Exploring why KC Chiefs aren’t playing in Germany in 2022

Let’s take a look at a potential reason why the Kansas City Chiefs are going to wait another year or more to play in Munich in 2022.

It felt as if the Kansas City Chiefs already had their bags packed for Munich. As it turns out, the organization is going to have to wait a year.

The NFL announced the slate of international games that will be played for the 2022 NFL season and when the first-ever contest in Germany was announced, the Seattle Seahawks and Tampa Bay Buccaneers were the names called. What seemed like an exciting proposal was left on the table, and the anticipated Bucs vs. Chiefs matchup in Munich was realized as fiction.

Looking at the bigger picture, however, the idea of leaving the Chiefs at home this year makes sense. It doesn’t make for the most exciting football in ’22, and it doesn’t get the Chiefs through the door as soon as they’d like, but it’s the proper plan from 30,000 feet all the same.

Earlier this year, the league announced a new global marketing plan. Every NFL franchise had to apply to advertise, so to speak, in emerging countries into which the NFL is trying to make inroads—calling them Home Marketing Areas. When it came to Germany, four NFL teams were “awarded” the chance to expand their franchise’s popularity in Germany. This gives any team awarded the territory a chance to host in-person events, create marketing opportunities, host youth football camps, and, of course, play an actual regular-season game.

The Chiefs, Carolina Panthers, Seahawks, and Buccaneers were awarded the rights to Germany, and the league simultaneously announced that Frankfurt and Munich would alternate as host cities for one regular-season game per year over the next four years.

Immediately, analysts and fans began to predict that the Chiefs and Bucs might play in 2022 in FC Bayern Munich Stadium. The teams were already slated to play each other due to the NFL’s rotation, so they just needed to set the time and place. Yet on Wednesday, the NFL announced the Seahawks and Bucs instead. So much for that idea.

But here’s the thing: it’s clear the Carolina Panthers are a rudderless organization. They traded for Sam Darnold as a starting quarterback in ’21 and they still haven’t improved their options at the position. If the Panthers were picking a new head coach as soon as next winter, no one would be surprised, and they will remain an inferior product for quite some time. The Seahawks aren’t looking much better with Drew Lock at the helm after having traded Russell Wilson.

The Bucs, on the other hand, are going to be one of the NFL’s most desirable draws as long as Tom Brady remains under center. The Chiefs are an even better team to have linked to Germany knowing the long-term situation at quarterback features Patrick Mahomes leading a franchise that will likely be in the Super Bowl hunt for the next decade.

The NFL playing a game in Germany is already going to be a novelty, which means they shouldn’t have any issues drawing a crowd. Let’s be honest, the NFL has been dumping the Jacksonville Jaguars on London every year for some time. That’s why the league can roll out the Bucs, while Brady is still the quarterback, against a middling team like the Seahawks and then rotate in the Chiefs next year—the only team of the four that’s practically guaranteed to be entertaining.

It’s not as fun as watching Brady vs. Mahomes in Munich for the first-ever NFL game in Germany, but it makes the most sense in the long-term. Otherwise, the league could be leaning on Seattle vs. Carolina in Frankfurt for a game that no one really cares to see, one that deflates the momentum just one year into their expansion into Germany.