matt Ryan, lost and never returned. Call it the Dan Marino curse. This is what Mahomes and the Chiefs would have had to reckon with had they not managed to come back from that 20-10 deficit. The Marino comparisons would have been endless.

At a personal level, I had experienced a similar feeling through my Thunder fandom in the NBA. Back in 2012, the Thunder had the most talented young core in the league and had just lost in the Finals. They were widely expected to be back, maybe even be a dynasty. Then James Harden got traded and they never made it back.

Winning on your championship game day view can truly shape the future of your organization. Had the Chiefs lost, they would have been vulnerable to the notorious Super Bowl hangover, which did end up impacting the 49ers as they would go on to miss the playoffs entirely the following year. Instead, the Chiefs entered the offseason with the confidence that only reigning champions can have. When the COVID pandemic hit, so many NFL teams’ plans were thrown into disarray, yet the Chiefs leaned on their culture and chose to run it back. Betting on the same group of guys that delivered the first championship in 50 years to do it all over again.

The plan counted on the generational brilliance and leadership of Kansas City’s big 6 (Mahomes, Kelce, Tyreek, Chris Jones, Frank Clark, and Mathieu) to steer the Chiefs through the additional stress that the COVID lockdown had piled on to the already existing pressure a defending champion has to repeat.

Mahomes and Jones had just signed contract extensions in the offseason, and the Chiefs had managed to retain offensive coordinator Eric Bienemy on the coaching staff. Keeping the coaching staff of an NFL champion intact is a rare and difficult thing to pull off. With both the players and coaching staff staying together, the Chiefs could enjoy a massive head start compared to other NFL teams who were coping with the impact of the pandemic.

The Chiefs’ continuity and team chemistry helped them coast to a 14-1 record, and they secured the 1st seed by the final week which allowed them to rest their starters. In spite of winning so many games, the Chiefs would begin acquiring a reputation for somehow not performing in as dominant a fashion as the public would desire. They repeatedly failed to cover the spread, and criticism started to grow about how the Chiefs were barely getting by on “lucky” wins.

Sound familiar?

While it wasn’t always smooth sailing, the Chiefs managed to get to the playoffs as the 1 seed and survived a scare against the Browns in the divisional round when Mahomes exited the game with a suspected concussion. With Mahomes out for most of the 2nd half, Chad Henne stepped up and made the necessary plays to keep the Chiefs ahead of the Browns.

As great as Patrick is, it’s still a team sport, and Henne embodied the next man up mentality that defines so many successful teams. For a team like the Chiefs, Henne-thing is possible.

Back in the AFC Championship at Arrowhead for a 3rd straight year, the Chiefs faced Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills. The Bills had enjoyed their most successful season in a long time, and Allen had established himself as one of the best players in the league. The matchup was a revival of the old rivalry between the two teams that had been dormant since the 90s.

The Chiefs and Bills had played each other in the AFC Championship game before, back in 93 when the Bills clinched their 4th straight trip to the Super Bowl. The Bills hoped to repeat history, but the Chiefs were too much for the inexperienced Bills and ended up coasting to a 38-24 win and a trip back to the Super Bowl. For the Bills, losing to the Chiefs in January was a feeling that they would gradually get used to in the coming years.

For the Chiefs, they had gotten through the year and defended their AFC title without hardly breaking a sweat. Now only one team stood in their way.

Brady’s Bucs: Super Villains and Mercenaries

For Chiefs Kingdom, seeing Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski in the Super Bowl was bad enough. After all, they had handed the Chiefs two recent playoff losses as members of the Patriots, and both represented the natural rivals for Mahomes and Kelce at their respective positions. But add to this team the presence of Antonio Brown, the arrogant diva wide receiver who had terrorized the Chiefs secondary for many years as a member of the Steelers, and it became something more sinister.

With veterans like Jason Pierre Paul, Ndakumong Suh, Leonard Fournette, and LeSean McCoy aboard, it was clear what this Tampa Bay team was. A team of Chiefs villains and mercenaries, assembled together on a whim to capitalize on a window that had been created thanks to Brady’s breakup with Bellichick. These types of get-rich-schemes, thrown together in a single offseason, had rarely delivered the instant success so often craved.

But this was Brady, and if there was anybody who could make this Frankenstein creation work, it was the champion of all champions who could command the respect of any locker room.

