The Kansas City Chiefs are (sort of) back on track

With the win over the Oakland Raiders, the Chiefs are kinda-sorta back on track to meet their preseason expectations.

Remember that comic strip

Family Circus

? For me, it was the comic I would usually gloss over on my way to

Calvin and Hobbes

reprints,

Fox Trot

jokes that I mostly understood, or a particularly-irreverent

Pearls Before Swine

storyline. I wasn’t making a point to keep up with

Family Circus

, but I remember it well enough.

Today, I realized that the Kansas City Chiefs have spent the 2017 season trapped in a Sunday panel of Family Circus.

Today, I realized that the #Chiefs are Jeffy from Family Circus.
At 7-6 and needing two of their last three to make the playoffs, this is about where I expected the Chiefs to end up this year. Just not at all how I expected them to get here. pic.twitter.com/cQw5EIkbLS
— Joshua Brisco (@jbbrisco) December 12, 2017

Before the season, the expectation for the Chiefs was to win a contested AFC West, crank out an above-average but not-pristine season, make the playoffs only to lose to the Steelers or Patriots, then recalibrate for next year with Patrick Mahomes taking over at quarterback. And Jeffy was expected to get the letters to the mailbox.

With all of the ups and downs of this season, the Chiefs got the letters to the mailbox. They just beat the Patriots, lost to the Giants, pet the dog and jumped on the couch before they got there. It wasn’t the most predictable path, to be sure, but they’re just about where we expected them to be.

So are the Chiefs back to being who we thought they were? Kind of. They’re back to being who we thought they would be back in the preseason. Not the Super Bowl contenders we saw in the first five weeks, and not the Cleveland Browns cover band we saw against the New York Giants, Buffalo Bills and New York Jets.

Also on today’s podcast: what we learned about the Chiefs yesterday, why the NFL should let players go into the stands, and what we saw from Alex Smith on Sunday.

Want to catch up on previous episodes or make sure not to miss one in the future? Make sure you check out the show on any number of these outlets and tune in for (Almost) Entirely Sports, weekdays from 4-6 p.m. on ESPN Kansas City: 1510 AM, 99.3 FM and 1510.com.

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Have ideas or questions for next week’s episode? Tweet @jbbrisco or send a Facebook message to facebook.com/rtkshow.

Subscribe to RTK on iTunes, get the show early, and never miss an episode. Roughing the Kicker is a Kansas City Chiefs podcast on Arrowhead Addict Radio. To support the show on Patreon, click here for more information.

Have ideas or questions for next week’s episode? Tweet @jbbrisco or send a Facebook message to facebook.com/rtkshow.

Subscribe to RTK on iTunes, get the show early, and never miss an episode. Roughing the Kicker is a Kansas City Chiefs podcast on Arrowhead Addict Radio. To support the show on Patreon, click here for more information.

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