The Kansas City Chiefs advanced to their first Super Bowl in 50 years on Sunday. For KC fans, its been a long road to finally get to this point.
The Kansas City Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl.
This is the 544th piece that I have written for Arrowhead Addict dating all the way back to 2010 and I can honestly say that I have never enjoyed writing the opening to a piece more. I’m still in shock. I actually teared up a little (again) just picking out the featured picture for this piece. It’s unreal. It’s amazing. I’ve dreamed of being able to write a piece like this for so long and, now that its finally here, I find myself at a loss for words to describe how much it all means.
The first time it really hit me hard was when Patrick Mahomes hit Sammy Watkins for that long touchdown to go up 35-17. I let the emotions bubble up for just a second, but still refused to really let my guard down. Then when Frank Clark sacked Ryan Tannehill on 4th down with under two minutes to go, it was official. I was overcome. As the seconds ticked down and the 35-24 win over the Tennessee Titans was official I was on cloud nine. Then the tidal wave of emotions really hit me when Chiefs owner Clark Hunt was finally able to lift the trophy with his dad’s name on it as red and gold confetti filled the air.
I’m sure every fan base feels a wave of emotion when their team makes it to the Super Bowl. I’m sure there are cheers and tears no matter how many times you have seen your team win. I know I’m biased, but I truly believe that for many of us long-time Kansas City Chiefs fans, the emotions are elevated by just how long it has taken us to get here. All the rough seasons, all the great seasons that ended in disaster, it all really feltl like heartbreak was a defining characteristic of being a Chiefs fan.
Some of you reading this may be old enough to have seen the Chiefs win Super Bowl IV; others may be new fans that just came on board thanks to Patrick Mahomes and this new era of Chiefs football. However, many of you reading this are like me. You have been a fan of this team for decades, but you’ve never seen the glory of those early Super Bowl-era teams. You have waited a lifetime to see the Chiefs make this game. That long road, that pain and disappointment, makes this moment all the sweeter.
So I thought on the day after the Kansas City Chiefs locked up their first Super Bowl appearance in 50 years, we should take a little walk down memory lane to see just what we’ve endured to get here. While the road was rough at times, I truly believe that this Super Bowl means that much more because of it.
January 7th, 1996 – The Lin Elliott Game
The Kansas City Chiefs finished the 1995 season at 13-3 and as one of the favorites to win the Super Bowl. The Chiefs first playoff game would be in the divisional round against the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts were 9-7 that season, but advanced to the second round with a win over the San Diego Chargers.
While the Chiefs offense wasn’t exactly a powerhouse, it was a typical Marty Schottenheimer team led by Derrick Thomas and a talented defense. The offense just needed to grind out enough points to get the job done. That might have happened in this game if kicker Lin Elliott hadn’t gone 0-3 on field goal attempts. Ultimately, the Chiefs would see their Super Bowl dreams crushed as they lost 10-7 to the Colts and quarterback Jim Harbaugh.
It’s the first time I remember being really devastated and heartbroken as a Chiefs fan. I remember being bummed when they lost to the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship game with Joe Montana a couple of years prior, but that didn’t feel like the failure this one did. It’s the first memory I have of being really angry after a game.
To this day, some Chiefs fans won’t say the name Lin Elliott. Some of you may even be mad at me for putting his actual name in this post for you to read—that’s how scarred some fans are by this team even 24 years later. I’m sure some of you have major Chiefs-related heartbreaks that date back much earlier than this game, but this was the first major one for me.
Here’s the wonderful thing. Today, it doesn’t matter. We finally made the Super Bowl. We aren’t cursed. It’s happening. Next stop on the redemption tour is an infamous Monday night game.
November 16th, 1998 – The Monday Night Meltdown
While most of the other stops on this long road are filled with playoff failuresm there is one regular season game that was as painful for me as any other game in Chiefs history. I loved Marty Schottenheimer. To this day he may be my favorite Kansas City Chiefs coach of all time. I wanted him to get a Super Bowl so badly. Then there was Derrick Thomas. My first Chiefs “idol”. Like Shottenheimer, I wanted him to get that moment to shine on the big stage of the Super Bowl.
