Five genius changes that saved the KC Chiefs season
By Matt Conner
There was a point, not so long ago, that Chiefs Kingdom didn’t know what to make of the 2021 season. The Kansas City Chiefs were sitting for several consecutive weeks at the bottom of the AFC West. Any rival or AFC contender was walking away from a contest with K.C. with a victory, and a team that was a preseason favorite to reach its third consecutive Super Bowl was unrecognizable.
What do we mean by unrecognizable? Somehow a team known for its creative firepower had stalled at the worst times. A team known led by veteran leadership was making rookie mistakes. A team that boasted incredible cohesion and stability was suffering from miscommunication and sloppy habits. A defense that had multiple pillars was allowing every opponent to run roughshod for 60 minutes.
Despite suffering one embarrassing loss after another, after turning the ball over again and again, fans would hear the same thing out of Arrowhead on a weekly basis. The players knew what to do. They were confident they could fix it. They were going to make the adjustments and come back better. After a while, we stopped believing them.
The KC Chiefs season was saved with these five genius moves.
The bottom line was that even after several games, the consensus was that the Chiefs were unlikely to make the postseason. The Super Bowl hopes were long forgotten. The interest of many fans turned to the 2022 NFL Draft and the upcoming offseason since it was clear the Chiefs weren’t going to make any noise in 2021.
That is until they did.
As the Chiefs now prepare to face the Las Vegas Raiders for their sixth consecutive win, let’s look back at what turned the tide for the Chiefs, even as they still have some obvious adjustments to make going forward.