Mellinger Minutes: a surprising Chiefs fact, and can a 12-1 team really be frustrating?
Full disclosure, this space was originally going to be a response to the Cleveland Indians’ announcement of their upcoming name change putting the Chiefs back into at least one more news cycle.
Those words turned into this column, which the bosses wanted as a standalone, and obviously I hope you read it. This is a complicated issue, and one that too often gets distilled into either Yes It’s Offensive Change It Yesterday or Only Snowflakes Are Offended Stop The Capitulating.
It’s not as simple as either of those stances. I tried to explain what I mean by that. Again, please read if you’re at all interested in that issue.
But, here we are then, a time-suck still in need of a top, which is a good place to highlight a stat from the brilliant Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders:
That’s interesting in a lot of ways, and not just for the joke about the Chiefs’ variance coming within games, and not from game to game. But the thought of them as the league’s most consistent performer is particularly relevant: Much of the moment’s discussion around the Chiefs is about why they can’t put teams away.
To be sure, that is a discussion worth having.
But it’s also interesting to see that they are the most statistically consistent team in a league that makes consistency difficult. That’s an extremely valuable thing when coupled with what I believe to be an uncontroversial opinion, which is that the Chiefs’ A+ game is better than anyone else’s A+ game.
If you agree with me on that, then you agree that the Chiefs deploy the league’s most reliable performance AND its highest ceiling.
That’s a remarkable pairing.
This week’s eating recommendation is the ribeye at the Majestic, and the reading recommendation is Rustin Dodd on Steve Nash’s love for pickup soccer.
Thanks to everyone who’s listened to our Mellinger Minutes For Your Ears podcast, and here is a big, warm invitation to start if you haven’t already. We’re out from behind the paywall and free on Apple or Spotify or Stitcher or wherever you get your shows.
Reminder: If you’d like to participate in the show — and I’d love for you to do that — please call 816-234-4365 and leave your first name, where you’re calling from, and almost literally any question.
Please give me a follow on Twitter and Facebook and, as always, thanks for your help and thanks for reading.
If you read this space regularly, you’ve probably noticed this, but we like the first question to be either objectively funny, capture the general mood of the moment, or both.
I’m not sure we’ve had many questions better qualified for the leadoff spot.
Some of you are acting like the Chiefs are something other than the consensus, wire-to-now best team in the league, 12-1 on the season and 22-1 in the last 400 days, with a Super Bowl win.
Some of you are acting like the Chiefs have something other than the league’s best quarterback surrounded by a shameless collection of playmaking talent and coaching innovation at a moment when the league has never tilted more toward quarterbacks, playmakers and innovation.
The Chiefs are breaking the rules of football, because you’re not supposed to be able to commit four turnovers, take a 30-yard sack and still beat a playoff-caliber team on the road.
This is absurd, but assuming I did Pro Football Reference’s database correctly NFL teams are now 153-1,880 when committing four turnovers or more and forcing one or fewer.
Patrick Mahomes is 1-0 all-time in that situation. They’ve now won seven straight games when trailing by 10 or more. These are facts, and yet they are also nonsense.
I do not mean to say the Chiefs are perfect, or that they don’t have anything to work on. Of course they do.
We can all watch the games and see the interior of the offensive line is soft, the pass protection (particularly without Mitchell Schwartz) is inconsistent and the pass rush isn’t always there (and when it’s not the coverage often doesn’t hold up). Lately, we’ve seen the defense struggle in the fourth quarter.
Those are all real flaws, and any of them could torpedo the Chiefs’ postseason.
But football does not allow for perfection, and no matter who the Chiefs see in the playoffs the other team will have its own flaws and won’t have the comfort of so many strengths to make up for it.
The Chiefs have earned these high standards. They are the Super Bowl champions, for crying out loud, and have been clear and consistent that one Super Bowl is not enough. They should be analyzed and judged differently than Reid’s first team, which started 9-0 at a time when something close to competence would’ve been a success.
But when we talk about the flaws, let’s not lose track of the fact that the team’s strengths are so impressive and varied that they’ve been the league’s most successful team over the last three seasons.
I’m not sure I’ll ever stop marveling at how Mahomes does not play poorly. You guys, he just played his worst game of the season and completed 71 percent of his passes for 393 yards and two touchdowns.
I AM SCREAMING INTO THE INTERNET RIGHT NOW AT THE ABSURDITY OF THIS.
At some point, getting up by 10 in the first half against the Chiefs must feel terrible, like you have this natural joy and energy from playing well but also this understanding that your happiness is about to be crushed in an onslaught of Kelce making crazy catches and Hill running past your safeties.
This is part of the point of the moment, too.
Yes, the Chiefs have flaws. Football as a sport and the NFL as a league demand teams have flaws.
But Mahomes changes the rules. He overcomes flaws that other quarterbacks can’t.
That doesn’t guarantee the Chiefs will win the Super Bowl. The best teams often don’t win the Super Bowl.
But it does mean that whatever flaws we talk about with the Chiefs we should also understand that 31 other teams would trade problems.
I’d be interested to see the data on this, Ethan, but do you know anyone who could run the numbers?
My eye test says that Andy Reid’s most natural state includes a lot of the conservatism of football coaches of a certain age. It has often been said that more football games are lost than won, and I believe Reid leans that way
For years — and this is mostly in the pre-Mahomes years, or B.M. — Reid and the Chiefs had a reputation for leading big at halftime and then scrambling in the fourth quarter to secure the win.
I thought that was mostly gone, but the 2020 Chiefs have shown an inability to put teams away. We’ve seen that, in various forms and degrees, in each of the last five wins.
My belief is that this can be more fairly blamed on the defense than the offense. In the fourth quarters against the Panthers, Raiders in Las Vegas, Bucs and Dolphins, the Chiefs have given up 59 points. That is unsustainable for a Super Bowl champion.
But I also believe that the Chiefs rise or fall with their offense, and that the standards should be higher for that group than the defense.
And in that way, yes, Mahomes and Reid need to figure out better ways to consistently move the ball with a lead and the opponent turning up the aggression. Most of this, I suspect, is about execution — the Dolphins game looks a lot different if Mecole Hardman doesn’t fumble inside the 20 in the third quarter.
But the broader criticism of Reid going too conservative feels outdated to me. I’ve seen Reid call shot plays, or at least plays with deep options, no matter the score.
The answer, as it often does, comes through execution. And I do wonder if the human tendency to glide a little with a lead comes into play at times.
The thing is, I’m not sure the margins are that slim. Not by NFL standards, anyway.
The Chiefs have lost once in 13 games. That’s pretty good, and a better margin than any other team in the league.
But let’s go one step more. How many of the wins were worse than 50-50 propositions for the Chiefs late?
Maybe the Chargers and Raiders?
The other one-score wins — Panthers, Bucs, Broncos, Dolphins — can be better described as a beaten opponent left unburied.
I thought the two most relevant things said in the Chiefs’ post-game availability Sunday came from Tyrann Mathieu and Patrick Mahomes.
“I think any time we have the opportunity to kind of close the coffin on teams, we’ve gotta do that,” Mathieu said.
“I feel like this team plays better with their backs up against the wall,” Mahomes said.
We can, have and should spend time talking about what Mathieu said.
But we’re unreasonable if we ignore what Mahomes said.
Time will tell, but this hypothetical isn’t as important as the idea that this team plays its best in the biggest moments. That is an invaluable trait, by the way, and an illustration of the difference between a group like the as-currently-constructed Ravens and a Super Bowl championship.
The Chiefs have won “just” one Super Bowl, but the DNA is apparent when you look at three consecutive double-digit comebacks in the playoffs and a 12-1 follow-up that (with the exception of the first half against the Ravens, last 1:41 in Las Vegas and first quarter against the Bucs) has not included the Chiefs’ best version of themselves.
That’s a beast of an opponent: accomplished and ambitious, talented and cool, explosive as a baseline and clutch when they need it.
The postseason could make this all look like a house of cards, of course. Derrick Henry is capable of rushing for 200 yards and ruining an afternoon. The Steelers have enough on defense to challenge the Chiefs. The Bills look much better than the version the Chiefs beat in an after-school Monday kickoff, and the Browns are interesting.
But the difference is that those teams are probably going to need their best to beat the Chiefs. The Chiefs are showing they can get by with something less, and that a game’s suspense can be eliminated with their best.
This point should’ve been reiterated earlier, but nobody can tell you how to fan. If your natural state is to worry, then worry. If it’s to expect nothing but touchdowns and rainbows, then do that. If it’s to wait for the highlights, or analyze the blitz schemes, or scream every time Clyde Edwards-Helaire takes a handoff up the middle, then the world is yours.
All that said, sure, yes, absolutely what you’re saying makes sense.
The Chiefs, if we’re honest, have not been about the regular season for quite some time. This is their sixth consecutive postseason and by my count the fourth or fifth consecutive season that anything less than a postseason appearances would be an abject failure.
Their standards are different, and that’s been especially true the last three seasons, when the league-mandated 16-game prelude to the postseason was less about the Chiefs surviving than about them creating their best self for January (and then February).
The truth is the Chiefs could lose 45-0 to the Saints on Sunday and it wouldn’t tangibly change a dang thing.
They would still be the AFC’s top seed*, the Super Bowl favorite and in line for a first-round bye.
* Even assuming the Steelers beat the Bengals on Monday, their loss to the Bills means they and the Chiefs each have one AFC loss and, because the Chiefs beat the Bills in Week 6, would give the Chiefs the tiebreaker based on common opponents.
Even if they eventually slipped to the No. 2 seed, well, we’ve seen the Chiefs do well from that spot before, right?
This is natural. We’re all friends here, in the trust tree, so I can tell you that the first ribs I ever had came from Chili’s. The first wing I ever ate was at Applebee’s. And you know what?
I thought both were pretty darn good.
I’d eat either again, by the way, but now that I’ve had ribs from Joe’s and wings from the Peanut my standards have changed.
I think that’s applicable here. The wins are nice, and the touchdowns fun. But once you’ve lived through Jet Chip Wasp, it’s only natural to be a little harder to please.
Well, let’s make sure we’re keeping things in perspective.
Edwards-Helaire is fourth among rookies in scrimmage yards. He’s 28 yards behind third (Jonathan Taylor), and 63 yards behind Justin Jefferson, who has played one more game and who everyone agrees is a star.
He’s a productive player, if not quite what some of us envisioned when the Chiefs made him the draft’s RB1.
You may remember my reaction to his selection. I thought the Chiefs should’ve gone with a different position there but could see what they saw and was intrigued by the possibilities.
I know a lot of you are underwhelmed with him as a rusher. He’s averaging 4.3 yards per carry, which is league average. But I believe a running back’s effectiveness as a rusher is more a product of his surroundings — offensive line, schemes, etc. — than his own individual talent.
The place where I expected more from Edwards-Helaire was as a receiver. LSU lined him up in the slot and even as an outside receiver, letting him win routes against linebackers, safeties and even corners.
Edwards-Helaire is a more gifted pass-catcher than the Chiefs have had at that position since Kareem Hunt, and maybe longer. With so much (deserved) attention on Hill and Kelce, I thought Edwards-Helaire would be a nightmare for defenses who would be stuck deciding whether to treat him as a runner (and defend him with a linebacker) or a receiver (and put an extra defensive back on the field).
Edwards-Helaire has 35 catches, which is tied for third on the team, so he hasn’t been ineffective there. I just thought we’d see more. I thought he’d be a reliable safety valve, with the wiggle to break a dump-off or two for a big gain many times.
That’s the part we haven’t seen, and I understand just enough about how the Chiefs operate to know I don’t fully understand what part of that is scheme, what part is on Edwards-Helaire, what part is on game flow and so on.
Taking Edwards-Helaire when talented defenders like Antoine Winfield were available was always a bold choice, a luxury, an emphatic adherence to the Chiefs’ philosophy of keeping their strengths strong.
I never agreed with the pick, even as I was fascinated by the possibilities. If the Chiefs can find ways to more heavily involve him in the passing game — to turn him into a legitimate third game-breaking threat — then the pick will be easy to justify.
It’s also worth noting that, even though Damien Williams opted out after the draft, the Chiefs would be in a terrible spot at that position if they hadn’t selected a running back.
But as it stands right now, it’s hard to imagine this is what they expected with the 32nd pick.
There is a 0.0 percent chance that Reid would risk injury to one of his stars just so they could chase some individual award or yardage record.
To be clear: not a 0.1 percent chance, or 0.01 or even 0.0000000000000001. The number is zero.
Reid’s history on this is clear. When playoff seeding is secure, he rests guys. The closest you could come to an exception might be when Mitchell Schwartz played Week 17 against Denver in 2017, which from now until eternity will be remembered as the OH MY GOD THE PASS TO DEMARCUS ROBINSON game.
Schwartz was protecting a consecutive snaps played streak that eventually reached 7,894, but he also made a case to Reid to play, was (and is) the team’s best pass blocker for a game in which they were playing the team’s most precious asset, and, besides, NFL teams don’t have enough linemen for all of them to rest.
Also, guys, voters know who plays Week 17 and who doesn’t. They’re smart enough to account for that.
All that said, I guess we’re going to talk about the MVP race every week now, and I remain unconvinced that Mahomes is the clear favorite.
He has now thrown one more interception and six fewer touchdowns than Rodgers, and he quarterbacks a team with significantly more playmaking talent, not to mention one of the modern NFL’s best coaches.
Mahomes has his case, and his best data point is his consistency — he doesn’t have a whiff like Rodgers going 16-for-35 for 160 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions (one a pick-6) in a 38-10 blowout loss to the Bucs.
But the case isn’t the same as it was before Sunday, when he had an all-time touchdown-to-interception ratio to lean on.
The best pleasant surprise we’ve had in Kansas City sports this year, right*?
* I can’t count the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl as a surprise.
They debuted in the AP poll at No. 16 which, if we’re honest and only considering this season’s results and not expectations, is still too low. The win over Illinois was hard to watch at times because of the officiating, but the better team won, and Mizzou controlled virtually all 40 minutes.
They’re a nice mix of speed and strength, a veteran group that seems to enjoy playing with each other and understands each other’s strengths.
They’re balanced and can play big but don’t need to. You’d like to see a little more 3-point shooting, particularly outside of Mark Smith and Dru Smith, and they’ll need to force more turnovers.
But they rebound well, get good shots and defend. This is, in some ways, the team Cuonzo Martin has built toward for years.
They’re also fun to watch, and I know that shouldn’t matter, but it does. And when’s the last time a Mizzou basketball team was fun to watch?
This isn’t the point of your question, but Angie and Chris Long are the ones bringing an NWSL team to Kansas City. Matthews and marketing executive Jen Gulvik are part of the ownership team, but the Longs are the core and, whatever it’s worth, Angie is the one having most of the conversations with the league office. Anyway.
The T-Bones averaged 3,468 fans in 2019. FC Kansas City averaged just over 3,000 fans in 2015 and 2016 before a mess of ownership turned 2017 into a disaster that ended with the team moving to Utah.
I spent most of last week trying to learn more about the Longs and what they want to do here, and you can hear some of their vision in their own words in the latest podcast*.
* Click here or search Mellinger Minutes wherever you get your shows.
And I have to say: The difference between the Longs and either of FC Kansas City’s previous ownership groups is big enough to put a cruise ship through, and to do it sideways.
FC Kansas City had more talent than is currently on the still-to-be-named team’s roster, but they also played their two most successful seasons at UMKC and then Swope Park. T-Bones Stadium is less than ideal for professional soccer but a significant step up from FC Kansas City’s nomadic ways.
Soccer continues to gain popularity in general, and particularly so on the women’s side. There will be a lot of energy with this, and if we can close our eyes and imagine a world free of coronavirus restrictions, I do believe a well-run and funded professional women’s soccer team can outdraw the T-Bones in their own stadium.
The second part of your question, I’m actually not sure if you’re asking about the T-Bones or the soccer team becoming the Monarchs, and I’m not sure it matters. I’m up for both. There are so many possibilities with the retro gear.
You didn’t intend this, I don’t think, but you bring up one of the biggest challenges the NWSL team has. They don’t have colors, don’t have logos, don’t have, well, nothin’. They want to include fans in that process, and that’s a good idea, but how exactly do you do that right now?
The NWSL team has a billion challenges like that. The Longs are smart and highly motivated. If anyone can do it, they seem to be the ones. But, man. What a process this will be.
Do sports reporters have a monopoly on this? I’m looking through the esteemed Room Rater and see plenty of news reporters and other sources posed in front of bookshelves.
But without running #analytics on this, if sports reporters do the book thing more often than others my first suspicion is it comes from our collective insecurity about not being real reporters.
Some journalists spend their professional lives holding elected officials accountable, or standing up for the powerless against influential corporations. We sports reporters spend our professional lives chasing trade scoops that would be announced in a few minutes anyway, and diving way too deep into stats and film we can’t possibly fully understand to make guesses about who’s going to win the next ballgame*.
* All of that is true, but when real reporters have their one night every two years on deadline (election night) they demand pizza from the bosses while us sports reporters knock out the deadline and know exactly which bar is still open.
The previous paragraphs are a transparent setup to remind you that the two backgrounds I have at the house are a) a usually messy bedroom with kids’ coloring pages on the wall, or b) a wood paneled wall with framed old baseball cards on it*.
* That’s ANOTHER transparent setup, this one to tell you I am over-the-moon excited an addition in the works. Partly inspired by Jeff Pearlman’s Bo Jackson book (which, honestly, I’m not yet convinced I’ll be able to read) I bought some old Sports Illustrateds and Becketts with Bo on the covers and will put them on the wall soon. BART SCOTT VOICE CAN’T WAIT.
So, I think I’ve told this story before. I think I’ve even used Baseball Reference to find the date.
But I was a kid, maybe 8 or so, in my memory, and at a Royals game back when it was Royals Stadium and they played on turf. We did this a lot. I lived my grade school years in a small town 2 hours outside of Kansas City, and we spent a lot of weekends here, almost all of them planned around Royals games.
Anyway, I can close my eyes and still see this. Our seats were toward the back of the first level, behind the first base dugout, the part of the stadium where the noise bounces off the concrete above you and it sounds just a little louder.
It was the late innings, maybe the seventh, and they were doing the wave as Frank White came up with the bases loaded. Read that sentence again. Late innings. Wave. Frank White. Bases loaded. I was a sports-crazed kid, and whatever sugar I’d swallowed during the game had to put me at the edge of a sensory overload breakdown.
The wave was going clockwise around the stadium, and I was sort of keeping an eye on it in my periphery while watching home plate. The timing came in the absolute worst way, everyone in front of me starting to stand just as this one particular pitch approached the plate and Frank crushed it to what in my memory was the left-field bullpen for a grand slam.
I don’t think I’d ever seen a grand slam before that night and, thanks to the wave, I still hadn’t.
And this, friends, is why to this day I hate the wave with the power of a thousand suns*.
* You shouldn’t care about this, but I went through Baseball Reference and the game had to have been either May 15, 1986 or August 25, 1987. The first was a weeknight during the school year, but also my birthday, which makes it possible and would explain the good seats.
The three that come to mind are Milwaukee Delicatessen, Suzy’s Deli and M&M Bakery.
M&M might be better known for their cookies and pastries, but the Hook ‘Em Up is a winner. Milwaukee might be what you had in mind when you said overrated, but I liked that place. It’s one of many things I miss about living downtown. Suzy’s is great, just straightforward, no-frills, good service, good sandwiches and soup.
But, mostly, I’m including this question because I feel like you guys know some gem I’ve never heard of and this is the part where you hook me up.
This week, I’m particularly grateful for a new workout app I found. I’m not going to name it here (because I only shill for local restaurants?) but had found myself in this weird spot of not wanting to go to the gym and finding excuses or boredom to keep from running or biking outside. This thing is cheap, easy to use, accessible, and now I’m sore.
This story was originally published December 15, 2020 at 5:00 AM.