Chiefs Monday “Hate Raider Week Alert”: Whippersnappers! Listen Up – This week starting Monday is “Red All Week” Red Friday and “Hate Raider Week all rolled into one. We are still in the Bye Week. Hopefully truly healing up. I expect much of that to have been accomplished over the two week stretch until we get to the game next Sunday. I expect a win against the Dark Side and the Evil Empire of the West. Think of it this way? It’s traditional like watching the Wizard of Oz. There is an evil witches empire of the West and we have yet to drop a house on the teaming evil that is in the East — the New England Patriots. It will happen!
I want to cover what Hate Raiders Week is but also cover another woe: the Chiefs had two more opportunities to go to the Super Bowl and blew it (70 and 71). In fact, you should view 2018 as the 3rd time the Chiefs blew the opportunity to go to the big game. The Chiefs have now been on the doorstep of the Super Bowl three times and didn’t blow the door down. That’s the fact.
For the Raiders, it all involves one single game but do so in the view of having you know what really happened — that game stopped the Chiefs from going to the Super Bowl. In 1970, they played the season as the reigning champions. The next season after that, the Chiefs played the Dolphins in the AFC championship game and lost on a Field Goal after 82 minutes (plus seconds) of play and a 350 yards of offense game record that still stands to this day: 350 yards of offense by a single player: Ed Podolak. Again, they were denied getting to the Superbowl. Heavens to Betsy, those were great times and real tough times together.
Yes, the Chiefs won a Super Bowl in 1970 but… woulda, coulda, shoulda… gone to the next two. After the 1971 season, the reign of the Chiefs was ended. No more shots at the Lombardi until 2018. in my view. It ended more than a decade of Chiefs play that was dominate under Hank Stram, ending more than a decade of a great team which began vs the Raiders (I “Football” hate them).
My Thoughts come slower than they once did and I can’t walk without my cane and I can’t see without binoculars. So bear with me. It never occurred to me that Chiefs fans would suffer 50 years of nothing. I was a teen for the first two “Super Bowl” Games. I am now old and decrepit. Y’all talk a lot faster than we did back then and speak a different English language then we did and you leave out words and use acronyms all over the dang place. Hush and read on.
Ah, dad-blame-it! Whippersnappers! Why Don’t You know Our Arch-Rival Is the Raiders!
Young Whippersnappers means that for Millennials and younger: the world is not as you think it was. You just don’t have a long enough memory. You do not know why the fans on the Raiders side wear those evil looking costumes. It’s time to learn.
It’s Hate Raiders Week
Good Guys Versus Bad! 
Images from Pro Football Reference
For the Chiefs fans and players (I would hope), this game should fan the flames of a “Peak” Chiefs Performance! We need the fire lit and stoked til we bring home the Trophy!
It’s time to seek and destroy the last vestiges of the Dastardly Raiders Silver over Black. You still don’t get it because you are doused with the another misanthropy, now known as the Mile High Donkeys, if you will, but they are not the Chiefs (OG) evil arch-rival.
For the Raiders, I am calling down St. Patrick to rid the Chiefs of these snakes and invest a blessing on the Chiefs team to beat the Raiders who, even and had a QB nicknamed “The Snake” (Ken Stabler). It is time to beat our enemy and rid the Kingdom of the Snakes… which is why I always think of St. Patrick during “Raiders Hate Week.” Even if I like John Madden and Ken Stabler… that means our arch-rival is not Denver. It is Oakland. Always will be… ‘cept we have to switch south to Vegas (when they move there in a few months), dag nabbit.
This rivalry goes back to the early 1960s in the AFL, at its inception. Things didn’t change after the merger and after the remarkably painful 1969 season which culminated with the Chiefs winning Super Bowl IV vs. the Minnesota Vikings — another rough and tumble team known for its animosity of opposing Quarterbacks by the way, the Chiefs rallied all their strength and ability (team persona) and achieved victory.
Joe Kapp, the opposing QB with the VIkings lost his cool and swagger. This game punished him more than any other he ever played, or so the story goes. The Vikings were known as a hard hitting team and their QB, who had played ball in the Canadian League had his own tough guy reputation with the Vikings. After the Chiefs turned him into a cheese puff, he wasn’t so great.
