Andy Reid and the perils of his proscrastinating Chiefs
It’s much too early in the 2016 season for Chiefs Kingdom to panic. Over the weekend, the Kansas City Chiefs fell 19-12 to an ascending Houston Texans team they’d beaten twice, on their home field, in the past calendar year. Unfortunately, for 60 football minutes on Sunday, the Chiefs restaged their Keystone Cops bit and did everything in their power to ensure that they left NRG Stadium 1-1. It was the second time, in as many weeks, that they sleepwalked through three quarters before coming alive in the final frame.
A significant portion of the team’s fan base has summarily dismissed head coach Andy Reid and company’s struggles. Let them tell it, it’s early still and the viable contender we expected the Chiefs to be, in the lead up to the regular season, will soon make its 2016 debut. Others see the Chiefs bumbling as an ominous foreshadowing of a Super Bowl dream deferred. While both sides have valid arguments, I tend to think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Last year, a five-game losing streak was Kansas City’s wake-up call. It’s unknown when the 2016 Chiefs will awaken from their early-season slumber. It’s tempting to believe these resilient Chiefs can overcome any adversity stacked against itself, but history’s a mythbuster, if nothing else. There’s a reason why making the postseason after a 1-5 start is practically a once-in-a-lifetime feat. It’s no mistake that winning a game you trailed by 21 points hadn’t happened in the team’s 56-year history. The odds overwhelmingly disfavor those kinds of surges.
One could easily romanticize the beauty of a football team that can conquer any challenge set before it, however; there’s a rather off-putting subtext to a team that seemingly only summons its best football when its back is against the wall. It suggests the team is ill-prepared and that its finer qualities are as fluky as they are predictable. That’s a sobering reality for a team with championship aspirations. Successful football in February demands consistency.
At some point, this team has to look itself in the mirror and be brutally honest about why it isn’t sufficiently prepared and motivated to start a game (or the season for that matter). Certainly we’ve seen examples of teams that needed ramp up time before reaching their full potential. The 2014 New England Patriots come to mind. They were routed by Reid’s Chiefs 41-14 before going on to win the Super Bowl. Kansas City wrote its own redemption song just one year ago, but just how likely is that to happen again, should the Chiefs dig themselves a similar hole?
Next: In conclusion...