Mellinger Minutes: Best time to Chiefs, Andy Reid (guts!), and why is Mahomes running?
There is some research that backs a theory psychologists have worked with for hundreds of years, often called the hedonic treadmill.
I’m speaking as the layest of laypeople here, but basically the idea is that we all have some default mode that we start every day or new experience with.
That baseline of emotion varies wildly from person to person, from happiness to pessimism and everything in between. But the theory is that once we experience a major event — that promotion we’ve been hoping for, a death in the family, a home project finally completed — we have a proportional shift in emotion (good or bad) that runs out pretty quick.
That tracks for a lot of us, doesn’t it?
Don’t you have a friend who hates his job, gets a new one that he’s excited about, then ends up hating that one too?
Have you ever fallen in love with someone to the point you see the world differently, and then not so long afterward found yourself annoyed with some small habit of theirs?
Ever felt like you never had enough money, that your life would be solved with a raise, and then after receiving a raise found yourself still short on bills?
That’s the hedonic treadmill.
I’m probably butchering some details here, but that’s the general idea, and, besides — this isn’t a psychology lecture, but a way to talk about ... Chiefs fans.
Most of you understand this. Maybe even all of you. But it is a wild truth, and it deserves to be typed out loud:
This is the best time in human history to be a Chiefs fan.
Your parents never had it this good, even if they remember Super Bowl IV. Your uncles and aunts never had it this good, even if they got in on the ground floor of the 1990s.
The Chiefs are the NFL’s best show right now, which means they are America’s best show right now, and they’re yours. The quarterback of your team is the one everyone else wants. The wide receiver on your team is the reason opposing teams are using so many defensive backs. The tight end on your team is the reason defensive coordinators can’t sleep.
You are watching a Hall of Fame coach lead potentially the best quarterback to ever play who is throwing to a Hall of Fame tight end and a maybe Hall of Fame receiver with a defense led by a maybe Hall of Fame safety and a star pass rusher and all these guys are at the absolute height of their powers.
You’ve never had it this good, you can’t know how long you’ll have it this good, and once it’s gone you can’t expect to have it this good ever again.
This is once-in-a-lifetime stuff, with a team that’s not just champions, but a blast to watch, and not just a blast to watch, but one that seems determined to stay together and keep it that way.
Nationally, the Chiefs are shifting from feel good story to villains, a transition that is both entirely predictable and happening at least a touch faster than I would have predicted. That will shift the experience of being a fan, at least a little.
You’ll dull to the praise from national media, and become more sensitive to everything else. Fans in Buffalo or Cleveland or Detroit or other places with teams whose greatest moments are in grainy video may have felt a vague kinship with the Chiefs’ in last year, but that’s over now.
Fans of other teams will now root against the Chiefs, at least in part because of jealousy, and this is an honest question — has that ever happened to a Kansas City team before?
The experience can feel a little jarring, but that’s the new reality here, and the point at the moment is to not take any of it for granted.
Mahomes is signed forever, but there are no guarantees about how long it’ll stay this good. Success is expected now, and the regular season included a lot of angst over the margins of victory.
That’s natural. That’s fine. That’s justified.
But I also think that in 20 years, you’re going to want to know you enjoyed this moment in time. If you’re a sports fan, and this isn’t fun, then what is the point of any of this?
This week’s eating recommendation is the Planet Sub at ... well ... Planet Sub, and the reading recommendation is Kevin Van Valkenburg on Josh Allen making a lot of us feel very stupid.
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I promise you I had the idea for the top before I saw Allison’s question here, but this is exactly what I’m talking about.
The Chiefs mean something dramatically different to all of us. My dad was in high school and college for the Len Dawson and Hank Stram and Bobby Bell teams. The Chiefs were viciously tough, successful, a model organization that built its roster with intelligence.
That’s how he saw the Chiefs. That’s how his generation got to know them.
Me, I started watching football around the time the Chiefs closed the upper deck of Arrowhead Stadium on some game days. My formative years as a football fan came when the Chiefs buried regular season success with creative postseason torture. The first game I ever went to without an adult was The Kicker Who Shall Not Be Named.
