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Ten Things About Last Night’s AFC Championship: KC 32 Bills 29

10. Life in Kansas City today was surreal for me as a lifelong Chiefs fan. Last night the boys won arguably the most important game they’ve ever played at Arrowhead; falling behind after halftime; getting the lead back in the fourth quarter only to be tied back up by the Bills. Then getting a go ahead clutch field goal with three and a half minutes left in the game; only to have to rely on the defense to snuff out Josh Allen on a white knuckle fourth down stop at midfield to seal the deal. Cardiac kids once again.

In the 2018 season Dee Ford jumps offsides to ruin a chance to make it to the Super Bowl; Brady ties it in regulation and wins in OT. The next year Mahomes engineers an impressive come from behind victory over Derrick Henry and the Tits to send KC to the Super Bowl for the first time in 50 years. I remember people -including me- crying tears of joy in the stadium, so happy that the Chiefs were finally going to get to go back after fifty -FIFTY years. Winning the Super Bowl didn’t really matter, just going back was all we wanted. Then we actually won. Amazing.

Fast forward five years later and the Mahomes-Reid machine has played in seven straight AFC Championship games, winning five of them; only losses were to Brady and the Pats the first year and to Burrow and the Bengals in Arrowhead a few years after. They’ve managed to get to the Super Bowl four times in that stretch, winning three of those. This will be trip number five to the big dance since Patrick and Andy hooked up.

9. So today people were just going about their Monday. Everybody smiling and happy that the Chiefs won; and oh, we have buy one get one Monday Big Macs because the Chiefs got sacks in the game. Hy Vee gave us 32 cents a gallon in gas points if you spent $32 today -matching the Chiefs scoring. And that was about it. Ho Hum, in two weeks we get to go to New Orleans and face Andy’s old team once again. People are excited about the chance for the three peat, but nobody is losing their mind like in years before. Just quiet confidence that they’ll beat the Eagles again like last time. Chiefs are early 1.5 point favorites in Vegas.

8. It’s just so surreal how accepting everybody is of this new “normal.” On the flip side, you can see how angst ridden Buffalo is by losing to Mahomes AGAIN. They were so sure they would expose the Chiefs as frauds. But as usual, Mahomes was simply better, and sent Josh Allen home a loser for the fourth time. Allen had a great year. In this game he threw for 237 yards and two TDs. He had no picks, although he tried to turn the ball over twice in the first quarter to Chiefs Safety Bryan Cook, who dropped both chances. The Bills also had four fumbles in the game and recovered all four. So luck was definitely on their side or the score in this game may have been more lopsided in favor of the Chiefs.

7. On the stat sheet it’s not officially a “turnover,” but the Bills went for it on fourth down six times in this game. The Chiefs stopped them twice. With about ten minutes left in the game, the Chiefs defensive front wall stopped Allen on a fourth and one Tush Push; got the ball for Mahomes around midfield and drove for a TD and a two point conversion to take a seven point lead. The Bills also went for two twice and failed both times, so there’s four lost points. Those eight points following the stop and the four points denied on two point conversions are the difference in the game. Buffalo was four for four in red zone conversions for TDs.

6. Also on the stat sheet this game was about as even as it gets in multiple categories. Mahomes threw for eight more yards and Allen threw for one more TD. Mahomes rushed for four more yards including rushing for two TDs, where Allen rushed for none. Allen threw the ball to nine different guys during the game. Mahomes threw to eight guys. Tight ends for both teams didn’t do much. No receiver for either team had over 100 yards. No rusher for either team ran for over 100 yards. Bills has seven more total yards than KC. The Bills had the ball one minute longer. Bills had three penalties, KC had four. Bills ran five more plays. Both teams punted twice; both teams kicked a single field goal.

5. Since the game ended last night and has been hashed over by now, I wanted to talk a little bit about how all this came about, and spread some love to those who made it all happen. It all starts with Clark Hunt. Clark took over the family biz in 2005. Lamar died a year later. Out of the gate, things didn’t go so well under Clark’s watch. While King Carl was still GM Clark’s record as owner was 9-24. In 2009 Clark whacks King Carl and hires both Scott Pioli and my good pal Todd Haley. Haley got the team to one playoff game -an ugly home loss to the Ravens- and then got whacked mid season in 2011. He is replaced by Romeo “Play Good Football” Crennel. In 2012 Romeo goes 2-14; Jovan Belcher kills his girlfriend then blows his head off in the Arrowhead parking lot, and Clark fires Pioli and Crennel at season end. During the Pioli era, Clark oversees a franchise record of 23-41. Days were dark. Very dark.

