Allow me to rephrase, “I’m glad the Chiefs didn’t win by coming back in a close ending after playing horribly for 80% of the game.”
Now, for some of you that may still sound like fandom betrayal… but don’t think for one minute that I’m about to jump ship. I have been a Chiefs fan through the 1970s and the 1980s, so a little loss like the one on Sunday, isn’t going to change my devotion to the red and gold of K.C. However, if you’ll look at the “consequences” of both winning and/or losing the game — after another close ending vs. the Steelers — you may be swayed to not only understand my position, but join my point of view.
So, the Chiefs play a brutal game for three quarters and come out on the short end of the stick. Sure, it was miserable to watch and witness, but the outcome is relatively innocuous within the framework of a whole season’s schedule and final record. After all, it’s one regular season loss on the books. That’s it.
Here is a list of three consequence of losing… and of winning (if they had):.
By losing, the Chiefs coaches and management have to assume they’re not up to the task of beating the Steelers. Not this year. Not last year (two times). Not since October 25 of 2015 have the Chiefs beaten the Steelers and I believe Ben Roethlisberger was out that day and Landry Jones was their QB.
By losing, each and every player on the Chiefs roster must question what they did wrong and begin to learn how to fix it. It’s a natural mental consequence for an athlete and they do it all the time. Every time you lose, you reflect about how to get better. No, you don;t have to lose to reflect about how to get better but, when there is a pattern of losing to the same team… it gives you more to think about.
By losing, it’s a confirmation of bad performance. It’s better that your player connect the dots correctly. In other words, you don’t want them giving a bad performance and then feeling rewarded for it (unless it happens in the Super Bowl, then… any kind of victory is awesome).
By winning ( I realized they didn’t, but let’s say for a moment, what if they did)… by winning, the team would have been praised all week as an unbeatable force that could find a way to win even when they were drubbed soundly.
By winning, the coaches would have pressed the players to make some changes but the player may not take those suggestions to heart because they don’t match the outcome of the game. Like, “Why change the way I’m tackling, sure he gained 179 yards on us, but we beat them anyway.” Not exactly what any of the Chiefs defenders should be thinking right now.
By winning, the GM makes no adjustments to his drafting and/or free agency strategy. You’ve heard the saying, “Something’s Gotta Give” [also a great movie, btw] and if the Chiefs want to grow to a place where they have the players with enough strength, skills and prowess to dominate the Steelers the way they dominated them, then the personnel must change too.
Alex Smith has been playing this year with a chip on his shoulder. In his own words, he calls this a “Fu3K It” attitude (pardon my French… isn’t it nice to have a whole country to blame that word on. However, there is actually a city in Austria with a similar name and the mayor has complained of tourists stealing their signs so, they stopped building any city signs with their name on it… btw, the actual name is Fu3king, Austria. Look it up. It’s real. Just don’t look it up while you’re at work. Gee, I wonder if Alex Smith has ever been there? Oh, back to the article…). On Sunday, once Smith was hit in the legs — and it made him angry — it fired him up:
“Certainly when I got fired up, I thought [the hit] was pretty late. I mean, when you get hit in the back of your knee like that, I didn’t understand how that happened. Certainly guys falling, rushing the quarterback, I get it when it’s happening from the front and guys are trying hard. That one to me just seemed so weird to get hit that low coming from behind.”
That’s the attitude that the Steelers came to Arrowhead with. Why the Chiefs didn’t come out that way and play the whole game “FIRED UP”… I don’t know. But, unless they learn to do that… make some adjustments… they’re going to produce the same results as the previous three meetings with them. You know the saying, “Insanity is, doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.” I’m convinced that — if — the Chief’s had pulled that one out in the end, they’d keep on playing the same old way they did in the first three quarters. I’m crossing my fingers they’re not that insane.
Am I ever hoping that the Chiefs lose? No. I can’t remember a time when that has ever happened. However, now that the game between the Steelers is over, the silver lining in that loss is… that hopefully the whole organization will be motivated by it, make the necessary changes because of it, and maybe even get healthy enough and change their game plan enough that this year in the playoffs, they can take the Steelers down to size (they’re really much to cocky for their own britches).
What do you say? Are you glad that they lost… a close one… since they played the first three quarters as if they were dreaming all about what the “Last Jedi” will be like?
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