NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS Chiefs beat Titans to reach Super Bowl
KANSAS CITY – The Chiefs are in the Super Bowl, and before we get to anything else maybe we should say that again. The Chiefs are in the Super bowl. The Chiefs are in the Super Bowl. The. Chiefs. Are. In. The. Super Bowl. The last time that was true the world did not yet know about the internet. Heck, the internet? Most people didn’t even have color TV. Arrowhead
Stadium had not yet opened. Pat Mahomes was not yet born.
Twenty-five years later, his son Patrick was born.
The Chiefs beat the Tennessee Titans in the AFC Championship Game at Arrowhead Stadium, the same stage in which they lost by a coin flip last year, the same stage they had been just once in nearly a half-century before.
Clark Hunt can finally lift the trophy with his father’s name on it, the one Lamar never won, an accomplishment for the kid that dad never realized. This building shook with joy and release and relief and happy tears and Eddie Money’s “Take Me Home
Tonight.” This building has felt like this too rarely over the years, when the Chiefs have too often been good enough to break hearts.
This game will be remembered for so much. The Chiefs started slowly, again. Derrick Henry ran through defenders, again. Mahomes screamed encouragement, and Tyreek Hill was too fast. Again.
Mahomes made the best run of his life, and probably the best play of his life, considering the stakes. His scramble to the left, through the tackles of two defenders, then down the sideline and through three more at the goal line will live forever. If his career goes the way it looks to be headed, that play will be part of the montage before his Hall of Fame speech.
Men and women old enough to be grandparents have never seen this, and had to wonder if they ever would. Some of them, surely, watched with tears in their eyes.
The next two weeks will fill with an energy that can be approximated by the Royals’ runs in 2014 and 2015, except with a slow buildup to America’s most-watched television show instead of the daily grind of playoff baseball.
We will talk about an offense that set records a year ago and appears to have regained its mojo. We will talk about a defense so bad a year ago it was the only one in the league that could stop Mahomes, and now almost completely revamped, is a major part of why the Chiefs are on America’s biggest sports stage.
We will talk about Andy Reid’s quest to fill the only hole in a Hall of Fame coaching career. We will talk about Chris
Jones’ calf, and Tyrann Mathieu’s brain, and Tyreek Hill’s speed and Travis Kelce’s athleticism.
We will talk about how Mahomes changed a franchise, a fan base, a city, and a position.
The Chiefs have been an emerging “It” team anyway, but over the next two weeks the rest of the country will get to know Kansas City’s team in a way those of us here already do.
Mahomes will be the deserved star, but others will have their turns. Get ready for a new round of Dr. Laurent Duvernay-tardif stories, in other words. Mitchell Schwartz’s consistency will gain an audience. So too will Charvarius Ward’s climb and Mathieu’s life story and Kelce’s Hall of Fame case.
The decision to release Kareem Hunt will be reexamined. So will Hill’s guilty plea in college, and the investigation last summer.
The flyover thing is overstated, particularly in the digital age, but it’s probably true that Kansas City will have more national and international attention these next two weeks than ever before.
The Chiefs employ stars all over the field who are in or (even better) nearing their athletic prime. That includes the offensive line, the receivers, the defensive line, the secondary, and especially the quarterback. If you had to pick one franchise to have the most success in the new decade, you could do worse than the Chiefs.
They will need to win a Super Bowl – now or soon – to make this true but with the quarterback and head coach and so much talent in place this feels like the golden era of an original AFL franchise.