I don’t have a specific story for this week, but more of a concept. The concept is the journey vs the destination, and our personal relationships with this concept. A quick Google search leads to a litany of quotes about enjoying the journey of life… or whatever project. The reader/learner must focus on experiences as opposed to focusing on the perceived results. In other words, realize there are things out of your control, so enjoy the ride. My favorite quote about this comes from a song, and here it is:

“Life’s a journey, not a destination

And I just can’t tell, just what tomorrow brings”

Rock fans can immediately recognize this line from the second verse of the Aerosmith song “Amazing.” This was the 4th single release from the Get a Grip album, which dropped in November of 1992. That makes the album 29 and makes me feel old.

Ode to Aerosmith

I love Aerosmith’s older stuff, but “Get a Grip” is where my head immediately goes when I think of them. They were one of the biggest bands in the world in the early 90s, and I was in middle school. Every guy had this CD, and we all played it loud. This was our opportunity to pay our parents back for the Led Zeppelin they pumped through our grandparent’s house, and we came proper. The album is incredible and holds up firmly today. This album features many tracks on the arcade game Revolution X, which was a similar quarter eater to the Terminator 2: Judgement Day shooter game. Both of those games have a large amount of my pre-teen money. Good times!!

This album also featured memorable music videos from the height of the MTV Music Video era. (Quick note for younger readers: MTV used to be a channel that only showed music videos.) It produced 3 videos featuring my — and every other middle school guy’s — crush: Alicia Silverstone. We first met her in the video for “Cryin’,” fell in love again when she returned for “Amazing,” and were thrilled to see he back in May of ’94 for “Crazy.” All from a time when awesome rock songs and awesome rock videos were life.

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Back to Amazing

This song is a true rock ballad made for the arena and burned its fair share of lighters. The subject matter is pretty dark as it gets pretty deep into addiction. It follows the walk of being in a bad spot, recognizing it, and choosing a path toward recovery. Then it pays it forward to others in the same boat, by saying a prayer for the desperate hearts tonight. The song gets pretty deep, but sums up the need to acknowledge being on a journey. It preaches things like small steps and focus on the process. It mentions distain for the righteous talk, which is outside noise of discouragement.

This song has been in my head based on the line I mentioned early, and it’s really only for the first half of it. However, when I dug into the lyrics a bit more, I found many spots where this song matched the Chiefs season to date. Please note in the most emphatic way possible: I am not trying to make light of addiction. It is real and I know many people who experience it daily, and they are in my heart, mind and prayers. Here are the lines I think fit:

• “I kept the right ones out And let the wrong ones in” – this is Spags playing Sorenson over Thornhill
• “That one last shot’s a permanent vacation” – a loss to the Giants would a have signaled playoffs on the couch
• “But I just couldn’t listen to all that righteous talk, oh yeah” – talking head sports media has been pretty rough the past month
• “You have to learn to crawl Before you learn to walk” – the CHIEFS had to take what the D gave, i.e. shorter throws and running plays

The Destination

The first thing I will do is acknowledge this win against the Las Vegas Raiders is one game against a team broken in its own right. Our Chiefs, and we as fans, are still on this journey… but I’m also reminded that we are on part 3 of this, is one game. I will also point out that each win has been more impressive than the last. The win against the Giants was all about getting footing. Beating the Packers was taking care of business with Rodgers on his couch, and it happened against a stout defense. The most recent win was something altogether different. This was the Chiefs embarrassing the AFC West first place team in their stadium. The bonus was it did not look like the Raiders stadium. Arrowhead Kingdom showed up!!

