Josh Kingsley

The NFL offseason comes to a close today. Tomorrow kicks off a new season. Our Super Bowl Champion Kansas City CHIEFS open a slate of 544 NLF games with a Sunday Night on Thursday tilt against the upstart Detroit Lions. The Lions possess a can-do belief and desire of a killer instinct. Coach Dan Campbell and team spent the summer in the limelight soaking up the projections that match their ambitions. This makes them a dangerous team. For reasons known only to a select few the CHIEFS defense projects a gap in the front middle line.

The CHIEFS mission, should they choose to accept it: defeat the Lions decisively and kick off this run it back campaign in 2023. If they or a member of the coaching staff stumbles due to the defensive performance, fanalysts and social media mavens everywhere will disavow the front office with mass prejudice for failing to complete the CJ extension.

<Do me a quick favor and re-read those two paragraphs

with a recorded government agent voice in your head.>

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Ode to the IMF

I’m a huge Tom Cruise fan. The guy is a total pro in his acting craft, does his own stunts, and has a clear vision for building a franchise. I consider his greatest accomplishment to date knocking it out of the park with Maverick. A decades later sequel to one of the most iconic movies in guys my age history was an ill-advised stroll through a minefield. “Top Gun: Maverick” was a grand slam. His second greatest body of work is the Mission Impossible franchise.

The year 1996 was the back half of my freshman year and front half of sophomore year. I bring this up only to add personal life journey context of impressionable high schooler. This year sticks out for a cinematic risk trend: casting and quick killing A-listers. “Scream” (one of my all time favorite horror movies) pasted Drew Barrymore’s face on all their posters and killed her in the first, iconic scene. Brian De Palma’s “Mission: Impossible” put an in his prime Emilio Estevez on the team and made him the biggest casualty of the first Mission. Most of my movie watching experience to that point included clear plot lines and full character arcs. I was all about the shock factor.

27 Years of Shock

I vividly remember the hype of Mission: Impossible. Tom Cruise dropped from the ceiling, explosions, U2 playing the theme song, Jon Voight, fake faces, that one French action star guy (Jean Reno), etc. I went to the theater with friends expecting an action packed shoot ’em up thriller, but left somewhat fulfilled, slightly confused and unsure of the next step. My ultimate decision became watching the movie again. It was better and clearer. A third watch sunk it all in. What a great film. Intelligent, methodical, tense, and precise with the action sequences. Amazing twists completed an excellent story. Did I expect a sequel? Yes, of course. Ethan Hunt was in for more mind bending missions.

John Woo took the mantle of M-I2, and gave me the action movie I expected with one. The movie changes the tone with the opening scene and the franchise never looked back. It also gave us this gem (6:12):

A third movie announced a few years later to complete what I expected was a trilogy. The movie fizzled my hype. Whatever, nice trilogy, live watching the first two. Oh so wrong I was. A short five years later Ghost Protocol released reigniting the franchise for a long haul.

Quick Review

I bring all this up mainly because I recently got back into this franchise. A better way to phrase it: I recently caught up. I saw Ghost Protocol in the theater, thoroughly enjoyed it, but kind of forgot about the franchise. Rogue Nation and the Tom Cruise hanging from a plane door as it took off grabbed my attention, but failed to lure me to the box office. I pretty much missed the Fallout installment completely until a couple weekends ago. Paramount+ put a push to watch the Mission:Impossible movies. It felt right so I cued up installment five, Rogue Nation. Key takeaways:

Why did I wait so long to watch this?
Simon Pegg has excellent chemistry with Cruise.
I need to cue up six, Fallout, now.
Wait, there is a part seven, and it just released?!

I knocked out Fallout, which was essentially the second half of Rogue Nation’s story, and resolved seeing part seven on a big screen. That happened last night. I can’t talk much about the movie without ruining the plot, so I leave it at this: catch up, re-watch, watch the series. See Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (yep, another two parter). These movies are a blast.

