KANSAS CITY, Mo. — No doubt there’s plenty to love about the 2-0 start by the Chiefs.
Over a five-day span, they pulverized the Cardinals 44-21 in Arizona and gritted out a 27-24 win over the Chargers at Arrowhead Stadium — a victory that hints at cultivating a find-a-way mindset and resolve that any truly great team needs to have in its repertoire.
That was most vivid and telling on a two-touchdown swing that unfolded on the improbable 99-yard interception return by rookie Jaylen Watson; the play was created in part by linebacker Willie Gay closing fast on Los Angeles quarterback Justin Herbert.
But there’s a fine line between making your own fortunes and prospering by unforced errors. Exhibit A among other candidates: the pivotal ones the Chargers surely would like to have back that enabled that game-changing play.
Now, the Chiefs may somehow have won without that twist. But it sure would have required a notable comeback against a formidable team.
So lest they fool themselves, best the Chiefs appreciate that the moment was as much about a gift presented as an opportunity seized.
What they did was big.
What they do with it is bigger.
Because knowing that, and understanding the difference between what’s real and the illusion of invulnerability, is the challenge that should drive them this week in particular.
Not to mention gird them for the road ahead.
All the more so considering how the AFC Championship Game was lost to the Bengals: with a second-half cave-in that coach Andy Reid has said was caused in part by the absence of a “certain attitude, certain edge that you’ve got to maintain.”
So that’s one of the most crucial elements the Chiefs have to develop over the course of the season. And it’s certainly part of what they have to navigate right now as they travel to winless Indianapolis, which tied Houston in the opener and then was blasted 24-0 by Jacksonville.
Simply put, the Chiefs are better than the Colts. Perhaps enough so that they could play a mediocre game and still prevail.
But this is about creating habits now. And the Chiefs need to avoid any notion they can ever relax … or just expect other teams to comply when they’re in need.
Even more than the faith that comes with winning as they did against the Chargers, that should be the abiding lesson from the game.
It’s a great thing to have the capacity for resolve in their wallet. At some point, though, you can max it out if you rely on it too much. Or as they used to say about our printer at a previous employer: The best way to keep it working is not to use it.
So if the Chiefs proceed with an inflated sense of achievement or entitlement or any notion they don’t have to improve, they are asking for an unsightly comeuppance this week.
Safe to say Reid is trying to convey the point.
“I know what (the Colts’) record is; you can put that aside,” Reid said on Monday. “This is their first game back at home, and they’ve got good talent and good coaches. So we need to have a good week of preparation going forward. And as you saw – or as we all saw yesterday with that day off – anything goes on any Sunday.
“So, I mean the parity in this league is unbelievable right now. I know the league strives for that and they sure look like they’ve got it. So, you better prepare yourself every week for a knockdown, drag-out battle.”
Even if he perhaps is overstating the broader case about parity, it’s a fine cause. Not so much for our consumption as the team’s.
Certainly, that’s something that Reid tunes into. He even was cognizant of it in the midst of celebrating a major victory over the Chargers.
“I try to listen to guys talking after the game, and I heard that. Like, ‘We’ve got to do a better job here, here and here,’” he said. “So, I think that’s important. If they’re talking (about) it before you have to get up there and hammer that point home, then that’s a good thing.
“I think they understand that.”
Of all the object lessons the Chiefs could take out of the Chargers game, one in particular speaks to the narrow edge between making a break and catching one. To reset:
Two plays before Watson’s return, with the score tied 17-17 early in the fourth quarter, Los Angeles tight end Gerald Everett caught a pass for 7 yards to the Kansas City 29-yard-line. On the next play, Everett caught a 26-yard pass for first and goal at the 3.
After that burst, Everett was depleted both from the preceding plays and a sore ankle he had suffered the week before against Las Vegas.
So much so that he tried to come out of the game.
“Trying to let one of my guys come in and get me instead of me being out there hurt,” he said afterward, according to the Los Angeles Times.
But the Chargers were in an up-tempo mode, trying to keep the Chiefs reeling, so Everett couldn’t get off the field.
Then when Herbert hurried his throw around Gay, he tried to throw to a spot he expected Everett to be in.
“I guess Justin thought I was going to box the guy out,” Everett said. “But (Watson) played it pretty well. He just kind of sat on it. I tried to stutter him and get to the pylon, but the ball was in the air by the time we realized we weren’t on the same page.”
Instead, Watson would say after the game, “The ball just ended up in my chest.”
Then the ball ended up in the opposite end zone, reversing the trajectory of the game.
“It was just kind of unlucky, what happened,” Chargers coach Brandon Staley said after the game. “It was unfortunate, we felt like we could push the pace and it didn’t work out.”
Unlucky, you might say, but also controllable.
Had the Chargers heeded the gasping Everett or opted to be methodical instead of hurrying, it may have worked out otherwise on a night they outplayed the Chiefs in many ways:
With 334 yards in the air, Herbert threw for 99 (there’s that number again) yards more than Patrick Mahomes. The Chargers had nearly a third more first downs (21-15), more than double the third- and fourth-down conversions (9-4) and half the penalties (3-6),
The Chiefs particularly struggled on third and shorts, enough so that that surely informed Reid’s decision to opt for a field goal on fourth and goal at the 1 early in the fourth quarter.
Plenty to clean up, in other words.
Because they won, all of that was a secondary story line.
As it should be: The story that night was how the Chiefs manufactured a victory that easily could have gone the other way. A victory that has the makings of becoming part of their DNA … if they understand it and handle it the right way.
Safety Justin Reid was right when he said those sorts of games build character and build confidence and show what can happen if you stick together in the crucible.
If that’s the only takeaway the Chiefs had from that game, though, they’ll go into Indy misaligned. They’ll lack of urgency that could cost them, especially given, as Reid put it, “there’s a lot of parity in this baby right now.”
Obviously, they could recover from that.
But for a team whose standard has become the AFC Championship Game and beyond, the path back demands getting better all the time. Including by embracing and developing that “certain attitude, certain edge that you’ve got to maintain.”
So it’s there for them when they need it most … and they’re better equipped to make their own luck in every way.
