How the Kansas City Chiefs choked away a Super Bowl

The Offense Didn’t Go Down Swinging

If the Chiefs had fallen just short in their epic showdown with the Buffalo Bills last week, I would have been bummed, but I wouldn’t have been upset. If you watch your team give it all they’ve got and they go down swinging, you just have to tip your hat to the other team and move on. I just don’t think any Chiefs fan can feel like that’s what we saw in this game. Yes, the Bengals’ defense played better in the second half, but the Chiefs’ offense is capable of scoring on ANY defense. Period.

The Chiefs screwed up that final possession before halftime and it’s like it broke them. They came out flat, lifeless, and ineffective after halftime and they never snapped out of it. How can that happen? I was calm about it all the way up to about midway through the 4th quarter because I just assumed the offense would snap out of it and come through in the clutch like they usually do. I was wrong. They just sleepwalked right up to the bitter end.

The reasonable part of my brain knows that it’s not possible for me to care more about the Chiefs winning than the players do. I know that. It’s their life. They have to want it, but here I am pacing the living room for the entire fourth quarter clapping at the TV, trying to pump up players who I know can’t hear me “Let’s go, boys! Time to kick this thing in gear! You got this! It’s go time!”. I know many of you were doing the same.

Then the camera pans to the Chiefs offensive players sitting on the bench. They’re just sitting there staring forward with blank looks on their faces. What!? I get you don’t want to freak out. I get that there is value in staying calm under pressure, but where was the emotion? It certainly doesn’t justify playing flat with a chance to go to the Super Bowl. Even on the drive to tie the game at the end of regulation, there was no fire. No energy. I don’t get it. Where was “The Reaper”?

If you’re going to throw away most of the second half and not stress because you know you’re going to go into clutch mode when it matters, then by God you better damn well make sure you kick it into clutch mode. They didn’t. That’s what is just going to eat away at me for a while. How does that offense not go down swinging?

Even the overtime approach was bad. At that point, I would have been in four down mode from the jump. A punt from that point in the field is really no different than the interception that Mahomes threw. If you go in with a four-down mindset, then you don’t have to throw a YOLO ball like that on third down. The whole thing from the play calling, to the mindset, to the energy, to the execution, was all about as bad as it could be at the absolute worst possible time.

Sigh…

You might have some other complaints about this loss, but for me, those three were by far the biggest and the rest is just nit-picking. If the Chiefs score before halftime they might win that game. If the defensive line dominated that bad offensive line and sack Burrow a few more times they might win that game. If the offense doesn’t lifelessly sleepwalk through the second half and overtime, they definitely don’t lose that game. That’s all I got right now.

Next week maybe I’ll have a positive outlook on the future. Maybe by then, I’ll be excited about the draft and free agency. Right now all I have is frustration and disappointment because the team I love choked away a chance to go to their third straight Super Bowl.