BY JOSE FAUS
SPORTS WRITER
The end came with a smack not a whimper, a humbling in your face fate-slap. How else to explain the many times the season was impacted by injuries sustained in the first or second play of the game. How about the brazen slap on the first, the first play of the first game of the season. Poor Worthy, like the rest of us, didn’t see the license plate on the Mack truck that hit him right off the bat. And the smacks just kept on coming. Dayum. Poetic justice this is not. This is spiteful, this is fate with an axe to grind.
This is the culmination of a slow grind, began a couple of years prior, when the insidious funk first reared its ugly head. That they managed to still win another Superbowl and fight to attempt a three-peat, speaks miles to the cohesion and determination of the team overall more so than its weaknesses. It also irks fate. Fate takes continuous winning personally. Fate has a timer. Fate has commitment issues. When it moves on, it burns bridges.
It deceived with a run of one-score wins, some decided on the final play. It took credit for the steps to the door of football immortality. You believed you had a lifeline in your pocket. Fate plays you like that, only to refuse a friend just when you could really use a hand. It’s smack. Over, just like that. “Whom the Gods would destroy they first embarrass.”
Fate is petty and likes to rub it in your face. The next time you meet again first play, a tart swipe in your face. A public humiliation. Now everyone knows it’s moved on, courting the Denver Broncos from what I see. Fortune shines long enough to become a crutch and then hops away just when you think she has you upright. But really, the Denver Broncos? Talk about a coy mistress.
There has been hand wringing about what was, what is, and what comes next. Has the play calling staled? The coaching staff suddenly forgotten how to coach. Were these the best players? Was the receiving corps promised just an illusion? Is the defense diminished? And what happened to the run game, (turns out, it’s not easy to find.) and has the brain trust lost its magic touch? Will the menu change and will parking fees go up. And where will you play the games? All questions looking for an answer.
The truth is both simple and layered. Ten years of dominance is an absurd pace to maintain in a league that does not encourage dynasties. The more winning, the more the post-season becomes a juggling exercise of low draft position, tight economics, aging talent and infrastructure, and compromises. Add to this malaise the one constant often forgotten in the delirium of winning.
We puff our chests and gloat, or in bliss rejoice in our good fortune. We don’t ponder much the mental toll it takes on players and staff to maintain a level of excellence expected year-in and year-out. It does not factor that for many franchises beating the champ is one of the high points of mediocre seasons. It ignores that teams within the division plot and draft with the intent of neutralizing the schemes and weapons that made them dominant. Not to mention they also inundate the division with championship winning coaches. The gall of these pretenders.
Consider the prolonged season that is the playoffs. The Chiefs winning has added a season and a half of games. Blend in the criticism that sneaks in when the team fails the grade. We judge the individual, the team, the front office, and rarely consider how difficult it is maintaining focus over and over. Even with the pressure of expectations, they have been as consistent as any team ever has.
So consistent in fact we are blind to the signs, certain they’ll always find a way, even against our better judgement. “Judgement? I don’t need no stinking judgment.” But we are not the only blind ones. It says a lot that well into the height of the losing streak a lot of people outside the kingdom still believed they just needed the right cleats and terrain, and things would turn around. And when the decline comes rarely is reflection and gratitude the first act. Expectations stay the same. The bottom line always dependent on what have you done lately.
In the twilight of this journey, some old friends may come back to visit. Welcome to the lean years, the hopeful years, the forgotten years, the tragic years, the believe-long-enough-to-keep-the-candle-of-hope-lit years, or not. This may be a bump in the road, a reset.
Whatever it is, I will be grateful for a gift I never expected - a dynasty. We feasted like kings and were better because our Chiefs was the envy of other teams. We were cool by association, better because of winning, and hopeful because the consistency fooled us into believing that winning was our due.
Now I will dim my optimism, not turn it off, because the brutal finality of the arithmetic says there is nothing to be done, the sun is setting on this season. But not this era. I will be that happy idiot starting the next season believing the team will compete and rebuild and make the weekends of late summer, fall and winter meaningful again. Sorry mother nature, no disrespect.
In the meantime, let’s praise the team that made every Sunday a must event. I ask only one thing for the holy days. In true irrational fan mode, I can’t wait for Christmas Day when the besotted ponies and their paramour return. Fate is due a little kick in the “meaningfuls.” That’s what I’m hoping for.