I got to know the Chiefs as the team that lifted you up just enough to slam you down. The franchise allowed an enormous gap to grow between how it saw itself and what it actually was on the field. They carried themselves like NFL royalty, but their history was much closer to the Lions or Bengals.
That’s all changing now. That’s all changed, by now.
If you knew nothing except the Chiefs’ last three seasons — and I sleep down the hall from an intense football fan who knows nothing but the last three seasons — then the Chiefs are the team that always comes back.
The Chiefs are the team that scores so easily their receiver backflips into the end zone. They’re the team with the tight end who moves like a shortstop and is always open. They’re the team with the defense that makes the important stops, and the coach who makes the right calls, and the quarterback who does stuff no other human is capable of.
I referenced this in the game column, but those of us old enough to read these words can remember many Chiefs teams who did or would have blown playoff games for any of the following reasons:
- the kicker kept bricking easy ones.
- the other team’s quarterback completed a pass to himself.
- the other team had Myles Garrett pass rushing against some backups.
- the offensive line had some bad penalties.
- the starting quarterback spent the last quarter and a half in the NFL’s concussion protocol.
- the backup quarterback threw a HORRENDOUS interception in the end zone.
The Chiefs — the Chiefs! — stared down all of these problems and won a playoff game anyway.
This is a helpful way to think about. Len Dawson won a total of five playoff games in a 19-year career that was good enough for the Hall of Fame and legendary status in Kansas City.
In the 48 seasons between Super Bowl IV and Mahomes becoming the Chiefs’ starter, the franchise won four playoff games, and lost 16.
In the three (and counting) postseasons with Mahomes, the Chiefs are 5-1 in the playoffs, the loss coming when they scored 24 points in the fourth quarter and didn’t get the ball in overtime.
You identify closest with one of those realities, and your answer says more about you and your age and background than it does about anything else.
Because right now, the Chiefs are that team.
Here’s another example:
Brad is a Chiefs fan, and he’s having a hard time with these close playoff WINS.
Also: I believe now is a good time to point out that the Chiefs’ success in close games is a feature, and not a flaw.
I get that a freak play can be a bigger factor when the margins shrink, and everyone would prefer 49-0 to 22-17, but could there be anyone who watched that game and didn’t believe the Chiefs were the better team?
Anyone who watched that game and didn’t see the Chiefs making the most important plays?
Sometimes I think about this: if the Chiefs blew everyone out, and then lost a close playoff game, wouldn’t people say they needed experience in close games because this is the NFL and you can’t blow everyone out?
Now that I’m thinking about it, isn’t this exactly what some people said about the 2007 Patriots?
Look, making that call in that situation took guts. The easy decision is to punt, and it would have been completely justifiable: the fourth-down calculus changes without Mahomes, and punting would’ve likely meant the Browns had to go somewhere between 80 and 95 yards with 70 seconds or so and no timeouts.
I’d like the Chiefs’ odds there.
But — and I’m going to get deeper into this later in the week, so let me be sort of quick here — talking about it in terms of testicular fortitude or guts or whatever you want to say is both fun and missing the point.
Reid is not some macho meathead trying to prove his courage.
He’s a relentlessly curious and open-minded coach who follows the facts and trends, wherever they lead him.
That wasn’t a decision based on whether he had the guts to go for it.
That was a decision based on days and weeks and months of work that required the right play, the right preparation, the right matchups, and the right pre snap look.
Any fool on Madden can go for every fourth down and claim guts.
Reid is going for it because he thinks he has the right players prepared in the right way for the right play.
There’s a difference, and we’re going to get into this more later in the week, because I think the whole process is hugely informative about who Reid and the Chiefs are.
This is a popular thing going around, and I completely understand where it’s coming from. The Best Coach To Not Win A Super Bowl thing became a defining part of Reid’s public perception, and as much as we can tell these things through Zoom calls I do think he’s a little looser now than before.
All that said, I think the narrative is getting a little ahead of the facts.
