Sport liftout
The dark shadow over Kansas
Under the Super Bowl lights, the Kansas City Chiefs are even more amusing, with charismatic personalities that match their engrossing style of play and a spirit that every team would love to clone. They’re fun, infectiously so, like basketball’s Golden State Warriors used to be. And at times, head coach Andy Reid can be so jolly you expect children to sit on his knee and ask for Christmas presents.
With a state-of-the-art offence and Patrick Mahomes, the most dynamic young quarterback in the NFL, they are the league’s aspirational franchise, entertaining and overpowering, and young enough to sustain excellence. But they’re also a team you would dread to see emulated, a squad with a concerning number of character risks brought in by a front office with a seemingly questionable moral compass, and a high tolerance for players linked to domestic violence.
The Chiefs are a complicated and polarising assortment of individuals. They’re so good for the game, but they’re so close to sending the dangerous message that, if a franchise is willing to absorb the initial negative publicity, the audacity to acquire talented players that others won’t even consider has a lot of competitive benefits.
They drafted tight end Travis Kelce even though he had been suspended for an entire season during college for failing a drug test. But that decision isn’t as stigmatising as drafting Tyreek Hill after the wide receiver was kicked off the Oklahoma State team and pleaded guilty to punching and choking his pregnant girlfriend in 2014.
The Chiefs are also the team that had to release their former star running back, Kareem Hunt, after TMZ exposed a video of him last season shoving and kicking a woman in a hotel. Undeterred, they traded for defensive end Frank Clark last offseason, a player who was arrested in 2014 on domestic violence charges and dismissed from Michigan. Then Kansas City signed him to a new contract with NZ$100m million in guaranteed money.
These are some of their most controversial decisions, and they wouldn’t be playing in Super Bowl LIV tomorrow without making most of them.
So, what do you do with such an admirable team that teeters on the brink of recklessness? Spend time scrutinising Kansas City up close, and the answer doesn’t become any clearer.
Before this season, I wrote that the Chiefs were ‘‘a ticking time bomb of character risks.’’ I called them ‘‘either the most understanding organisation in football or the most callous when it comes to domestic violence.’’ I declared ‘‘the cost of doing business in this manner is that they now epitomise the NFL’s long history of cluelessness in curbing the violence of its athletes, particularly toward women.’’
Last July, I thought I nailed it. Six months later, I’m not so sure.
It’s not because they made it to the Super Bowl and that an AFC championship forgives all. It’s because, in getting to really know and understand the Chiefs, I realise there should be more nuance in the discussion of their culture and team-building tactics. There is room to dislike their lenient character evaluations. There is room to hate that, like many teams, talent is their primary factor in determining how forgiving they are of players accused of doing vile things. And, I believe, there is also room to see something more.
Looking closely at the Chiefs, I’m willing to trust their intentions are more diverse than depicted because Reid is not only a father figure, but a father needing to transform pain into purpose after losing a son, Garrett, to a heroin overdose in 2012. He lives to win football games, but he also needs to turn around lives, to believe in second chances, and to make a tragedy result in something positive.
So he supports and often leads this effort to look at troubled players differently. Reid is doing so at a peculiar time, amid a long-overdue era of reckoning for all forms of male abuse and suppression of women. He doesn’t seem flippant about it or full of arrogant lenience. Because Reid has been so successful and classy during his career, he has the equity to receive some benefit of the doubt. But Kansas City can’t afford another Hunt video.
Which brings us back to Hill, who was also the subject of a child-abuse investigation last spring that ultimately led to no punishment from law enforcement or the NFL. But it included an excerpt of audio in which he threatened Crystal Espinal, the mother of his child, during an argument that she recorded.
That case was too muddled and odd, and everyone decided to move on. The Chiefs later agreed to a three-year, $80 million extension with Hill, a versatile playmaker and touchdown machine who may be the fastest player in the NFL. After a 2019 season of star production and no off-field problems, Kansas City consider their trust in Hill validated.
‘‘We certainly exhausted a tonne of resources to gather information and worked hand in hand with the league,’’ general manager Brett Veach said. ‘‘We certainly had the same information the league had, and we felt confident in the information that was presented before us. We’d been around the kid and kind of feel good about where he is and where he’s going.’’
Talk to Hill in this setting and he comes across as likeable. He’s not some cartoonish villain. He doesn’t act like a diva receiver. He talks about working hard. He’s humble and gracious. He’s not defensive. Teammates speak highly of him. But he’s also living his dream and who turns angry at a time like this?
The Chiefs say their culture has brought out the best in Hill.
‘‘I’m proud of him for that, to see growth in somebody,’’ Reid said. ‘‘You like to see that with these
Coach Andy Reid is not only a father figure, but a father needing to transform pain into purpose after losing a son, Garrett, to a heroin overdose in 2012.
young guys. He’s doing well as a father, and he’s doing well as a football player. And we’re lucky to have him.’’
For all the character risks they’ve taken, the Chiefs have been burned only by Hunt, who sought counselling for alcoholism and anger management after he left Kansas City. I still can’t rationalise their team-building audacity, especially in the current societal climate. But I also have no forceful counter to one question: How long should a player be punished with public shame after the authorities and the league are done with him? Consider Clark. As much as his acquisition felt like more of the same from the Chiefs, they will tell you they acquired a differencemaking player, who has stayed out of trouble for five years.
There’s no question the Chiefs have signed young men who have done bad things. It’s also true that the overwhelming majority of them have stayed out of trouble since joining. There’s a reason for that, according to Kelce.
‘‘I’m someone who did some things, who might have been considered a loose cannon early in my career. This organisation does an unbelievable job of helping guys find who they are as a professional and as people, and we learn how to conduct ourselves with that.’’
It doesn’t mean KC should get to do whatever they want without being held accountable. It does mean that there is more to the Chiefs story than an unapologetic pursuit of victory. In fact, it would be beneficial if they were more transparent about how they mould players.
So I don’t consider them a ticking time bomb. But KC and every franchise that finds reason to forgive violent players should explain themselves better, be proactive in understanding the reasons for the opposition to those decisions, and make some kind of contribution, monetary or with their time, to organisations that support abused women or seek to change aggressive male behaviour.