1960 Canadian Football image of Kapp Photo courtesy of Wiki
All game long, Kapp was harassed with hurries, hits and sacks by the Chiefs. Even aside from that, the Chiefs moved him off the comfort of his chosen square and he made poor passes, in all those cases when he didn’t get grass stains on his butt from a sack. He left the game sore, bruised and mentally beat. He went on from the Vikings and finished his NFL Career with the Patriots (the evil kingdom of the east) and he was really not much of QB after getting the punishment that he was unaccustomed to receiving. He was used to watching his defense pound lumps on the opposition while he was protected by his offensive line. The betting pool was all Vikings but, the Chiefs were the team to pound lumps on the humpty and Joe Kapp.
Joe Kapp though, deserves recognition for playing in the Rose Bowl (national Championship), in the Canadian Football League (National Championship-Grey Cup) and in the NFL (Lost National Championship), so he did have some bona fides.
The result of this game: the good guys win and all of the old NFL crowd, who felt they would always better than any team in the AFL, had been shown up, first by the Jets and Namath and then by Dawson and Chiefs. After this, The AFL was Defunct. The NFL/AFL were tied with 2 wins each. It’s true. I long for that rivalry and the distinction between old style football and innovative football which the America League wore as a banner over their shoulders.
The Culminating 1970 Game! Evil Wins It — This Time
November 1970 the Chiefs, fresh off being World Champs played a very good Oakland team… BUT… that team also featured a defensive end known for cheap shots on ball carriers on the other team — especially Quarterbacks. Now this was putting the exclamation mark on the evil Raiders, after the Chiefs lost this game. Davidson came to the Raiders from the Green Bay Packers. He was mostly a top Sub for the DL and was a hard hitting special Teams player that would take dirty shots at his opponents at Green Bay. However, in the AFL he was a starting hulk of a DE. His specialty? Hitting or piling on after the whistle for nailing the opposing QB.
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photo courtesy of Silverandblackpride.com [Namath takes a very hard shot from Ben Davidson. This is from a Raiders site which revels in the violence of the Raider persona]
In a video which Len Dawson narrates, he tells of what was happening in the game, the flagrant penalty on Davidson and what happened after that. Because of the NFL rules at the time, after the dirty hit, Amos Otis attacked Davidson. The penalty on Otis negated the play (offsetting penalties)which was a 4th down bootleg by Dawson and the first down with a couple of minutes left to play. This put the Chiefs back on the other side of the 50-yard line and they were forced to punt. Dawson’s call of his own number and a good fake, fooled the defense totally with a bootleg that went from the Chiefs side of the 50 yard line to the 31 of the Raiders. They had the ball and were in Field Goal Distance. See game video of the spearing and more here (below).
Otis Taylor, who as a WR and should be honored at Canton, was blocking beyond the 2nd level on the play. He saw what was happening and attacked and jumped on Davidson, defending his teammate and quarterback. (See the above reference video).
Photo – Mathew Monroe
The Benches cleared and the two teams went at it on the field. The Refs called the foul then on Taylor after having already thrown a penalty flag on Davidson.
The Raiders marched down the field and tied the 17-14 game with a field goal by none other than the oldest player in the game, QB and then converted place kicker, George Blanda who kicked a game-tying three pointer. This resulted In Oakland’s second tie but kept the Chiefs from winning 8 games giving the Raiders the 8-4-2 record to win the division.
When Blanda kicked the field goal, there were 8 seconds left to play.
You can see then how crucial to the loss the offsetting penalty truly was. The Chiefs had a first down and it was wiped away. If they run plays and get a first down, it would have left no time for the Raiders to come back after a kick off to their own end of the field. The Chiefs loose out on the ability to get to the Super Bowl.
I do recall how infuriated I was about the hit on Dawson (Bad guy on Good guy! The Incredible Hulk on a mild mannered newsy).
Oakland’s record at the end of the season was 8-4-2 while the Chiefs were 7-5-2. This particular play caused the NFL to change the rules.