The CHIEFS Mission

This all falls timely entering the sixth season of the Mahomes Era. Each winning season, division title, playoff game at Arrowhead and Super Bowl trophy grows the target on the CHIEFS back. Every team yearns to be the ones to end it, analysts yearn to be ones to call the end, and opposing fans simply yearn for it to be over. The CHIEFS task grows taller each installment. Plus enter the external factors. Check out this article from Bill Simmons especially this quote:

“In his book “Showtime,” Pat Riley unveiled “the disease of more” and argued that “success is often the first step toward disaster.” According to Riley, after the 1980 Lakers won, everyone shifted into a more selfish mode…”

And then:

“Once you get caught up in everything that comes with winning, you stop winning. Rarely does a team avoid pettiness, acrimony and self-flagellation to stay focused enough to repeat. You need a great coach and a greater star to keep everyone in line, and you need character guys up and down the roster.”

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Heavy stuff. This all points to the every recent offseason problem, but truly resonates on the last two. The CHIEFS made 60% of the recent Super Bowls and won 40%. Crazy success (stepping back to enjoy this view). The disease of more took its first swipe just over a year ago when Tyreek demanded a WR market reset and earned a trade instead.

Chris Jones is slightly more complicated as he’s asking for a raise, but not a DT market reset (assuming most consistent reports are true). Many fans sided with Hill, but truly SIDE with Chris Jones. This produces two things:

Part One: Organizational Churn

I’ve mentioned former co-worker, Scott, and his concept of churn before. Short recap: organizational churn is his term for manufactured office chaos. Chaos can mean anything from missing numbers, supply chain issues, recessions (or even threats of them) or any other mostly external factors. Scott’s churn references created chaos. This can mean a manager, co-worker, etc. detouring the strategy or not creating it in favor of short-terms wins. A lack of direction makes everyone involved guess and gut feel their way through business activities. This creates tension, second-guessing, backseat driving and all those other clichés. What it doesn’t create is harmony and progress for any long term.

The Chris Jones situation has CHIEFS Kingdom in a state of churn. Every fan and fanalyst has an opinion. Y’all know mine well. The anti-CHIEFS and media machines are more than happy to stir the pot. I reiterate my key call for closure. This needs to end. Fan forums in social circles get tenser by the day as we start the season.

Part Two: Big Bets and Risks

The CHIEFS weathered the Hill situation, won the Super Bowl, and validated, or vindicated, Veach depending on initial opinion. Patrick Mahomes took care of that. The Jones situation is different as he should be the one making whatever ends up work. Chris is the CHIEFS QB on D. The CHIEFS missed Super Bowl LVI and made Super Bowl LVII for arguably the same reason: Jones’ performance against the Bengals. He missed a play in ’21, made it in ’22, and in many ways the games were really that simple. There was obviously a team effort for 60+ each time, but Jones was the deciding factor.

Starting the season with Jones out of the building is a risk. It assigns the CHIEFS an…

Impossible Mission

The CHIEFS 2022 season mission: win without one of the 2-3 most dynamic playmaking WR in the league. They chose to accept it, and like Ethan Hunt succeeded. Like the movies one impossible mission simply leads to another. That is the price of the success we all enjoy. This year’s mission is win again, with one of these two directives:

Mission Option One: Pay Chris Jones

Veach is firm with valuation and negotiation. His mission, should he choose to accept: pay Jones, complete the D, and keep his tactics, philosophy and methods intact. Caving to Jones at the zero hour can indicate a crack in his foundation. This crack can open the door for other players to demand more than Veach values them and their position. If Veach goes this route his task becomes making it clear Jones is the outlier. Jones is an elite talent in a difficult to replace position: QB disrupter. His skills do not grow on trees or come cheap. An argument can and must show that Jones is an exception, not the rule.

Brett Veach appears out on this mission, but there is smart money pulling for it to happen.

Mission Option Two: Win a Super Bowl Without Jones

This appears the team’s choice. Reid and Mahomes made it work without Tyreek, and now it’s Spags’ turn. All the recent CHIEFS QB pressure started and often ended with Jones. He draws doubles and still gets stats. That’s why he’s expensive. Spags receives the tactical work, but Reid and Mahomes remain on the hook. A Chris Jones-less CHIEFS D will allow more opposing points, so the winning formula becomes more offense.

It looks like the CHIEFS plan to accept this mission. This message will self-destruct in five seconds…

Josh Kingsley — ArrowheadOne and Arrowhead Kingdom