Josh Kingsley

Sports is a game of records. Good athletes win games, great ones break records. We as CHIEFS fans spend our time watching Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid and Travis Kelce break records. It’s a blast and it isn’t stopping. My personal favorite records are the unbreakable. You can never say never, but really… sometimes you can. Sports flaunts some records that due to a series of circumstances cannot happen again. Here are my personal favorites:

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I cannot picture a world where any of these record fall. Current baseball thinking focuses on HR not base running, so Ricky is safe forever. There is not a baseball mind or manager in the world that will even entertain a position player taking the field all 162 game or pitching more than 200ish innings, so consider the other two MLB records galvanized. Gretzky, Rice and Petty are generational freaks of nature that accumulated massive stats. They are careers ahead of their 2nd places. Petty is 3 HOF careers ahead of his 2nd. Cycling started drug testing so that Armstrong one stands. I love these records mainly because they shouldn’t exist, but also because I am joining a similar rank this weekend.

My Brush with History

Am I an elite, other-world athlete, who has painstakingly hidden it from this readership? No. It would be cool, but I’m not. This is more of the freak coincidence nature. I am a mere days from doing something I cannot see ever happening again. This Saturday I will watch the CHIEFS play the Jacksonville Jaguars in Arrowhead at a bar, on a beach in another country.  Now, I realize this is on par with a stat about passes to the right side of the field to an under 6′ receiver on an even numbered Saturday, but still.

Misty and I had a credit from a Covid cancelled last minute vacation last January. We got a use it or lose it edict, and opted for use it. Friday we peel out for a quick all inclusive weekend in Cancun. I don’t love the idea of being away from my watch party for a playoff game, but I will work to manage. Hopefully, I even make some new CHIEFS Kingdom friends at the resort sports bar. Regardless of anything, I cannot picture a scenario where all this random stuff lines up again and I find that amazing… well, at the very least, amusing.

The Wild, Wild Weekend

I hate the 7th seed. Six teams and two byes was perfect and no change was necessary. While we’re at get off my lawn, turn down the music and pull up your pants. The first game reiterated my point. San Fran over-matched Seattle on an epic scale exposing them as frauds in a complete route. The 7 simply took up space. Then Sunday happened, and the Dolphins gave Buffalo all they could handle. I have to relax my stance a bit given the competitive nature of the contest, but I do so with some caution. Were the Dolphins truly worthy of a playoff berth or was that the case of a divisional rival presenting familiarity and a match-up? In Miami’s case I find them worthy. In fact, they were the better team on Sunday and competent QB probably equals a win.

The late game featured another divisional rivalry, and that one was a case of familiarity. Lamar Jackson potentially flips the narrative in this game against the Bengals, but Baltimore kept in it anyway due to the divisional rivalry piece. The Bengals are the only playoff team in the AFC that the Ravens keep close. My biggest fear with adding playoff teams is the introduction of more divisional games early, and all that does is reward mediocrity in favor of upsets. Wild Card weekend showed me two things: the Bills and Bengals are flawed, but they are still playing.

More NFC Notes

The Sunday NFC game featured the Giants in Minneapolis against the Vikings. Daniel Jones had a coming out party passing for over 300 yards and adding almost 80 more with his feet. He was the player of the game, and earned himself his first non-rookie deal. I expect him to get well over $100M in guaranteed money and it does not happen without that game. The lasting image is and will be Kirk Cousins throwing a 3 yard pass on 4th and 8 to end the game. The much maligned Vikes QB is the heel of this game, no doubt. He may play another year but his time with the Vikings is over whether he realizes it or not. I feel bad for the guy because he does not deserve the blame.

The Vikings D was awful and never should have let the game get that far. They let Daniel Jones create a shootout and Cousins held the bag on 4th and 8 with a defender about to level him. Kirk should get a win putting up 24 against the Giants. Jones gets a pay day and Cousins gets the boot. Congrats Vikings D, you ruined 2 teams at once.

Tampa hosted Dallas for the final game of the weekend. Fans all over fought internal battles over their Cowboy hate vs Tom Brady hate. The Bucs are a bad, old, injured team and looked as such Monday night. Brady played fine, but could not rescue that. Speculation season has begun.

My jury is out on the 7, but that was an awesome weekend of football.

It’s Own Heading

Chargers, Chargers, Chargers. Oh, man, Chargers!! How did you mess that one up? Better question: how did Staley miss the axe on this one? You know what, I’ll stop asking questions. Spanos and Staley are doing great work as LA’s 8th most popular team and I hope they keep it up. I hope they never change, and bet they never will. I’m not betting $1.4M on it, but I will bet.