Does it surprise you that the Chiefs ranked 23rd in fourth down attempts this season?
That’s not a perfect measurement, because it would be reasonable to believe the Chiefs faced fewer of those decisions than most teams but it’s presented as a counter to the idea that Reid is now some free-wheeling, riverboat gambling, Super Bowl ring polishing sumgun.
I do think Reid is more confident in going for specific fourth downs now than in the past. I’m talking about game on the line with a punt or kick a justifiable option. We’ve seen him go for it in that specific situation a few times now, most notably against the Browns and Dolphins.
Worth noting here how similar those two plays are, too.
Here’s the one against the Dolphins:
And here’s the one against the Browns:
Pretty darn similar, right? The Chiefs added some pre snap motion against the Browns, presumably to make sure they had the (man) coverage they wanted. It’s the same route from Hill, the same concept from he other two on that side. The biggest difference is Hill stayed in bounds against the Browns.
Either way, safe to say the next fourth and short will have to be a different play. But, anyway, if we’re right about that and Reid is more open to going for it in those situations I believe it’s because he knows the numbers say that’s what he should do and he’s more confident in his team’s ability to convert.
In Reid’s first season here, nobody managed even 700 yards receiving. Dwayne Bowe — paid Dwayne Bowe, it’s worth noting — was the team’s No. 1 receiver. The Chiefs ranked 21st in total offense.
Going for it with that group is a whole different discussion than this one.
I trust you guys know me well enough to know that I was fully onboard with the fourth down, and I hope you guys know me well enough to know that I don’t play the dumb sportswriter game where we crush or praise based solely on the result and not the process.
So you would not have read anything here about Reid making a mistake on fourth down.
You probably would have read about the Chiefs’ playoff ghosts having one more fight in them, with the missed kicks and the injured unicorn and the backup quarterback’s inexplicable interception and the defense’s inability to get one more stop.
You probably would have read about Harrison Butker adding to the franchise’s twisted relationship with kickers, and the shock of leading an objectively inferior team for nearly all four quarters at home and then collapsing late, turning those of us who believed that winning close games was more skill than luck into fools.
But that’s not what happened.
Because these Chiefs aren’t those Chiefs, or at least haven’t been for years now.
You know, there are incredibly few things that Patrick Mahomes doesn’t do well.
He was a million dollar baseball prospect, a Division I basketball talent, can hit a golf ball a million yards and apparently his best sport is actually ping pong. He is smart, polite, generous with his time and money, and always seems to know the right thing to say.
He is so talented that he’d be a really good quarterback even if he had average intelligence, and his smarts and work ethic are enough that he’d be a really good quarterback with average talent. He’s even turned into a pretty good actor on commercials, which is as shocking a development as anything after that first year.
All of that is true, but mama, he might be the worst slider in NFL history.
It’s crazy, right? He never really seems to know whether to go head or feet first, and he never seems to commit to whichever decision he makes. He just sort of ... falls. It’s the only thing he does athletically that doesn’t look smooth. Truly, he’s just terrible at getting down.
I don’t know if that’s practice or whether he’s so competitive that he junks the practice and risks it all for another half a yard.
But, yeah. Here we are.
The prohibition on QB sneaks is a lot of things. It’s illogical, small-minded and scared from a coach who’s built a Hall of Fame career largely on being logical, open-minded, and confident.
It’s also entirely understandable and human. If you’ve ever been in a serious car accident, and then later driven by the same spot, you probably have had similar emotions — even as you understand that thousands upon thousands of people drive by that spot in the road without care or danger.
I do think that Kelce presents some terrific possibilities for short yardage, and we’ve seen him take snaps in those situations before. I’d be curious to see what would happen if Reid and his coaches explored the potential of Kelce and Tyreek Hill in the backfield together.
But, anyway, I actually don’t have a problem with Mahomes on the option. I don’t think they should do it twice every series, but it’s been a somewhat regular part of the play calling for a while now and I didn’t hear anyone complaining when the option turned into a walk-in touchdown for Mahomes against the Browns.