Here’s the last four game results for each AFC West Team:

I love the journey of life… and this is while acknowledging that is possible while also hating parts of it. The year 2020 was a pretty hate-able part of life, but it was cool to be at home with the wife and kids for long periods of time. That factor made 2020 a fond part of the journey. Life is a journey, but I don’t think that football is. We almost exclusively look at football as seasons and results. The results are ultimately:

1. A Super Bowl win
2. Successful, deep playoff run that builds toward a Super Bowl win
3. Bad season that gets good draft picks to build toward successful playoff run
4. Total failure of executing to talent and frustration

My Destinations

There are obviously shades, but those are the high-level results. With football the journey is largely omitted when needed. I personally remember almost every playoff game this century, but have to dig into records to really remember the regular season. My focus on 2015 is the playoff win, not the spell at 1-5. Generally we speak about 2019 as the Super Bowl winning year, and not the 6-4 record in the middle of that season. Football is seasons, and we get to repeat it every year. We don’t have to enjoy the journey like life.

Life’s a journey, but football’s a destination.

The Chiefs had a very hard part of the journey in the first half of this season. We watched Patrick Mahomes slump majorly. The defense showed us a level of ineptitude normally reserved for 2-14 teams. We have watched lucky wins, horrible losses, and mediocre wins.

The mid-season destination is 1st in the AFC West, and I expect the end of season destination is a home playoff game.

One Quick Story

I look at football seasons like a road trip vacation. There is high likelihood of a wrong turn that sets the timing back. However, the memory is rarely of that moment until you take time to recall. Sometimes it is part of the fun of the trip, but often it is forgotten noise. My favorite such situation involved a really wrong turn on a trip to see a concert in Omaha. A good high school friend of mine went to college in Omaha and get tickets for a student concert. My college buddy and I stopped in Kansas City to grab my sister, and we headed off for the drive to Omaha. This is a very simple 2.5-3 hour drive north on 29. The only real thing to figure out is getting on I-29, but it is pretty hard to mess that up.

Well, we did that… by staying on I-35, and not realizing it until waaaaaaaay to late… and by late, I mean crossing the Iowa border late. We stopped at the visitor center to ask where we were, and watched a guy pull out a map and unfold it a few times to point out how far east we went. The next step was to expel some explicative language and then backtrack. However, my lasting memory of that trip was showing up just in time for the concert and having a great night. It is an easy, rational choice to focus on that, and football seasons are the same.

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The State of the Chiefs

The most important stat: 1st place in the AFC West.

This is also right on the heels of the best win of the season, and after a couple major adjustments. The external adjustment was the trade for Melvin Ingram to increase front 7 pressure. This was an absolute necessity. It is unfortunate that Ingram did not join in the offseason, and it cost a draft pick, but better late than never.

The second major adjustment was the offensive approach. Patrick Mahomes played the defense instead of himself. James Bond reminds us in Casino Royale:  “Then you also know in poker you never play your hand. You play the man across from you.” Vegas was a great place for Mahomes to take that approach.

The Chiefs have a clear marching order: take care of business and get to the next destination. It is important they pitch a shutout for the rest of the divisional games. The toughest assignment looks to be the Chargers at SoFi, but that has potential to be as much a road game as last weekend. A motivated Melvin Ingram getting after Herbert will provide some spark. The Broncos are a chippy team with high motivation to stop the Chiefs head-to-head winning streak, which currently sits at 11 straight. KC needs to come prepared and focused for those. The Raiders at Arrowhead is another highly winnable game.

Schedule Check

This leaves the very stout Dallas Cowboys this weekend, a Steelers team that could not beat the Lions (don’t care who did or did not play – that was a joke and anyone who watched should burn their eyeballs), and a tough Bengals team Jan. 2. Winning out is possible but should not be expected. I will be happy with 4-0 against the division and 2-1 in the others. That would net a 12-5 record, should win the West, and will send the CHIEFS into the playoffs on a streak. Then, we as fans, the sports media talking heads, and anyone else watching can get to enjoying the destination… and we can all quit thinking about the stupid missed exits and turns against the Bills, Ravens and Titans.

There’s a good chance we will find ourselves on one of those highways on the way home.

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You can also follow Josh on Twitter at: @mkechiefsfans

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Josh Kingsley — ArrowheadOne

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