KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In a meeting with reporters in his Missouri Western dorm room near the end of training camp in St. Joseph, Chiefs coach Andy Reid repeatedly was asked about the popular perception that the AFC West, and the AFC itself by extension, had radically ramped up.
The implication from pundits around the country, after all, was that one of the upstarts was ready to usurp the team’s now-perennial dibs on the division.
“You can take it as a badge of honor (or) crawl under the desk and be afraid,” Reid said then. “My thing is, listen, let’s go. … We’re not chopped liver out there.”
Some quibbles and exasperating lapses notwithstanding, the Chiefs fourth months later have demonstrated they are anything but the term defined by Merriam-Webster as “one that is insignificant or not worth considering.”
So much so that after his Chiefs stiff-armed Seattle, 24-10, on Saturday at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium to improve to 12-3 and stay in contention for the overall AFC No. 1 seed, the normally restrained Reid basked in the moment.
Not by donning a Santa Claus suit for his postgame media appearance like he did in 2017, alas, but with his animated response in the locker room to the Christmas gift of a boxed burger presented by Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.
“Hey, hey, hey. Thank you. May you all get a gift as great as this,” Reid told the team, before raising his arm and declaring, “Cheeseburgers in paradise, baby.”
Extolling the virtues of cheeseburgers is Reid’s go-to code for expressing deep contentment — such as declaring he would eat the biggest cheeseburger you’ve ever seen after the Chiefs won Super Bowl LIV.
Not that he’s getting ahead of himself here.
But right here, right now, there sure is a lot to feel good about if you are Reid or a Chiefs fan.
Especially late in a season that theoretically could have been one step back for two steps forward later in the wake of the Tyreek Hill trade and a youth movement on defense … particularly in the secondary.
A season that figured to at least be competitive in the AFC West (which the Chiefs clinched last week) and in which top conference seeding was ceded by many to Buffalo — which also is 12-3 and holds the tiebreaker with its victory over the Chiefs in October but has to play at Cincinnati next week.
Look, there’s no way to know where this is all going.
But on a day that reinforced Mahomes’ candidacy for most valuable player, particularly on the key fourth-quarter drive that ended with his touchdown run to make it 24-3, the Chiefs flexed some other dimensions, too.
Rookie running back Isiah Pacheco is getting better by the game, and counterpart Jerick McKinnon is single handedly making the offense more versatile with his burgeoning receiving game.
On a wretchedly cold day with sub-zero wind chill at kickoff, the Chiefs broke a nine-game streak of turning the ball over.
Kicker Harrison Butker was flawless amid his inconsistent season.
Most reassuring of all, though, the defense stopped Seattle on downs three times in Chiefs territory. And Juan Thornhill’s end zone interception snuffed out the Seahawks’ best chance to make it a one-score game after the Chiefs took a 17-0 first-half lead.
What came with that was some complementary football, with Reid and Mahomes each stressing that they became more risk averse (particularly given the conditions) with the defense muzzling Seattle.
“For our defense to stop them in so many critical moments, that’s what we need going forward,” Mahomes said. “When they play like that, we’re going to be a hard team to beat.”
Reid called the sequence of fourth-down stops “unbelievable” and added, “Lot of intestinal fortitude right there.”
You could say the same about the mindset that reflected in this team after its last two games (eking out wins over woeful Denver and Houston teams) made you wonder about its intensity.
“I believe it shows how much grit we have,” defensive end Frank Clark said. “And that starts in camp. When you’re out there … (and) things (are) getting tough out there in 100-degree weather in St. Joseph, you know, you think about these things.
“You’re out there in five-degree weather, in the tundra in Kansas City, you think about those things.”
The Chiefs, of course, still are free to surge or ebb in the weeks to come that will define the season.
Maybe they’re on their way to a fifth straight AFC title game and even a third Super Bowl in four seasons … or maybe they’ll fizzle.
But Clark will tell you the complacency he sensed the last couple seasons after the Super Bowl triumph has been purged through leadership in the locker room.
And it’s a point he believes was evident in the workmanlike way the Chiefs showed up Saturday a week after clinching the division.
“If you watch enough football, you’ll see teams get complacent once they get those hats (for winning a division) …” he said. “Here in Kansas City, we’re not complacent. We always strive for more. We want more.”
They’re also decidedly not chopped liver. And even if this isn’t paradise at this stage, well, you could see it from here on Saturday.
