Five reasons to still believe in the Kansas City Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs have lost two games in a row, but in the time it takes to read a single column, let’s find ways to be positive.

Before we begin, a quick list of words or phrases that are not allowed for the rest of this column (at least, I’ll try my best): injuries, penalties, play calling, officials, sore ankle, clock management, David Amerson.

The reason we seek to avoid such mentions should be clear: we need some positivity up in here. The last two weeks have been tough for the Kansas City Chiefs. We, this fan base, has been frustrated by the play calling (damn!), hurt by the clock management (damn!), beset by sloppy penalties (damn!), laid bare by numerous injuries (damn!), and maligned by NFL officials (damn!). Even our best player has a sore ankle (damn!).

Consecutive home losses will take the wind out of any team’s sails, but these Chiefs were destined for Super Bowl glory—or at least participation—so losing in such predictable ways at Arrowhead against the Colts and the Texans were not what anyone imagined for head coach Andy Reid and company in Weeks 5-6, especially after starting the year undefeated.

But here we are again, caught up in the negativity. Everyone else is writing about it, because everyone else is talking about it. These are dark days. But someone has to carry the torch. Someone has to be Samwise Gamgee or Olaf the Snowman. On this miserable day, I’m willing to play that part. Let’s look at the current Chiefs team with the sunny side up, like Doris at the diner says.

THE SEASON ARC

More important than anything else I can possibly note is the idea of the season’s arc. First a definition and then some reasons.

Every season has an arc, one that runs from the first days of September to the first days of February. That means, we are currently in the first half of the least important part of the NFL season—at least for the league’s better teams. For teams with playoff hopes or expectations (and the ability to get there), what happens during the course of the regular season doesn’t matter at all. This season’s arc still has a LOT of football left.

This is important to note for a couple key reasons:

First, this was said from the beginning but it needs to be restated here: The Kansas City Chiefs are going to be a very, very different team in Week 17 than they were in Week 1. The offense is very young and the defense is very fresh. Every week is another important round of new experiences inside of new schemes next to new teammates learning new ideas. Every good team will fail and when they do, they want to fail forward. Even the losses are learning experiences here, and for the Chiefs, that’s really all that matters—how much they are learning.

Second, unless it feels like the wheels are about to come off and the team might not make the postseason (a la the team’s 1-5 start back in 2015), there’s little need to panic about losing to a good team in the NFL. Every team gets beat from time to time. Sometimes good teams even lay eggs. The only teams (and fan bases) that linger on these things are teams without any real Super Bowl hopes. Those are the fan bases who circulate regular season stories.

The arc of this season is still being formed. The trajectory has not yet reached its zenith. Bob Sutton had six years; Steve Spagnuolo had six weeks. Why don’t we lay off of Frank Clark for cashing a bit paycheck and let him unpack his bags first? Why not allow Tyrann Mathieu and Juan Thornhill and Damien Wilson and Alex Okafor and Bashaud Breeland and Emmanuel Ogbah and Mo Claiborne more than 1.5 months to settle in next to each other?

There’s a lot of football left. The story has not yet been written on this Chiefs team. Errors can be corrected. Weaknesses can be identified and fixed. An identity can be formed. It all just takes longer than early September to early October.