Kansas City Chiefs Michael Travis Rose

The Five Most Chieftastic Games Ever: But Wait There’s More

MIchael Rose March 9, 2020 No Comments Gallery

The Five Most Chieftastic Games Ever – we’re going to get right to it, Chiefs Kingdom. Five is a weird number for a “best of” list, but there’s a method to the madness. Plus, with a storied 60 year history, does five games really cover it?

Read until the end of the article and I promise to explain.

Bear in mind, please, that this list is not in any order. None of these games are necessarily better than any of the others listed, they are all “Chieftastic” in my book. Two of the games were a given, obviously — Super Bowl IV and Super Bowl LIV.  The other three might surprise you.

Game One

    • Game One: Inaugural Chiefs (then Dallas Texans) Game
    • Date: September 10, 1960
    • Opponent:  Los Angeles Chargers
    • Location: Los Angeles Coliseum
    • Score: 20-21 – Chiefs Lose

 

Overview:  The stats on this game are sparse, unfortunately. Other than the fact that we lost 20-21, what is known is that the Dallas Texans featured QB Cotton Davidson and standout RB Abner Haynes out of North Texas, playing before 17,724 LA Coliseum patrons.

Prior to the game, the Texans had just completed a whirlwind preseason barnstorming tour with road games in Oakland CA, Tulsa OK, Boston MA, Abilene TX, and Little Rock AR. They were a perfect 6-0 during their preseason.

Unfortunately, the regular season was not so kind. The Chiefs finished their inaugural 1960 campaign with a record of 8-6 and missed the playoffs. The Houston Texans would go on to claim the first AFL Championship against the Chargers, 24-16 on New Year’s Day 1961 at Jeppesen Stadium in Houston, TX.

The first regular season game of our beloved franchise is not only historic (even though we lost).  It is Chieftastic. That we lost our first regular season game against the Chargers helps ensure that I continue to harbor a healthy hatred, rather than feel sorry for them, as I am oft-time wont to do. Face it, their pitiful.  But wait for ESPN’s preseason analysis in which the perennially prognosticate that the Chargers will win the AFC West.

Game Two

    • Game Two: Super Bowl IV
    • Date: January 11, 1970
    • Opponent:  Minnesota Vikings
    • Location:  Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, LA
    • Score: 23-7 (Chiefs Win!)

Overview:  Just a year earlier, Joe Namath had burst the NFL’s (NFC) bubble by not only guaranteeing victory over the mighty Baltimore Colts and their revered QB Johnny Unitas, but actually doing it! The AFL was for real, baby!

So, when the Vikings and their QB Joe Kapp (merely a placeholder for the great Fran Tarkenton whilst he piddled in New York for a few years) took on the Chiefs, the NFL was dead-set on stuffing the notion that the AFL was “on par” with the NFL. Apparently, someone forgot to tell the Chiefs. Certainly, the Chiefs HC Hank Stram didn’t get the message.

As an added bonus, remember that the Vikings pulled out of their deal to be an AFL team back in 1959 and, instead, became an NFL franchise, instead.  Karma is a… well, you know.

Game Three

    • Game Three: The Longest Game
    • Date: December 25, 1971
    • Opponent:  Miami Dolphins
    • Location: Municipal Stadium
    • Score: 27-24 (Chiefs Lose)

Overview:  Other than it being (still almost 50 years later) the longest game ever played, this game featured what many Chiefs fans consider the best Chiefs team that ever graced a gridiron.

It was a back and forth affair the entire game. The Chiefs pulled to a 10-0 lead led by HoF Chiefs QB Len Dawson by the end of the first quarter. Fellow HoFer, Miami Dolphins QB Bob Griese led the Dolphins to two of their own scores, ending the first half tied 10-10.

It was on! Both the Chiefs and the Dolphins were true on one touchdown and PAT each in the third quarter.

Early in the fourth, the Chiefs netted a TD to take the lead, 24-17. With just 1:25 remaining in regulation, the Dolphins scored a TD to tie it, 24-24.

Chiefs great, Ed Podolak returned a Dolphins kick to the 78 yard line. Three plays later, we’re on the 15 yard-line. Enter stud Chiefs kicker Jan Stenerud. Jan missed the easy 25-yard field goal! “Yumpin Yimminey!” The mighty Stenerud had struck out.

Hello, Overtime.

Both teams failed to score in the first overtime. This included a 42-yard Stenerud blocked field goal, and a 52-yard missed field goal by Dolphins’ place kicker Garo Yepremian.

The game dragged on. Finally, halfway through the sixth quarter (yes, I said sixth quarter!)… Yepremian was given a reprieve. His 37-yard attempt was good and the Dolphins won 27-24.

What’s really neat about this game is that it featured (as of this writing) a total of 13 future Hall of Fame players. Also, Chiefs RB Ed Podolak had one of the greatest postseason performances ever. Podolak not only returned three kickoffs for 153 yards, as well as ran back two punts for two yards. The Iowa native pierced the Dolphins defensive line 17 times for 85 yards and scorched their secondary for eight passes for 110 yards. When the game ended, eighty-two minutes and 40 seconds later, Podolak had gained a combined total of 350 yards.