Those guys were like royalty to me. As that game unfolded, ultimately ending in a 30-7 loss to their hated rival the Denver Broncos, my heart just broke. The team came completely unglued. Schottenheimer didn’t have control of the team. To make matters worse, on the famous meltdown drive where the K.C. defense had five penalties, it was Derrick Thomas that had three of them. He was out of control. I think it was the first time I remember being embarrassed by the actions of someone that I idolized.
I was 21 at the time, and it finally dawned on me that these guys weren’t ever going to get there. There wouldn’t be a “maybe next year.” These two men who were such a big part of my fandom were at the end of their run together and it was an ugly end. It still pains me to this day. Schottenheimer was gone at the end of that season and, even more tragically, Derrick Thomas would play only one more season for the Chiefs before his life was cut short.
While the Lin Elliott game made me angry, this was really when I experienced my first Chiefs heartbreak. That suffering lasted a very long time, but watching Clark Hunt hoist his dad’s trophy in Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday it felt like that long festering wound was finally healed.
While the defensive era of Marty Schottenheimer was essentially over after that game, there was an offensive era just around the corner that would be the next to crush my soul a little.
January 11th, 2004 – The No Punt Game
The 2003 season would bring another 13-3 season, another year of being a Super Bowl favorite, and another playoff match up with the Indianapolis Colts. However, this game would be the antithesis of the Lin Elliott game eight years prior. Instead of this game being a grind-it-out, low-scoring affair, this game would be an offensive shootout.
Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil brought his “Greatest Show on Turf” offense to Kansas City and the combination of Trent Green, Priest Holmes, and Tony Gonzalez looked poised to finally get the Chiefs to the promised land. The only problem? The defense was not very good and Peyton Manning was ready to match the Chiefs score for score.
At the end of the day neither team would punt a single time in the entire game and the Chiefs ended up on the end of a 38-31 loss. I think this was the day I really started to think that maybe us Chiefs fans were just destined to suffer. Maybe we had ticked off the football gods at some point and were just destined to suffer heartbreak again and again and again. On one hand, it was nice not to be a team with a losing record every year, but the way they looked like a Super Bowl caliber team and then ripped our hearts out—in some ways that hurt more.
When would it be our turn?
Well, it took another 16 years, but the answer is now. We aren’t cursed. It’s finally happening. However, the painful road had some more stops. Things had to get much darker, and thoughts of being good but losing in the playoffs being the worst thing that could happen to the team would be tested.
The Entire 2012 Season
I thought being really good and then flopping in the playoffs was as bad as it could get as a fan. I was wrong. The 2012 season taught me that. I couldn’t believe just how low things could get. It was as dark of time as I can remember for any team in any sport that I’ve ever followed.
Yes, the Chiefs went 2-14 and were the worst team in the NFL. That’s bad, but that wasn’t even close to the worst part. The team was an absolute embarrassment. They weren’t competitive. The coaching staff was incompetent. The front office was unhealthy.
In Week 5, the home fans cheered during a 9-6 loss to the Baltimore Ravens when Kyle Orton came in for an injured Matt Cassel. The fans were so happy to see some kind of change to the offense that it came across that they were glad Cassel was hurt. This would have received enough bad press on its own, but after the game Eric Winston took the fans to task for it in a locker room rant that just added fuel to the fire. The Chiefs were not only a mess, but now the greatest fans in the world looked bad, too.
The divide between the team and the fans would only widen. Eventually fans would rally around the “Save Our Chiefs” movement, wearing black to games and even flying banners over the stadium demanding that general manager Scott Pioli be fired. This still wasn’t rock bottom though.
Tragically, the awful product on the field and the fractured relationship with the fans would all take a back seat to real tragedy when linebacker Jovan Belcher would commit suicide at the team’s facilities after killing his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins. Words simply can’t describe how low things were in Chiefs Kingdom. It was the only time I ever remember thinking, “I’m not getting any joy out of this anymore. Something has to change”.
