The formula for a Kansas City Chiefs squad with dynastic potential
“Adversity introduces a man to himself,” it has been claimed. Following their third Super Bowl victory in the previous five years, the Kansas City Chiefs have faced many difficult times as a club. Kansas City has actually been shaped by the fires of adversity. Prior to the franchise being able to navigate its way onto a championship runway, all of this started five years ago. Luckily, this company might have required the new gold standard in the National Football League.
The most memorable moment in this team’s legendary trajectory was their incredible comeback against the Houston Texans in the 2020 Divisional Round. The arc, in my opinion, started the season before. The Chiefs’ 2018 season came to an abrupt end when they lost in overtime to the Tom Brady-led Patriots in the AFC Championship Game. There were times when the stage proved to be too great for a young Chiefs squad, despite the fact that they went 12-4 throughout the regular season and eventually hosted the conference championship game.
During the 2018 season, Kansas City won its first five games. They easily defeated every opponent they faced, winning by an average of 9.2 points per contest. A Sunday night game against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium marked the first loss of that season. The Patriots had just returned from two consecutive Super Bowl appearances, in Super Bowl LI and LII, at that point. The Chiefs’ extreme inexperience was evident during that game on Sunday night. With three minutes left in regulation, the score was tied at 40 points apiece. In the final seconds of the match, a 28-yard field goal by Stephen Gostkowski would seal the game’s defeat for Kansas City.
It’s important to reflect on the Chiefs’ journey to NFL immortality in the wake of their dynasty-clinching victory.
Three of the Chiefs’ final six games, which were all nationally broadcast, would end in defeat. Kansas City won four straight games after losing to New England, improving their record to 9-1. In what turned out to be the ultimate slugfest between two dominant NFL offenses, they squared up against the Los Angeles Rams in Week 11. They would eventually lose that match. They lost by a single point in their other two games, which they suffered in back-to-back weeks against the Chargers and Seahawks. For the Kansas City Chiefs that season, primetime was a nightmare.
A second heartbreaking loss to the Patriots in the AFC championship game was the culmination of all of this. We all know that concluded with a two-yard touchdown run by Rex Burkhead, so I won’t recap it for you. The chiefs were just not prepared to handle crises at this level of development. Kansas City did not have the advantage of having played high-stakes games before, and the postseason lights were too bright for them. Even though there were bad experiences, they would come in handy the next season.
Let’s revisit our 2020 Divisional Round matchup with the Texans that I mentioned previously in this piece. That game started with a 24-point disadvantage due to a string of unlucky circumstances. The Chiefs own a piece of the fifth-greatest postseason comeback in league history as of right now. Because people were accustomed to facing hardship, Kansas City was able to overcome an apparently impossible level of suffering. The difficult lesson that sparked a championship run was 2018’s. Everybody has seen the NFL film footage, where players are shown to be composed even when they are behind four touchdowns. Later on, Kansas City would completely erase that lead and win by a score of 20 points.
This plot would be repeated by Kansas City the following week against the Titans in the AFC Championship Game and two weeks later in Super Bowl LIV, their first-ever meeting with the San Francisco 49ers. In every game they played to win the first of their three NFL titles, they were behind by double digits. In the most intense parts of the game, they maintain an incomprehensible degree of calm. Simply put, they remain composed in circumstances where most teams would break down.
Their opening nine offensive plays in Super Bowl LVIII were as follows: punt, fumble, punt, field goal, interception, punt, field goal, punt. Though the Chiefs had been pounded in the trenches up to that point in the game, it is true that they were only behind by two scores for roughly four minutes of regulation. To others, it appeared to be the start of the Los Angeles Rams’ Super Bowl LV defeat. The defense had given up three drives of forty-six yards or more, and there were just no offensive solutions. The Chiefs trailed by just seven points at the half after cutting the margin to just one score. Despite the lengthy halftime display, the team’s offensive problems persisted, as they scored on their final four possessions.
Adversity has molded Kansas City in such a way that it can maintain composure when a game starts to elude it.In postseason games, Patrick Mahomes is 9-2 when trailing by seven or more scores. Since 1950, all other quarterbacks in this scenario have had a record below 500. In the NFL, experience is a valuable asset, and this franchise has experience here. They’ve made history with it, and the worrying thing for the other teams in the league is that they might not be done yet.
