If there was someone out there who gave the Chiefs any chance to win in their match up against the Ravens Sunday I would sure like to meet them. Maybe there were some fanatical fans out there who thought they could pull it off. Those type of fans always think their teams can do the impossible. Cowboys' fans are notorious for that. But I'm a realist. I just didn't see that things were looking too good for my Chiefs. I wanted SO bad for them to prove me wrong. Too bad they couldn't oblige.
I will never understand the formula that the NFL uses to determine the Playoffs. I won't complain too much with the way things were set up for the Chiefs. You can't ask for more than having a Playoff game at home. But how is a team that wins their division relegated to a Wildcard game? Or how a team with a losing record at 7-9 (Seattle Seahawks) while another sits at home at 10-6 (New York Giants)? Of course, the Seahawks ended up winning so maybe that wasn't such a bad equation afterall.
Anyway, remember when I mentioned last week that E had said the Chiefs were trying to lull the Ravens into a false sense of security? Well it seems the Chiefs were trying to do that to their fans. They had one heck of a first quarter. The defense got off to a good start with a goal line stand that held the Ravens to 3 points when it looked like they had a guaranteed 7. They followed that with a forced fumble AND recovery by Tamba Hali. The momentum carried over to an amazing 41-yard touchdown run by Jamal Charles.
And that would be all of the good news for Kansas City for the rest of the day.
I think what happened was that huge run ticked off the Baltimore defense. They don't normally give up long runs like that. It made them mad enough to make sure it would NEVER happen again. But more than that, they made sure that the Chiefs wouldn't score again the rest of the game. They could do absolutely nothing right no matter what type of offensive schemes they tried to run. And the fact that the Chiefs didn't even bother to target Dwayne Bowe-- THE LEADING RECEIVER IN THE NFL -- certainly didn't help.
The Ravens went on to score 30 points in total, but I don't entirely blame the Chiefs defense. It's not fair to say that they couldn't stop the Ravens all day. They were tired from trying. Their offense couldn't manufacture any successful drives to keep the KC offense off the field. To make it worse, they kept putting their defense in crappy field position. The D did the best they could with what they had to work with.
I decided ealry on in the game that the person to make this final featured photo would be none other than Hali. Charles definitely made a good case for it with that lone touchdown run, but Hali continued to prove what a beast he could be on defense in that game. He became the first Kansas City defender to register a sack and fumble recovery in a postseason game since Neil Smith did it in January of 1993. Again, it wasn't his fault that the offense wasn't doing their part to make it a better game.
I guess we should be happy with the fact that our Chiefs had the season they did. Going 10-7, winning he AFC West and getting a Playoff appearance is quite a turnaround from last year's 4-12 debacle. Maybe we should relish that instead of the fact that they went out in the first round yet again. We're going to have to try to forget for now that they haven't won a Playoff game since 1993 while we cherish that they are back on track with a winning record. But we have a short memory when it comes to that. It better be a different story next season!