Tampa Bay also had two key advantages heading into the Super Bowl. The first was that they were hosting the Super Bowl, which meant that they got to stay at home and stick to their regular routine while the Chiefs had to travel. The pandemic altered this too, as instead of traveling to the Super Bowl a week earlier as usual, the Chiefs had to travel the day before. This put the Chiefs at a clear disadvantage as they had far fewer time to assimilate to the conditions in Tampa Bay before the big game.

The second came in the offensive line, or rather the lack of a functional one for the Chiefs. Without their Right tackle Mitchell Schwartz for much of the season, the Chiefs lost their Left tackle Eric Fisher in the AFC Championship. This forced them to start an offensive line made up almost entirely of backups. Facing Tampa Bay’s terrifying front 7, it was going to be a tall task for the Chiefs to protect Mahomes.

In the last days before the Super Bowl, yet another advantage was created for Tampa Bay, this time through a tragic incident. Britt Reid, a defensive coach on the Kansas City coaching staff who also happened to be Andy Reid’s son, got in a drunk driving accident where he crashed into two cars and critically injured two young children. This incident took place just 3 days before the Super Bowl was played. Though the incident received relatively little coverage before the game and has largely been forgotten in the years since, you would imagine that it would be impossible for such an incident to not have impacted the players and coaching staff.

So with all this taken into consideration, the outcome of Super Bowl LV can hardly be considered too surprising. It was a perfect storm, and though losing 31-9 and failing to score a touchdown was a bad look for the Chiefs, the most that could have been hoped for was keeping the game close and scoring some touchdowns to pad Patrick’s stats. The Chiefs had everything stacked against them entering that game. Injuries, the lack of a neutral venue, the pandemic that limited the amount of Chiefs fans that could attend the game, the Britt Reid incident…they all played a part.

As if all of this wasn’t enough, the Chiefs had to deal with yet another externality…the refs.

The Chiefs offense never got going the whole game, but the Chiefs defense actually held up quite well for most of the 1st half. That is until the referees started to get involved. To fans who follow the NFL closely today it will seem strange, the idea that the refs are somehow hurting rather than helping the Chiefs. But on that night that was very much the case. The referees called a record 8 penalties that set the Chiefs back 98 yards, but 3 stood out in particular for how damaging they were to the Chiefs defense in the flow of the game.

• With the Buccaneers up 7-3 in the 2nd quarter, the Chiefs managed to pick off Brady, but just like that AFC Championship two years prior it was deja vu all over again for the Chiefs as a holding penalty on Charvarius Ward away from the play nullified the pick.

• On the same drive the Chiefs managed to hold the Buccaneers to a field goal attempt, but an offsides call on Mecole Hardman kept Tampa Bay’s offense on the field. They would end up scoring a touchdown to make the score 14-3

• Later in the 2nd quarter, the Chiefs trailed the Buccaneers 14-6 and were trying to stop Tampa Bay from scoring and keep it a one score game. The refs called pass interference on Bashaud Breeland as he tripped and made contact with Tampa Bay’s receiver, only for the replay to show that it was the receiver that initiated the contact. Tampa Bay scored another touchdown just before the end of the half to go up 21-6.

Just like that the game was effectively over. Not so much because of the scoreboard(the Chiefs had come back from much bigger deficits before) but because of the emotional and psychological toll placed on the Chiefs by the bad calls. With the offense out of answers and Mahomes facing a historical amount of pressure for a quarterback in a Super Bowl, the last remaining hope for the Chiefs was to count on their defense to keep the game somewhat close.

Had the defense managed to keep it a one score game heading into halftime, the Chiefs could have regrouped and would have had the opportunity to get the ball back at the start of the 2nd half and start a new game. Think of last year’s Super Bowl LVIII, when the Chiefs offense did absolutely nothing yet only trailed 10-3 at halftime to the 49ers.

Instead, when Tampa Bay scored its 3rd touchdown and Tyrann Mathieu exploded in anger towards Brady, I knew it was over. The Honey Badger was very much the leader of the Chiefs defense along with Frank Clark, and when he lost his composure and gave in to all the frustration that had been accumulating throughout the game, the battle was all but lost. This is why you can only put so much of the blame on the referees for this loss, or any loss in general. The referees can make all the bad calls they want, but the way your players and especially your veteran leaders react to this type of adversity is what becomes most transcendental.

The Chiefs defense never recovered from this, and Tampa Bay ended up winning 31-9. The Chiefs had fallen at the final hurdle in their Run it Back campaign. 1 win from completing the first successful Super Bowl defense since Brady’s Patriots in 03 and 04. Brady had last stopped the Seahawks from going back-to-back and becoming a dynasty, and now he had stopped the Chiefs from doing what he accomplished nearly two decades prior.

The Chiefs’ dynasty hopes had been put on hold. It would be up to the players, coaches and organization as a whole to avoid ending up like the Seahawks. They had to get back and win it again. Until then, the dynasty of one label would follow the Chiefs.

Kansas City’s Super Bowl Hangover

In the section covering Super Bowl LIV, I discussed how losing in a Super Bowl impacts the losing team in the following year. In the case of the 49ers, it had a massive impact, as they ended up missing the playoffs entirely. In large part due to injuries, it was an utterly miserable season for the 49ers that was compounded by the harshness of the COVID pandemic and the lockdown measures in the Bay area.

In the case of the Chiefs, they entered the 2021 season in a weird sport, still considered one of the favorites but with their aura of invincibility somehow broken. In the offseason, the organization had maintained its commitment to aggressively targeting areas of weakness for improvement. In 2021’s case, this involved rebuilding an offensive line that had been a major weak spot for the Chiefs during the previous 3 seasons, ultimately culminating in the Tampa Bay Super Bowl disaster.

The changes were major. Schwartz and Fisher retired, and Austin Reiter and Stefen Wisniewski were not brought back to training camp. In their place, the Chiefs went out and signed left guard Joe Thuney from the Patriots. Thuney had already won championships in New England protecting Tom Brady, and he was the exact kind of signing the Chiefs needed to make to maximise Mahomes’ chances of further success. The Chiefs also traded for left tackle Orlando Brown Jr from the Ravens, and drafted center Creed Humphrey and right guard Trey Smith. Along with redshirt rookie right tackle Lucas Niang, the Chiefs had a brand new starting front 5.

The revamped offensive line more than delivered on its end of the deal. Whereas Mahomes had faced an astounding 28 pressures during the last Super Bowl and was afforded no time to throw the ball in the pocket, in 2021 Mahomes was having more time than ever to throw the ball. For example, during a Week 16 win over the Steelers, Mahomes was given a full 7 seconds in the pocket to work with and find his best possible option. He faced no pressure, and he ended up throwing a touchdown on that play.

Once again, Brett Veach and the Kansas City front office had delivered in the most decisive manner possible. The bad news though was that the defense started to regress back to its days as a serious liability. They played poorly against the Ravens, Chargers and Bills, repeatedly getting beat in the secondary and failing to make critical late stops in the 4th quarter.

Daniel Sorensen and Ben Neiman were among those most blamed for the struggles.

The Chiefs reached rock bottom when they were smacked around by the Titans in Week 7 by a score of 27-3. The defense stunk, and Patrick Mahomes stunk. The Chiefs were 3-4 and skeptics were starting to prepare the obituaries for this version of the Chiefs.

The Chiefs had faced a similar uphill battle back in 2019, and the season ended by lifting the Lombardi in February. Interestingly enough, the Chiefs had also suffered a bad loss in Tennessee that year. They went on to win the last 6 remaining regular season games, clinched a bye, and kept on winning all the way to the Super Bowl. Could the Chiefs do it all again?

Showing their Stripes

The Chiefs faced a Week 8 game against the putrid New York Giants and won by 3. It was a disgusting game, and one which I made the very wise decision of not watching despite it being the Monday Night Football game of that week.

The following week, the Chiefs had the Packers at Arrowhead. The Packers did not have their starter Aaron Rodgers and played their backup Jordan Love. The Chiefs were expected to win, and win they did. By a score of 13-7. Another disgusting win in the win column, the record now stood at 5-4.

The Chiefs then alternated dominant wins over the Raiders with underwhelming yet effective performances against the Cowboys and Broncos to push the win streak to 6 games, and the record to 9-4. Then came a pivotal Thursday Night Football divisional clash against the Chargers that would basically decide the division. The game was so huge that even I managed to find myself at the game, watching on from the Sofi Stadium stands. The Chiefs were on the back foot for much of the night, but as had already become a theme back then and has certainly become one now, the Chiefs just found a way to get the win.

