Fourth Quarter: Chiefs On Top Of AFC West
Since we have some extra days between games, I thought I would take a minute to recount some key achievements from the season. There has been some extraordinary play and challenges along the way. The Kansas City Chiefs currently sit atop the AFC West and are pushing to cement that in the next 3 games. What makes this amazing is they have overcome numerous injuries to key personnel and produce some come from behind victories along the way. In the past, when the team fell behind on the scoreboard, they tended to lose the games.
Injuries
Over the course of the season, the Chiefs have experienced many injuries to key players. Some were out a few games and others for most of the season so far.
Justin Houston
Jamaal Charles
Jeremy Maclin
Alex Smith
Laurent Duvernay-Tardif
Kendall Reyes
Phillip Gaines
Jah Reid
Charcandrick West
Spencer Ware
Marcus Peters
Dee Ford
Parker Ehringer
Allen Bailey
Justin March-Lillard
Josh Mauga
Jaye Howard
Derrick Johnson
As you can see in the graphic, the Chiefs have been winning games despite the injuries. Compared to many teams, we haven’t lost that many man games to injuries, but the quality of the players (bubble size) is what makes the win record impressive.
Comebacks
There are two comebacks that stand out to me this season. The first is game 1 against the San Diego Chargers and the second is game 11 versus the Denver Broncos.
The game versus the Chargers was the biggest comeback in franchise history. The Chiefs were down 27-10 with less than 14 minutes to go in the game. Kansas City then reeled off 17 unanswered points to tie it up and put the game into overtime. In OT Alex Smith went into beast mode and scored the winning touchdown.
In the Denver game, the Chiefs were down 16-24 with a little over 3 minutes remaining. The offense drove the field and not only scored a touchdown on a close call pass, but also made the two-point conversion to tie it up and force overtime. In overtime it was a back and forth battle with matching field goals to push the score to 27-27. On Denver’s final possession, the defense held them out of the end zone and they missed their field goal attempt. The offense drove the field again to setup the winning field goal attempt. This is where Cairo Santos made it even more dramatic an ending by banking the winning score off an upright.
Resiliency
These comebacks show a resiliency in the team. They don’t give up easy and don’t seem to be worried about being down. They have confidence that they can come back and win. This may be a quality they need during the next few games and hopefully the playoffs.
I look forward to the next 3 games. These will hopefully not require comebacks and will leave the team without any further injuries.
And there’s The Rub.