From that season and that play, an NFL Rules change was made. The penalty on Davidson would have made it a first down and gotten 15 yards more if I recall correctly. But the penalty on Taylor would move the ball back to the original play ending spot. First Down Chiefs!
5 years later the NFL changed the rule again, identifying the late hit as flagrant and illegal.
“Winston Hill, a Jets player of the era, called Davidson “the No. 1 cheap-shot artist” in the league. A journalist for The New York Times wrote that Davidson “probably was responsible for more late hits than any other player” of his time, and was known for going after the opposing team’s quarterback.”
From that time on, the week we play the Raiders the week is called “Raider Hate Week’ or “Raiders Week.”
This fell out of favor quite a bit with the younger, ‘next generation’ crowd and was then revived when Marty Schottenheimer came to town to become Head Coach. I believe he said we need to have an arch rival and we have one: the Oakland Raiders.
I have illustrated how we missed the opportunity to go to the Super Bowl two years in a row. The Chiefs won the Super Bowl in 1970 (69 season) and missed the shot to get there in the 1970 season. This was a Big Disappointment.
Photo, Marty Shottenheimer courtesty of Arrowhead Addict
The Longest Game: 82 Minutes of Football on Christmas Day, 1971 and Missed Opportunity #2.
The Davidson Hit in 1970 preceded the year the Chiefs played to a tie the early version of the Miami Dolphins era. They lost a playoff match that year, called the “Longest Game”… which resulted in Garo Yepremian kicking a FG. Game over. Eighty-Two-Minutes plus. This loss kept the Chiefs from going to the Super Bowl. Again. It’s like we were doomed by a curse. It was 1971, on Christmas day.
Ed Podolak photo from his 350 yard game performance – courtesy of Fox Sports
Nick Buoniconti, the great linebacker for the Dolphins, said this about the game: “Everyone I knew in Miami told me they had to shut off their ovens to avoid ruining their Christmas turkey’s”. I am sorry to say Nick passed away several years ago.
Nick Buoniconti, #85 – Fox Sports
Buoniconti passed away in 2015. In the championship game Chiefs RB Ed Podolak set a record with his play in this game Accounting for 350 yards of total offense that was finally eclipsed in 2007 by Adrian Peterson (361 yards).The Chiefs lost the game in Overtime, 27-24. Garo Yepremian won it with a 37-yard Field Goal. The Chiefs did not go to the Super Bowl despite the 350 Yard performance of Ed Podolak.
Yepremian game winner courtesy of Getty images
More than a decade long era ends for the Chiefs and the era of Miami begins. The Raiders fans get in on the act — they revel in the dark side, egging the players on and wearing darth Vader like costumes or more evil looking apparel that perhaps would best be reserved for all Hallow’s Eve. It helps them keep the rivalry alive I guess but, we need that arch rival as Schottenheimer said. It’s part and parcel of the Raider identity. The latest express of the Raider identity is in the NFL apparel commercial where a woman wearing NFL apparel, the Raider Black, stomps her foot in a puddle and splashes everyone around her. That characterizes the Raider Persona. I think the rivalry is about to reach a crescendo even greater than before in today’s current NFL.
So you Have some Chiefs History, WhipperWhups!
For you Whippersnappers? I think you now have the real story and a bonus about the 71 AFC Championship game and also about 2 of the 3 missed opportunities to go to the big game. Now that tale of missed opportunities of the Chiefs is expanded to three: 2018 being the latest. However, the evil empire is now in Oakland to the west (soon to be Vegas), not a wild horse or a donkey.
You don’t see the Chiefs acting evil on the field of green or playing dirty. The players are not nasty guys, the fan’s wear Red and Gold while War Paint roams the field and I believe in unicorns and eating bread which helps build bodies 12 different ways… our nemesis lies quite a distance farther west than Colorado. We can invent a name for the Dastardly Broncos now if you choose.
Think on that!
David Bell — ArrowheadOne
Twitter: @Chiefsfansince63
P.S. 2018 was a big disappointment for me, but that’s a different story.
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