Game Four

    • Game Four: Joe Montana/John Elway Monday Night Shootout
    • Date: October 17, 1994
    • Opponent: Denver Broncos
    • Location: Mile High Stadium, Denver, CO
    • Score: 31-28 (Chiefs Win!)

Overview:  I must admit, this was my favorite game ever (other than Super Bowl LIV) as a Chiefs fan. I had just become a Chiefs fan earlier that year, a Joe Montana ‘refugee’. What a game it was!

A Monday Night affair, playing in the bright lights, it came down to Montana and Elway airing it out late in the fourth quarter. Fortunately, the better quarterback, dare I say, the GOAT, won. I mean, in the fourth quarter, them boys were giving out touchdowns like they were Oprah Winfrey!

It was dubbed by many an NFL fan and pundit as “A Game for the Ages.” I could wax eloquently about the back and forth, the this for that, which transpired by the two during the game… but, as they say, the proof is in the pudding.

Game Five

    • Game Five: Super Bowl LIV
    • Date: February 2, 2020
    • Opponent: San Francisco 49ers
    • Location: Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL
    • Score: 31-20 (Chiefs Win!)

Overview:  Really, guys?!? It’s only been a little over a month, however, suffice to say, Honey Badger and the Chiefs came through and Patrick Mahomes showed just why he will one day be the undeniable GOAT. You saw it. I need say nor write anything! Enjoy you princes and princesses of Super Bowl Champions.

But Wait There’s More!

If you read Arrowhead One regularly, you’ll notice that during the offseason, I opine little on things like the Combine, potential Chiefs draft picks, rumored trades, or even the NFL salary cap and implications. Instead, I like to travel down memory lane and foray into less popular, oft-times unorthodox and unconventional Chiefs subject matters. It appeals to my meticulous, eccentric tendencies as a Chiefs scribe. The answers why I shy away from the Combine, NFL draft, rumored trades, and the NFL salary cap are many but… here are my major reasons.

While it borders on blasphemy, I’m just not interested in the NFL Combine. Although I have two nephews who are assistant coaches at universities, I don’t pay attention to college football aside from flipping the channel to one of their games when they’re on TV hoping to spot them on the sidelines.

Truth be told, I only follow the St. Louis Cardinals if they are in the MLB playoffs, and the Blues only if they are in the Stanley Cup. Being a Kansas City Chiefs fan requires my full, undivided attention. Keep in mind, I cannot chew gum and walk at the same time, either. Multitasking is overrated!

Since I don’t follow college football and possible draft picks and rumored trades are just supposition. I shy away from speculation, conjecture, surmising, presuming, and even assuming. I like sure things. You know, like the Chiefs being Super Bowl Champions. That’s what’s hot on the street these days!

Rest assured, however, when the Chiefs make their draft picks in the NFL Draft next month, I’ll be all over that like a duck on a Junebug! Same goes for any blockbuster or unexpected Chiefs trades. That, too, I’ll cover like Honey Badger collecting rent in the Chiefs secondary.

As for the salary cap, it’s just too much math for me! I took my last math class in my sophomore year of high school and bid it good riddance. However, in my defense, I spent last Saturday morning researching and reading some articles in hope to gain some insight and understanding of the NFL salary cap. I kid you not: I was at the local bar by noon! I have never felt so impotent in impuissant, ineffectual, and inadequate in my life! It was absolutely soul-crushing! Drowning my sorrows worked and by the time I stumbled my way home eight hours later, my futile, pathetic attempt at understanding the NFL draft was a distant memory. I solemnly vowed never to delve into the murky waters of the NFL salary cap ever again, as I nursed my hangover the next day.

Besides, we have other writers here at Arrowhead One much better with those things. Between editor-in-chief, Laddie Morse, along with my fellow ArrowheadOne writers, David Perkins, Paul Pulley, Ransom Hawthorne, and the always stimulating and entertaining David Bell… they got this, Chiefs Kingdom. My trying to hang with them on these subjects is akin to a JFL player trying to compete with Patrick Mahomes for MVP!

My efforts are better spent on the quirky, nostalgic, off-the-wall pieces that give you fodder for thought on Monday mornings!

However, all of which I’ve written above is not the… But Wait There’s More.  The… But Wait There’s More, is that I need your help Chiefs Kingdom and ArrowheadOne readers.  With a sixty-year history, a paltry five games does not make much of a very complete Chieftastic list of Chieftastic games. In fact, it’s downright un-Chiefly!

There are at least ten other games that I’ve missed. Undoubtedly more, but let’s role with ten. That will bring our list of Chieftastic games to fifteen and “15” just seems like an incredibly lucky, wonderful, and Chieftastic number… if you’re a Chiefs fan. One could say it downright Mahomey!

So, I’m asking you, oh wise Chiefs fans, to let me know in the comments below, what games was I an absolute idiot to have missed? The combined Chiefs and general AFL and NFL knowledge is enough to sustain a small-sized Midwest city for at least a year, so I’m sure you guys will come through for me.

Besides, between ArrowheadOne readers, and the research I get to do, we are all sure to be more knowledgeable and savvy Chiefs fans by the start of next season and, you know, “the more you know!”… “the more you know!”

Michael Travis Rose — ArrowheadOne

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