Let’s watch the play again, and after the tackle keep an eye on Henne, Travis Kelce, Tyreek Hill, and Andrew Wylie (No. 77).
There isn’t a great shot of the sideline as the play was happening, but I was there and can tell you those guys were going bonkers.
So much of the Chiefs’ clutchiness has been tied to Mahomes, and that’s for good reason. Ain’t nobody else throwing left-handed on game-winning drives, or converting fourth and forever against the Ravens, or that run against the Titans, or Jet Chip Wasp in the Super Bowl.
But I do wonder if there’s a little extra juice when a play like that comes from the 35-year-old backup, playing his first competitive game in six years.
Because in that moment — spontaneously — Henne showed through actions that he was meticulously prepared both mentally and physically, and that he was willing to do whatever was needed to help his buddies win.
Emotionally, that was a huge moment.
Strategically, it was even bigger.
Look, let’s not go overboard here. That interception he threw was worse than awful, and the Chiefs had a two-score lead when he came in.
If Mahomes can’t play — and I want to be clear that everything I’m hearing from people close to it leads me to believe he will — then the Chiefs are in trouble.
But winning a game like that, finishing it without the guy everyone believes you can’t operate without, it has to be an enormous boost for a team that was already confident enough.
Here’s some of what Bills coach Sean McDermott said after the Week 6 game:
“This is an explosive offense, mainly through the air, so you’ve got to pick your poison here. What are you trying to take away and then on the other end you’re going to give a little bit. I’m not saying that we liked what we gave up in the run game. That said, towards the end of the game we were in the game, as opposed to some people are getting blown out because the balls are flying over their head.”
McDermott was pretty clear back then that he believed in the strategy, even saying he’d do it again if given the chance.
Well, here’s his chance.
The plan must be particularly intriguing with Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s injury. You don’t need to be reminded that he rushed for 161 yards in Week 6, his most productive game of the season.
One thing to keep in mind is that the Bills’ defense is playing much better now. They had some injuries in the secondary, and the defensive line was a bit of mess in October.
They’ve given up 17.1 points in eight games since Thanksgiving, and while the Chiefs are a much better offense than any of the Bills’ opponents during that stretch it’s also true that the Bills’ defense bossed the Ravens in the Division round, giving up three points and scoring seven of their own.
They’ve now slid into the top 10 of Football Outsiders’ catch-all DVOA metric for defense, ranking eighth in the latest weighted version.
They’re also stronger against the pass than the rush, which is where you’d want to be against the Chiefs.
I’m not going to pretend I’ve grinded through all of the Bills’ defense film over the last two months, but it would make sense for them to use a similar strategy as Week 6.
If we’re honest, that strategy makes sense for any defense trying to stop the Chiefs. Protect yourself against Tyreek Hill with safeties over the top, and use linebackers to knock Kelce off rhythm at the line of scrimmage.
Basically: beg the Chiefs to beat you with Demarcus Robinson or Mecole Hardman or Darrel Williams.
Because you know they don’t need an invitation to beat you with Hill or Kelce.
Speaking of Williams...
He’s always been easy to miss, and for good reason: undrafted, with no starts and a 3.8 yard average before Sunday.
But the Chiefs coaches have always shown and vocalized confidence in him, particularly as a third-down back. You might remember them icing the Ravens game in 2019 with a 3rd and 9 screen to Williams:
So he’s always been a guy the Chiefs trust, which makes a moment like Sunday so fulfilling.
I’d also do a little cautioning here about what to expect from Williams, because I’m guessing on a snap like this that Le’Veon Bell or Edwards-Helaire would have seen the hole on the left side.
The thing about good teams is that they usually have guys who’d command bigger roles on other teams. Williams fits the description, though if the Chiefs believed they could get 78 yards on 13 carries in playoff games all the time I’m not sure they would have been so aggressive in chasing Bell.
One more topic I might get deeper into later in the week.
Bieniemy has earned the chance. That is beyond debate. This is his third season as the top assistant in the NFL’s best coaching tree.