When Travis Kelce scored the game-winning touchdown in overtime, the Chiefs had not just secured the division that night. They had truly and officially declared themselves back in business as a contender, and with no Brady in the AFC, the question was who could rise up to stop the 2x AFC champions from getting back to the Super Bowl for a 3rd straight time.

The Chiefs ended up winning almost every game on the schedule after that loss in Tennessee. 9 out of the last 10 to be exact, a run that earned them a 12-5 record and the 2 seed. It was almost an exact replica of 2019, except for the fact that this time it was not a perfect run. There was 1 loss along the way, a Week 17 loss to Joe Burrow’s Bengals by 3 points that ended up costingthe Chiefs the 1 seed and 1st round bye. The loss was stunning, but even without the bye the Chiefs still entered the playoffs as the favorite to return to the Super Bowl as the AFC’s representative.

The Bengals won their division and made it to the playoffs, yet the team was a mere afterthought as far as contenders were concerned, and their upset over the Chiefs was seen as a nice regular season upset and nothing more. In Patrick Mahomes’ first-ever Wild Card game, the Chiefs doubled the Steelers by a score of 42-21, setting up a rematch with the Bills in the divisional round. The Bengals, meanwhile, earned their first playoff win in more than 30 years and moved on to face the 1 seed Titans.

The 13-Second Miracle

If there was any doubt over what the best rivalry in the game was, and the names of the two best young quarterbacks in the NFL, the divisional round game that took place on January 23, 2022 gave all the answers one could ever want. The primetime matchup was a dream matchup for the NFL’s executives, featuring two high-powered offenses and big-time superstars playing under the lights in a high-stakes showdown.

Final Adelantada, it would be called in Spanish. A game worthy of being for the Super Bowl two rounds before the actual Super Bowl. A true epic.

The game saw so many standout performances, paramount among them being the ridiculous 201 yard 4 touchdown performance by Gabe Big Game Davis. He spent the whole night cooking the Chiefs secondary, one which had been suspect all year long. The game is most often remembered for its conclusion, or rather conclusions. In any normal NFL game from previous years any of the last 4 scores that took place in the final 2 minutes of regulation would have been the dagger, but on this night they were only chapters of a never-ending saga that kept raising the ante of the game.

The feats became increasingly harder to understand. First came a Josh Allen 27-yard touchdown pass to Gabe Davis, along with a successful 2-point conversion, to put the Bills ahead 29-26. There was 1:54 left in regulation, enough time for Patrick, Travis, and Tyreek to come back and score.

It only took them less than a minute. How did it happen? Just Tyreek Hill doing Tyreek things, catching the ball and running past all the defenders for 64 yards and the go ahead touchdown. He even flashed that peace sign of his when he still had 15 yards to go for the touchdown. Only the Cheetah could get away with such audacity.

But 1:02 left was still too much time left for Josh Allen and Gabe Davis, especially when facing a secondary they had been cooking all night long. They were down 4, and needed a touchdown for the win. So down they went, matriculating the ball down the field, leaving the Chiefs defense with no answer as to how to stop the onslaught. Finally Gabe Davis scored again, on a 19-yard pass, and the Bills went back ahead by 3. Seemingly for good.

Only 13 seconds separated the Bills from hosting the AFC Championship at Orchard Park. The Bills had the win in the bag. They just had to not fumble that bag.

Fortunately for the Chiefs, it’s the Bills, and Buffalo committed 3 massive mistakes in succession that somehow gave the Chiefs a chance.

• On the ensuing kickoff, the Bills kicked the ball into the end zone, which meant that no time came off the clock. Had the Bills taken a squib kick, some time would have come off. Instead, 13 seconds still remained for Mahomes to work with.

• The next play Mahomes threw a seam route to a wide-open Tyreek in the middle of the field. The Chiefs gained 19 yards and were on their 44 yard line, and most importantly only burnt 5 seconds. The Bills somehow forgot that the Chiefs still had all of their timeouts left, and their deep zone coverage that is designed for when the opposing offense has no remaining timeouts left ended up backfiring.

• With 8 seconds remaining the Bills were still operating like the Chiefs had no timeouts left, and abandoned much of the middle of the field. Seeing the free yards ahead and the lack of adjustments from the Bills, Kelce decided to improvise and run his own route. The result? A 25 yard completion, which put the Chiefs squarely in field goal territory with 3 seconds to spare.