4. Clark is a cat of a different stripe from Lamar. After Lamar won Super Bowl IV and got the AFL/NFL merger consummated; he pretty much handed off the team to his old college roommate Jack Steadman, and went about building Worlds of Fun, Hunt Midwest Enterprises, and dabbling in the Chicago Bulls. The Chiefs went into the dumper for more than 40 years. Clark could have dedicated himself to building up the MLS; but instead he sold his interest in the MLS and concentrated on just running the Chiefs.

When the Eagles fired Andy in 2012, he had his worst season, a 4-12 season there. Clark convinced him to come to KC, and hired John Dorsey as GM -an old friend of Andy’s from their days coaching together at Green Bay. Andy and Dorsey went 11-5 that first year in KC, and Andy has had 12 winning seasons in a row in KC, including winning the AFC West nine years in a row and leading the Chiefs to the AFC Championship game seven years in a row.

In 2017 Clark cut Dorsey loose for having destroyed KC’s salary cap. Dorsey was responsible for drafting Kelce, and as one of his last acts OKed moving up in the 2017 draft to pick Patrick Mahomes as the tenth pick in the first round. Dorsey would end up being GM in Cleveland, and now is a personnel consultant for Detroit. He was replaced by a guy who had been Andy’s personal office assistant -Bruce Vilanch (AKA Brett Veach) who was the guy that convinced Andy, Dorsey and Clark to trade up to get Mahomes. He has since proven himself to be one of the brightest young GMs in the NFL and has this team on the verge of the first Three-Peat in Super Bowl history. Other guys from the front office have also found homes with other NFL teams. Chris Ballard left in 2016 to become GM of the Colts and this year Mike Burgonzi was hired to be the new GM of the Tennessee Tits.

3. To a degree, Buffalo has been responsible for the Chiefs success since 2017. It was the Bills who traded with KC to allow them to move up and draft Mahomes in the first place. In 2022 both the Bills and Chiefs were hot on the trail of cornerback Trent McDuffie. KC swung a deal with New England to move just ahead of Buffalo and selected McDuffie with the 21st pick in the first round. Then in last years draft, the Bills did some swapping with KC again, allowing the Chiefs to move up to pick 27th in the first round and grab wide receiver Xavier Worthy, who was the fastest guy at the 2024 combine. Worthy torched Buffalo for 85 yards and a TD in the Championship Game.

2. I also wanted to throw out some player love and congrats for a few specific guys. Joe Thuney, thank you. This stretch of playoff games may have been enough to punch your ticket to Canton as one of the most versatile offensive linemen ever. Thuney has played at an all pro level at center with New England and at guard and blind side tackle with KC. Well done.

I’m also especially happy for some other offensive skill players: DHop, Hollywood Brown and especially Kareem Hunt. DHop and Brown are long time NFL pros, and this will be their first trip to the Super Bowl. They have to be tremendously excited.

Kareem Hunt is a story of forgiveness and redemption. He was banished from the Chiefs for his horrendous behavior after his rookie season. Not only did he assault women, but when confronted about it, lied about it to Clark’s face. Because of this, he was kicked off the team and missed all three of the Chiefs Super Bowl victories. He could have been just like Mahomes and Kelce and have three rings, but he ended up being relegated to Nick Chubb’s backup in Cleveland. Then the Browns kicked him to the curb. When Pacheco got hurt, Bruce Vilanch took a flyer on him for -at the time- was though to be a stopgap emergency measure. For Hunt it was a rare opportunity to redeem himself with the Chiefs. By all accounts since his return he’s been all business, a great team mate, and good person, humble, hard working and grateful beyond words for his second chance. And he’s played great. Well done.

1. So now we’ll have the two week media feeding frenzy; the idiotic non-football press questions like “So, Travis, when you kiss Tay Tay do you use your tongue?” And I’m sure the east coast media wanks and pundits will crap on the Chiefs once again as boring, low scoring, just plain lucky, darlings of the refs or all of the above. I will use the time to do a deeper dive on this year’s Philly team. My initial though is Philly is a lot like Baltimore with a big, mobile -although slowed by a bad knee- trigger man; a monster running back who is fast, strong and dangerous as Hell, and a hard hitting, top drawer defense with no perceived weaknesses. Pretty much the same drill as when we played them last time, except this time they have Barkley in the mix.

The last time KC was in a New Orleans Super Bowl, it was 1969 and it turned out to be a pretty sweet business trip. Let’s hope the Big Easy is as easy peazy as that trip 55 years ago.
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