Men have been hired — including from Andy Reid’s staff — with far less experience and success. Reid is effusive in praise for Bieniemy. Mahomes credits Bieniemy more than any coach other than Reid. The man has earned the chance.
We also have every reason to believe he’ll be 0-for-12 in interviews after this cycle closes.
The simplest conclusion is the most damning for the NFL: Bieniemy is black, and a league with 70 percent black players currently has two black head coaches out of 32.
I don’t think it’s quite that simple. First, the league has hired black head coaches before, including many with less experience than Bieniemy, and including by teams that have interviewed and not hired Bieniemy.
There has to be something missing in the interviews. He’s not connecting, or he’s not selling himself effectively, or his vision for how he’d run a program is underwhelming. Because I don’t believe owners and GMs are refusing to hire Bieniemy simply because of his skin.
I also don’t believe race isn’t a factor here. The NFL is a small world, and it often operates like a good ol’ boys network. People in charge hire their friends.
There are legitimate football reasons for this, most obviously that shared experience usually means shared priorities and preferred schemes and so much else in a sport often won by the team with the most cohesion.
But that system has been shown to tilt toward white coaches. That’s just a fact. Bieniemy is navigating a world in which the owners (the most powerful people) are nearly all white, and the top executives and head coaches (next in line) are predominately white.
Pretending that isn’t a barrier is delusional.
Bieniemy (like all coaches) needs the right opening at the right job. Colts general manager Chris Ballard knows Bieniemy, and presumably has a good relationship with him. The Colts are unlikely to be looking for a head coach anytime soon.
Bieniemy has what might be the NFL’s 33rd-best coaching job. He’s not a head coach, but he’s in a place where he’s successful, respected, and valued. He understands this, and surely it cuts the frustration just a bit.
But he’s also determined to run his own shop someday, and I can’t imagine the emotions involved in being qualified for the job, ambitious and open about your interest, and repeatedly being told that someone else is a better fit.
We can all make our jokes about Chad Henne being a LinkedIn-only guy on social media, but it’s worth pointing out that Henne almost certainly has better mental health than any of us fools checking Twitter or Facebook all the time.
That man has it all figured out.
Yes, I will, but first let me say one more time that the rule is atrocious. The offense can fumble literally anywhere else on the field and if goes out of bounds they keep the ball.
Lots of rules are different at the end zone, we all understand that, but by not recovering the ball the defense is given the biggest swing in the sport — not just possession of a ball they did not recover, but possession of it at the 20, much further upfield than where the offensive player fumbled from and far from the shadow of a potential safety.
It’s crazy, and a lot of you got mad at me for saying that on Sunday, but I’m here calling it how it is and I promise the view in Kansas City of the sense of that rule would’ve been much different if it was a Chiefs player fumbling.
Now, if we’re getting into the weeds here I’m not sure the offense should get to pretend it never happened and keep the ball at the spot of the fumble. There should be some risk in extending the ball for the plane of the goal line.
Bill Cowher is among those who’ve suggested a sort of reverse touchback — loss of down, and offense snaps from the 20.
My suggestion would be similar — loss of down, and a 15-yard penalty from the spot of the fumble.
Other than ejection or a spot foul for pass interference, 15 yards is the heaviest penalty in the books. Use that to discourage the offense from going reckless, but let them keep the ball (most likely getting a chance at three points instead of likely seven) so the defense doesn’t receive the game’s biggest reward for — checks notes — not finishing a play.
Of course he was supposed to try to tackle. And of course he’ll be expected to pay the fine that’s on the way for going helmet to helmet. Is any of this convroversial?
Look, Dan Sorensen has made himself a significant part of the Chiefs’ success. It’s a pretty cool story when you look at it, undrafted out of college, mostly special teams in the beginning, then eventually regular snaps at safety and by now so respected that his teammates voted him a playoff captain.
He was exposed when asked to play out of position in 2017 and 2018, because he’s simply not athletic enough to be a lead safety. But he’s shown that he won’t be limited by anything else, especially not preparation or timing or confidence.