Luckily, something did change. While I would never wish a season like that on any fan base, there was one good thing that came from it. Clark Hunt cleaned house after that season and the result was Andy Reid‘s arrival to Kansas City. His introduction was the beginning of this Super Bowl run. He would bring new life to a franchise in its darkest hour, and I will be forever grateful to him for that. You can see how much this team wants to get Reid his Super Bowl win. I think they want it for him more than they want it for themselves and that says something.
While Reid’s arrival was the start of the turnaround, the heartbreak wasn’t over yet for Chiefs fans.
The Andy Reid Era Losses
The Chiefs have been on the right track since Andy Reid arrived in Kansas City, but the painful playoff losses have endured. Frankly, I could have done a full breakdown on four of his five playoff losses in Kansas City.
His first season ended with a brutal loss in Indianapolis where the Chiefs were up 31-10 at halftime and ended up losing 45-44 in the infamous Andrew Luck fumbles and still scores a touchdown game.
The next two seasons would see the Chiefs lose in New England in the divisional round and then at home to the Pittsburgh Steelers the following year in the “Eric Fisher Holding Call Game” where they would only score 16 points.
Then there was the equally infamous Marcus Mariota throws a touchdown pass to himself game where the Chiefs would lose by one point to the Tennessee Titans.
All these losses further cemented the “we’re bound to suffer, we’ll never make it to the Super Bowl” mentality in Chiefs fans. Seriously, how many other teams can have that many playoff losses so painful that we’ve named them? However, they also ultimately brought us to Patrick Mahomes. If the Chiefs hadn’t lost that game to the Steelers, they might not have traded up for Mahomes in the draft. If Alex Smith hadn’t lost to the Titans and took the Chiefs deeper in the playoffs, who knows when Mahomes might have seen the field. The Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl in large part because Patrick Mahomes is their quarterback. Period. That painful road led us to him.
Even Mahomes had to experience the Kansas City Chiefs playoff heartbreak for himself last season when they missed out on a trip to the Super Bowl by one Dee Ford offsides call. The “Dee Ford Game” was enough to make fans wonder if this brutal history of heartbreak was too much for even Mahomes to overcome.
As the Chiefs fell down by 24 points against the Houston Texans in the Divisional Round, we all thought it. “Oh no, not again!” Only this time the Chiefs really would say “Not again!” They rallied in furious fashion and then did the same on Sunday after an early 10-0 start by the Titans. Mahomes and this team would not be denied. There is no curse. There is no mandate for Chiefs suffering. The 50-year Super Bowl drought is over. Clark Hunt finally held the Lamar Hunt trophy up in victory. It’s really happening.
Every fan base feels amazing when their team makes it to the Super Bowl. I’m sure San Francisco 49ers fans are thrilled today too, but no other fan base can understand what this means to us as Chiefs fans. They don’t understand the road we’ve taken to get to this point. That’s why this feels so amazing. That’s why the tears flowed for so many after that game ended.
Soak this moment in Chiefs fans. Savor it. Even if we’re lucky enough to make it to multiple Super Bowls during the Mahomes era, it will never feel quite like this again. This win exorcised some demons that won’t ever return. Celebrate that. We’ve earned it and maybe, just maybe, from here on out we can define our history not by the heart breaking losses, but by the amazing victories like “The Comeback” against the Texans or “The Run” by Mahomes against the Titans.
The best part? They aren’t done. This isn’t the ultimate goal. As the confetti flew and the trophy was hoisted, Andy Reid had one last message for his team and all of Chiefs Kingdom.
“We love every minute of this, and we appreciate every minute of this, but it’s not done. It’s not done.” - Andy Reid pic.twitter.com/Ld9G1oRisE
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) January 19, 2020
No, it’s not done coach. There is one more game to win, but we can worry about that tomorrow. Right now I’m just going to enjoy the fact that for the first time in my lifetime, the first time in the 10 years and 544 posts I’ve had writing for this site, I can finally close my piece with the following:
The Kansas City Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl.