The Chiefs won without Patrick Mahomes, and is this what exorcising demons looks like?
These are the moments that people in my business elbow other people in my business and use pens and voice memos and relationships and anything else they can think of to bring you inside the locker room with us.
That’s where we often separate, where one story becomes better than another, but all we have is Zoom calls now. So here’s where we stand:
One after another Sunday evening, Chiefs players stepped in front of a computer with reporters’ faces staring back from the screen, and not a single one of them appeared worried about Patrick Mahomes, who came out of the game and was evaluated for a concussion before the team’s 22-17 win over the Browns in the AFC Divisional round at Arrowhead Stadium was complete.
If you looked closely at coach Andy Reid — and this one is admittedly for Chiefs fans of a certain age — you could even see a gleam.
“This team is unbelievable, when somebody has to come in, at making them feel comfortable,” he said.
This game had a little of everything. We saw the Chiefs at their best, scoring on every first half possession and locking up the Browns receivers on defense. We saw them at their most fragile, with the superstar Mahomes unable to stand on his own before eventually being diagnosed with a concussion, players saying they could hear the crowd gasp.
Then we saw them at their gutsiest, with backup Chad Henne — playing in a competitive game for the first time in six seasons — converting fourth and inches on a play that put the Chiefs into victory formation in the final minute.
There is so much we don’t know. What we do know at the moment is positive. Reid said Mahomes was “actually doing very well.” Mahomes went to social media with support for Henne and the team, and kind of, sort of maaayyybe indicated he’ll back for the AFC Championship Game against the Buffalo Bills at Arrowhead Stadium next Sunday?
Look, there is still room for this to go sideways. There is still room for the ghosts of Chiefs past to take one more turn, and for the Chiefs to be without the league’s best player at the doorstep of a Super Bowl.
But if this goes the other way — and in the last two seasons, it’s hard to come up with a long list of what hasn’t gone the Chiefs’ way — then this will be the moment the Chiefs extended their #RunItBack push with their unicorn quarterback in the locker room and their 35-year-old backup making the game’s two biggest plays.
“That was all heart,” safety Tyrann Mathieu said. “Those are the moments that lift teams.”
First, a third-and-14 scramble that ended with him diving headfirst into the defense for what must’ve been a gain of 13 3/4 yards. And then fourth and inches — Reid said there was zero debate about whether to go for it — converted with a backfield pass to Tyreek Hill.
“Just put my head down,” Henne said. “This team has given me so much, so I put my body out there for them.”
Can we take a few paragraphs here to just inventory some of what the Chiefs — the Chiefs! — did?
The franchise of The Kicker Who (STILL!) Shall Not Be Named just won a playoff game with a kicker who bricked two easy ones.
The franchise that once lost a playoff game when the opposing quarterback threw a touchdown to himself just won a playoff game in which the quarterback caught his own pass.
The franchise that lost the AFC Championship Game 26 years ago when its star quarterback left with a concussion just won a playoff game that its star quarterback left with a possible concussion.
The Chiefs are now 5-1 in playoff games started by Mahomes these last three magical seasons, which is more playoff wins than they had in the previous 48 years combined.
Is this what a full purge of playoff demons looks like?
For generations, the men who wore these uniforms turned so fragile this time of year. No lead was too big to blow. No bad moment too small to matter.
Around the country, people will make some form of the Browns Is The Browns joke, and it’s true that Rashard Higgins’ fumble out of the end zone had that familiar scent of a cursed franchise’s doom, but in Kansas City a once-foreign feeling is starting to become familiar.
No matter what, the Chiefs have a chance. Even in the playoffs.
“Nothing changed, man,” tight end Travis Kelce said when asked about the huddle from Mahomes’ last snap to Henne’s first. “Nothing changed. Chad came in, and he uplifted us, and we uplifted him.”
One more time, the caveat: So much depends on Mahomes’ recovery. If he can’t play Sunday, and the Chiefs can’t beat the Bills, then Chiefs fans are back to naming their pain and this goes from The Chad Henne Game to The Concussion Game.
But, the positivity of the moment cannot be ignored. The defense that few have noticed is playing better got the stop it needed, which means we’re all talking a lot more about Henne’s third-down run and his fourth-down throw than we are an inexcusable and inexplicable interception that gave the Browns one more chance.
This team lost the player who changed it all, and they won a playoff game anyway. There is still space for this to go the other way, for the ending to be in tears instead of champagne.
But in the last two seasons, what has this group shown you to expect anything other than the best?
This story was originally published January 17, 2021 at 7:08 PM.