The list of big plays he’s made is becoming astounding, and the kind of thing you might dismiss as good fortune if a guy did it once.
But he’s had enough of them — the forced fumble against the Browns, the fake punt against the Texans, the interception in Mexico City, on and on — that we know there’s more to it than luck.
Reid has always wanted depth at that position. One is not enough. Two is not enough. Remember that when they used their first-round pick on Edwards-Helaire, it was to pair him with Damien Williams.
When Williams opted out, the Chiefs pursued Adrian Peterson.
When Peterson instead signed with the Lions, the Chiefs found themselves overworking Edwards-Helaire — 107 carries and 21 catches in the first six games.
That’s when Le’Veon Bell arrived. The idea was to take some of the work off Edwards-Helaire so that he would be as fresh and productive as possible for the playoffs.
I haven’t heard anyone inside the organization put it exactly this way, but I believe they saw how teams were defending — loading the field with defensive backs, begging the Chiefs to run — and thought they would end up running a lot more than they originally planned.
If that’s the way the season went, they would need more than Edwards-Helaire (and Darrel Williams).
I’m surprised that Bell only had two carries against the Browns. I would’ve guessed something closer to 10 to 15, and maybe five to 10 for Williams.
Williams was effective enough to tilt those numbers in his favor, but it’s worth noting that he made his first NFL start. So this was more than just the hot hand. The Chiefs gave Williams the first chance at the hot hand.
It’s hard to know exactly what the plan is going forward. Bell sat out the Chargers game with other starters, had seven carries against the Falcons, 15 against the Saints, and just two against the Dolphins.
Reid (shockingly, for me) called Juan Thornhill a situational guy in November. Seems like the label fits Bell now.
I clarified with Jeff, and his wife’s concerns are about COVID-19.
And, look. I’m the last person to tell you how to live your life. We’re all guessing, all managing the best way we can. There have been times I’ve thought I’ve been too relaxed, and times I’ve thought I’ve been too restrictive. I don’t know your personal situation, like whether you have conditions that make you vulnerable, or an older relative living with you, or any of those things.
What I can say is that when the Chiefs announced they would host fans — among the first to do so — I thought it was insane. The risk and reward felt hopelessly out of balance. Public officials did not present a convincing case.
But I have to tell you: I’m glad fans have been allowed. I’m glad that decision was made.
The protocols are only as good as the people following them (or not), so we could find examples of fans being careful and other examples of fans acting like it’s 2019*.
* WHICH SOUNDS LIKE LOTS OF FUN.
My sense is that you can make the experience whatever you want. My sense is there are enough safeguards in place that it would be relatively easy for you to stay six feet away from strangers, or at least to have no more exposure than you would at the grocery store, with the added benefit of being outdoors.
The Chiefs have been as diligent as could be realistically expected here, and for obvious reasons. They know this is a risk, and they have far more to lose if an outbreak is tied to one of their games than they have to gain from the extra revenue.
If I had a real job, I don’t think I would go to a game this year but not because of Covid. So much of the fun of the experiences is the communal part. You’re with strangers, not distanced from them. Most of the friends I’ve talked to who’ve gone to games have the same general description: fun, but not the same, and in the end not worth the money and trouble.
I’m not trying to talk you out of it. It would make sense that an AFC Championship Game would be a better experience than any regular season game, including banner night.
I guess the way I’d say it is this: there are reasons not to go, but from what I can see and hear, Covid isn’t one of them. I’m not sure if that helps or hurts you with your wife. Godspeed sir.
SUBWAY IS TRASH AND NO PRICE COULD STOP ME FROM TELLING THIS TRUTH!!!!*
* (Umm, I mean, could I get my kids through college on it?)
This week, I’m particularly grateful for a positive parent-teacher conference for our preschooler. Not that I’m shocked, because he’s a sweet kid. It’s just that he’s our youngest, and I think we sometimes subconsciously treat him like he’s still a baby. It’s cool to hear from an adult who’s with him regularly, a reminder that he’s growing up in the right ways.
This story was originally published January 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.