Tom Brady

The Cowboys whipped Brady and the Bucs so bad most will forget the Maher 4 XP miss portion. That game almost broke the sports hate (favorite Bill Simmons term) universe. Dem Boys and Brady, the NFL’s biggest lightning rods and I’m not sure who’s close after that. Probably the CHIEFS. Anyway big Brady games always bring out the haters, which are fine, but also the conspiracy theorists. I don’t like them. These are the guys at every bar convo ranting about the league fixing games, propping Brady and blah, blah, blah. The go to is the comment about the NFL’s official billing as an entertainment organization, not a sports league. I don’t know if that’s true and I don’t intend to research it any deeper than I dig into the picture of sasquatch.

Brady’s great, he had a great coach and the refs screw everyone and ruin games all the time. Look up Joey Bosa’s post game rant because it’s not wrong. The NFL official is barely a real job, they have no real accountability, and the league insulates them from player criticism. Bosa and other player’s job is to not let the game be close enough for one call to decide an outcome. Luck, like the stuff the Bengals had when the ball fell in Hubbard’s hands with a clean field, occurs for good teams who execute consistently. Offense is the default of the league and that is not new. I view the tuck rule in the same vein as rules around fumbles. Brady’s hand was throwing as much as the ground cannot cause a fumble. Favor offense and they both make sense.

Least Favorite Brady Slams

The two things I am over hearing are Giselle was paying refs and Brady ruined his marriage over playing this season. I personally believe its the other way around and that he played when his marriage fell apart for good. There is no insider info, I just read it that way. A simple chicken or egg situation. Tom and Giselle are a failed celebrity marriage. Nothing more or less. It’s as true as cliched. I believe celebrities marry each other mainly because they cannot connect with normal people. Celebrities keep hectic schedules and cannot connect with people who don’t. Also, they can avoid the huge income disparities. A $20-30K income difference is different that a $20-30M difference. It’s all just different and the decisions have different stakes.

My real belief they fell apart is Tom and Giselle are the same personality with different ticks. Misty and I talked this through stemming from her belief that elite performers in any field are addicts that never got into vices. High performers also have one gear: full speed 5th. Giselle’s drive as a model had her on all the time traveling to places like New York, London, Paris and Milan. Brady’s is a QB and film junkie. Both are 24/7 type jobs. Giselle stepped back to work on her mental health after the toll of constant personal critique (did not know, Misty told me). Tom appears to have issues wanting to downshift. That sounds like an argument, and we have not even touched the “who takes kids to school and practice and don’t say the nanny” conversation.

They may be crazy celebrities, but I choose to believe they are fine people with good intentions and… it just didn’t work out.

What Next?

Where does Tom go from here? I see no other option than playing. When something confirms I will dig deeper, but for now here is my top 5 guesses in no order:

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CHIEFS/Jags Preview

This feels like our year. I hoped it in 2018, believed it in 20 and 21, but felt it in 2019. It feels the same. The season provided a variety of ups and downs, but the downs could not prevent the 14 win season. This is a good, possibly great team. I love Mad Dog radio, and heard a caller today express my exact sentiment:

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“The CHIEFS have an extra gear. It showed twice

in the regular season against the Bucs and

the 49ers. Expect them to win.”

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Russo agreed with no caveat. I add a third game and it’s week 18 in Vegas. Stidham gave the 9ers the business, so no consideration for the second string factor. Also, it’s a divisional rival. Always expect an effort and discomfort. The Raiders had one job, and goal: wreck the CHIEFS season… and make it look like the Commanders did against Dallas week 18. Kansas City was having none of it. Vegas did not ask a single difficult question in the most clinical beating the CHIEFS administered all season. That game was over at the coin flip and the Raiders tried.

Keys to Victory

The first step to clinical is professional preparation and approach. Our CHIEFS treated the Raiders game as it was: a game on the schedule. Their goal was on point: win the game. The approach was comprehensive: game plan, film study, preparation. Things went so well they pulled out their snow globe. That was the only breath they took. Here is how it keeps going:

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All the tactical stuff can work in practice, but this is a mindset game. The CHIEFS made a bad habit of playing to opponents’ level in the regular season. Toss it out. Kansas City is the better team in every facet of this game and moves to a 5th consecutive AFC title game if they act like it.

Picks for All Games

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Media of the Week

I watched a crappy, B movie that could not decide if it was a rom-com, sports movie or wannabe drama. Some website crashed, there was a scene at a Waffle House (of all product placement), then some guy said he doesn’t understand decibels as he poked a bear with a really blunt stick. I assumed it was a script from the writers strike in 2007, but then saw it was all filmed January of 2023. Not sure how they got the budget.

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Trevor Lawrence may want to invest in some noise cancelling headphones this weekend.

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Josh Kingsley — ArrowheadOne and Arrowhead Kingdom

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