Will KC Chiefs finish their first undefeated season in six years?
Chiefs may not finish undefeated, but should win against Broncos
Sadly, we are so very close to another NFL season passing without pure magic. It has been six years since the New England Patriots went 16-0, and five years since the Detroit Lions went 0-16 in some beautiful twinned synchronicity, some mystical unlocking of a secret piece of the cosmos, and it has never come again. St. Louis went 1-15 in 2009, but won in Week 8; Green Bay went 15-1 in 2011, but lost with two games to go. It’s a short season, but achieving perfection, either way, is like brushing up against the face of football God.
What that tells us is that usually in football, God is away on business. When Jacksonville and Tampa Bay both won in Week 10, they escaped the possibility of an 0-16 season with room to spare. The Jaguars are really, really terrible. They are on pace to be outscored by an NFL-record 313 points even after beating Tennessee 2927 — the record in a 16-game season is a mere 274, by the 1981 Baltimore Colts, who went 2-14 — and even so, the Jaguars have that one win. They’re safe.
“Hopefully we can build on this,” Jacksonville quarterback Chad Henne said bravely after the win. “We can’t become complacent and say we got our first win.”
That is adorable and wrong, because nobody remembers the 1-15 teams. Did you know Miami went 1-15 in 2007? No, because who cares about Miami? The Dolphins are never really in the news, right? Oh. Well. Well, anyway, in football the game is so inherently randomized, with so many ways the ball can bounce, with all those moving, breakable parts, that even teams that start Chad Henne, Mark Sanchez, Tim Tebow, Derek Anderson, Jimmy Clausen, Christian Ponder, Blaine Gabbert, Rex Grossman, Colt McCoy, Tyler Thigpen, Kyle Orton, Joey Harrington, Vince Young, and Andrew Walter can win the odd game.
One time Andrew Walter completed 5 of 14 passes for 51 yards and an interception against the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Raiders had 98 net yards, and won. It was as if they started a guy from the local air conditioning repair college.
So chances at perfection should be cherished. The Colts were 14-0 in 2009 and then pulled Peyton Manning for Curtis Painter in two straight weeks. Curtis Painter seemed like a nice guy with a surfer haircut and also a degree in advanced sabotage. They could have gone 16-0, but instead chose to lose in the Super Bowl.
By the way, Curtis Painter started eight games the year Peyton was hurt, and went 0-8. They were the only eight games he ever started.
Now, there is only one hope, and it resides somewhere near the moustache of Andy Reid.
The Kansas City Chiefs are 9-0 thanks largely to road games against teams made up of mechanics and factory workers like the Jaguars and Bills, but this week they play Denver, who looked like they could be undefeated for a whole six weeks before they lost.
Nobody thinks the Chiefs will go undefeated, which means the stupid 1972 Miami Dolphins will gather and drink champagne and gloat about going undefeated. Those Dolphins nearly lost to the Jets and the Vikings, by the way. Had to come back both times. I wonder if the 1972 Jets and Vikings gather every year and greet one another with good cheer and then guzzle malt liquor and grumble before deciding to deface Mercury Morris’s mailbox again.
Last week this space went 8-6, which was oddly disappointing.
As always, all lines could change.
THE PICKS
Detroit (-2.5) at Pittsburgh
Suddenly there are rumblings that Ben Roethlisberger may want out of Pittsburgh due to concerns over contract and offensive direction, and he’s swearing he wants to retire a Steeler and they are all lies, lies, and basically the whole thing appears to be somewhere between a contract negotiation and a divorce.
Pick: Detroit
Washington (+3.5) at Philadelphia
In his last two games as a starter Eagles QB Nick Foles has thrown for 10 touchdowns and no interceptions, and wide receiver Riley Cooper has caught eight passes for 241 yards and five touchdowns, which is the kind of thing that forces announcers to tiptoe around that crazy racist thing Cooper said way back when.
Pick: Philadelphia
Arizona (-7) at Jacksonville
Here come the Jaguars! From the AP story on their lone win: “Owner Shad Khan gave first-year coach Gus Bradley a game ball, and the coach made sure both his boss and general manager David Caldwell each got one, too ... All the Jaguars will be receiving a game ball to remember this very big win.” How very sad.
Pick: Arizona
San Diego (-1) at Miami
Richie Incognito reportedly filed a grievance over his suspension and lost wages on Thursday, after FOX’s Jay Glazer conducted what at first glance appeared to be a pure PR-style interview with him on Sunday morning; it seemed less so on FOX’s website, where viewers can watch all 45 minutes of the interview.
Pick San Diego
Minnesota (+11.5) at Seattle
The Seahawks have lost that single one-possession game at Indianapolis, beaten everyone else they’ve played so physically that all but one lost the following week, and now will add presumably healthy wide receiver Percy Harvin to the offence, which is already sixth in the NFL in scoring. Heads up, NFL. Heads up.
Pick: Seattle
Kansas City (+7.5) at Denver
Peyton Manning has missed a practice here and there with an ankle injury, which has been taped up, and which is a concern for a team whose backup quarterback is the 6-foot-8, 240-pound Brock Osweiler. Also, it means Manning’s 40-yard dash time has probably dropped from about 7.4 seconds to something like an 8.3.
Pick: Kansas City
THE REST
N.Y. Jets (pick) at Buffalo Atlanta (pick) at Tampa Bay Oakland (+7) at Houston Baltimore (+3) at Chicago Cleveland (+5.5) at
Cincinnati Green Bay (+5) at N.Y. Giants
San Francisco (+3) at New
Orleans New England (+1) at Carolina Byes: Dallas, St. Louis
Last week: 8-6 Season: 70-73-3