Harrison Butker put away the 49-yard field goal like it was just another practice kick, and in literally 13 seconds the Chiefs had managed to snatch away Buffalo’s win. Mahomes being caught by NFL Films shouting “Do it Kelce!” has come to define the frenzied madness that encompassed the whole 13-second sequence.

Following in the wake of the 13-second drama, the overtime period was in many ways anticlimactic. The Chiefs won the coin toss, and from then on the rest was a mere formality. Travis Kelce caught the game-winning touchdown, and the Chiefs were back in the AFC Championship/Arrowhead Invitational for a 4th straight year.

Josh Allen never getting the ball back and a chance to win the game felt cruel; for me it evoked memories from that January 2019 game with the Patriots, when it was Mahomes that never got the ball back in overtime. The NFL made the long-overdue move that following offseason to change the overtime rules and guarantee each team a possession, ensuring that playoff overtime endings would be more fair and less dependent on the lucky outcome of a coin toss.

For the 2021 Bills, this provided no consolation to what was a massive blown opportunity. But for the Chiefs, this rule change ended up being one of consequence down the line, in a Super Bowl that was still years away from being played.

A Trap Game in January

The concept of a trap game is one that is hotly debated. What exactly does it mean? To what circumstances does it apply? Does it even exist, or is it just made-up hogwash by superstitious fans?

I very much believe that the trap game is real, and not only do I believe that trap games can cost teams losses (and gamblers money) during the regular season, but it can also cost a team the championship. This all depends on the way the bracket shakes up and the types of opponents a team faces and in what sequence the matchups would take place.

The best example of a trap game(or series) costing a team a championship that I can point to is the story of the 2003 Yankees. The Yankees had just come off beating their eternal rival, the Boston Red Sox, in a heated 7-game affair in the American League Championship. Having won in the most dramatic fashion possible over their hated rivals, the Yankees players and their fans were feeling themselves. Problem was that they still had to play the World Series against a talented Marlins team. The Yankees had to humble themselves, get focused, and take the Marlins seriously, or else they’d end up paying the price. Guess what ended up happening?

Other examples you can point to include the 1995 Orlando Magic, who took down Jordan’s Bulls but were then swept in the Finals by the underdog Rockets, as well as the 2019 Astros. In South America the memorable 2004 Copa Libertadores, where Boca Juniors took down the hated rival River Plate in a dramatic semifinal, just to lose to the Colombian minnows Once Caldas in the Final, also comes to mind.

3 years have passed since that 1st Chiefs-Bengals game, and this is how I can best rationalize what went down that day at Arrowhead. For a team that had looked so dominant throughout the playoffs, hanging 42 points in each of the previous two playoff games, and had scored 21 points in the first half of the AFC Championship, the question of how such a talented offense that seemed destined for more glory could lose it all in one half had no convincing answers.

When there is no right answer to a mystery, sometimes it best suits one to settle for the most common-sense explanation. In the case of the Chiefs, they fell in a trap game one week after the most emotionally draining playoff game to ever take place. And they beat themselves.

No Chiefs player was a more glaring example of this than star QB Patrick Mahomes.

Mahomes had dominated all postseason long, including in the 1st half where he threw 3 touchdowns. Success, Success, Success. It was all he had known up to that point in his NFL career. Even the losses he had taken in the playoffs could not be pinned on him in any way that would pass scrutiny. He was the golden boy who had known nothing but success in his career.

Until that 2nd half came, and Mahomes suddenly looked very mortal.

Mahomes completely collapsed, turning the ball over 2 times in the 2nd half and overtime. It really should have been 4, as Mahomes coughed up the ball 2 more times that were fortunately recovered by the offense. As someone who has cheered on Mahomes since he first became a starter, I put the responsibility of that AFC Championship loss squarely on Mahomes. Never let anyone tell you that it was Chris Jones or anyone on the defense who cost the Chiefs the game. They held the Bengals to only 1 touchdown throughout the entire 2nd half and overtime combined. They picked off Burrow in the 4th, and then forced the Bengals to kick a 52-yard field goal for the lead. They did their job.

But no matter how well or how poorly the defense played, it was never going to matter. Not when your franchise quarterback is making straight up bad decisions at the end of the half that cost you points. Not when he is committing ghastly turnovers that give the opponent a short field to play with. And certainly not when on every drive he is seemingly either taking a bad sack or coughing the ball away.

Even with all the miscues, the Chiefs still found themselves 4 yards from the end zone. All they needed was a touchdown, and they would go to their 3rd straight Super Bowl. It was all in front of Mahomes, but instead it only got worse for the Chiefs as Patrick aimlessly scrambled around and took 2 bad sacks. The play on 3rd down was especially brutal, as he lost the Chiefs almost 20 yards and even lost the ball, which was recovered by Joe Thuney.

Not only did Mahomes not score the game-winning touchdown, he forced his kicker into a much more difficult field goal. Had Thuney not recovered the fumble, Butker wouldn’t have even had the opportunity to send the game into overtime. From being only 4 yards away from the end zone on 2nd down, to going all the way back to the 26-yard line, it was a massive fail by Mahomes.

The Chiefs won the coin toss for overtime, which the Chiefs fan in attendance cheered like they had just won the game. If you believe in karma, that was definitely a telling sign.

It didn’t even make sense, because having the ball first in overtime only works when your offense is cooking and firing on all cylinders. This was the case in the previous game against the Bills. In the 2nd half of this game the offense had scored a grand total of 3 points. This was certainly NOT the case where you could feel good about having the ball first in overtime, especially considering that if you failed to score on your first possession all the other team needed to win was a mere field goal.

Overtime turned out the same way that the entire 2nd half had gone. Mahomes and the Chiefs offense did absolutely nothing with the ball, getting away with a near-interception on 2nd down and then actually throwing the ball to the other team on 3rd down. By this time the dye had been cast, and the Bengals took control of the game and kicked the game-winning field goal to put the Chiefs out of their misery.

The Fallout

Mahomes and the Chiefs had suffered what the Chiefs quarterback described as his “worst playoff football.” He conceded after the game that the Chiefs “were playing not to lose,” in the second half. His stats in the 2nd half and overtime said it all. 8 for 18, 55 passing yards, zero touchdowns and two interceptions. It was a stunning falloff for the best player in the game, and now he would have the entire offseason to think about what had gone wrong.

The theories were countless about the reasons for collapse: the primary tactical explanation consisted of the Bengals switching to a 3-man rush, dropping an extra man into pass coverage and giving Mahomes extra time. The Bengals also used a QB spy to cut off any Mahomes scrambles like the one he had against the Titans three years before.

This is the most basic gist of what the Bengals defense did, and there are countless more paragraphs that can be written about what their defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo managed to pull off that game and the many tactics he used. For the purposes of looking at this loss from Mahomes and the Chiefs’ perspective, however, I think the strategy can basically be boiled down to using Patrick’s lack of pocket discipline and impatience against him and force critical errors from the star quarterback.

Mahomes fell right into the trap. For the first four years of his career as an NFL starter he had been praised for his unconventional style of play and creativity, even if it wasn’t fundamentally sound for a quarterback. After all, Mahomes had previously talked about how during his 2018 MVP season he had struggled to read defenses.

As fun as Mahomes was during the Tampa Bay Super Bowl, I do believe that if we are being honest about how he played, we would admit that Mahomes did not play the type of game he needed to play in such a circumstance to give the Chiefs a shot. Playing that type of football contributed to the blowout, but the chickens finally came home to roost in the Bengals game.

All of Patrick’s weaknesses as a quarterback had been painfully exposed after halftime.

The two things that had doomed the Chiefs and kept them from going to a 3rd straight Super Bowl had been their arrogance and hubris in underestimating the Bengals following the win against the Bills(creating the conditions for a dangerous trap game) and the impatient and fundamentally undisciplined play from Mahomes, which had come from years of bad habits that had been papered over by Mahomes’ brilliance finally catching up to the Chiefs quarterback.

The future prospects of the Chiefs establishing themselves as a dynastic organization, and Mahomes becoming a true all-time great, hung in the balance. The 2022 offseason loomed as a moment of truth for Mahomes and the Chiefs. Would they learn from their mistakes, and use them as fuel for growth? Or would they suffer the fate so many teams before them had suffered and slip back into mediocrity?

Brett Veach, Andy Reid, and Patrick Mahomes had a lot to think about.