Mellinger Minutes: The new-new Chiefs, offseason priorities, and (finally) the Royals
The moment you knew it all changed came quick, without apology, and without doubt. Watch this clip, all the way to the end. After Mahomes is pressured, after he scrambles out, after his pass to Tyreek Hill falls incomplete.
Watch Antoine Winfield Jr., No. 31. You’ll know it when you see it.
Winfield was penalized, and even fined, and I can promise you he believes it was worth every yard and every penny, because he remembers week 12 when Hill was running away from him and chucked those same deuces toward Winfield.
This is one clip that tells an undeniable story. The Chiefs are no longer kings. They are no longer the next dynasty. They are no longer the 2015 Warriors.
Now, they are the team getting the business.
That’s how this thing works. Bucs coach Bruce Arians calls the Chiefs’ #RunItBack thing “Kansas City’s (expletive),” and Rob Gronkowski says the Chiefs should sign the Super Bowl streaker because at least he got into the end zone, and Devin White dismisses the Chiefs as “gimmicky” and not physical enough.
This is all warranted, fair, and to be expected.
The Chiefs are performing a high wire act, with players talking about a dynasty and Hill himself saying the Chiefs will win seven Super Bowls. When you’re on that high wire, the fall will hurt.
Any pretense of invincibility the Chiefs may have had is gone now, replaced by something closer to the metaphor involving blood and sharks and water. Winning Super Bowls is never easy, but NFL history is particularly unkind to teams that lose the Super Bowl.
We spent much of the last year talking about how the Chiefs were trying to become the first team in 16 years to win consecutive Super Bowls. Perhaps we’ll spend much of the next year talking about how just one team in the last 45 years — the Patriots, because of course — has won the Super Bowl the season after losing it.
The amount of energy and focus and talent and luck required to get to a Super Bowl is enormous. Once you’re there, losing can feel like the end of the world*. It takes a lot to do it again.
* Probably not the best analogy with the End times weather this week.
The Chiefs’ push will not be defined or guided by history, of course, but it’s worth inventorying their circumstances.
They are the bully that just got knocked out, like Deebo in Friday. Andy Reid is as beloved a figure as the NFL has, and Mahomes is universally respected and admired. But this is a cold business, and the grown men whose livelihoods and legacies depend on competing against the Chiefs will offer no condolences.
The Chiefs can go one of two ways from here.
They can be the Seahawks, who won Super Bowl XLVIII with a 25-year-old quarterback, went straight back to the next Super Bowl where they heard some dynasty talk, lost, and have not been past the division round since. Today, their star quarterback is sending not-even-thinly-veiled messages that he’s unhappy and wants help.
Or they could be the Patriots, who won Super Bowl XXXVI with a 24-year-old quarterback, then ate crap the next year, and then won the next two Super Bowls and eventually three more.
My guess is they’ll end up closer to the latter than the former, but I’m also quite sure the Seahawks would’ve said the same thing six years ago.
This week’s reading recommendation is Seth Wickersham on Tom Brady embracing his limits, and the eating recommendation is the chili at Joe’s. I have to be honest with you: I’ve never had the chili. But I’ve heard it’s great, and this would be a good week for chili.
Also: YES I KNOW IT’S VERY COLD OUTSIDE AND I DON’T LIKE NEGATIVE TEMPERATURES ANYWAY BUT I WILL NEVER ADMIT THAT BECAUSE I’VE COME TOO FAR.
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.
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Lee is one of the many who I have never met in person, but still feel like I know, at least a little bit. And I want you to know something here:
Lee is joking.
We’re starting the time suck with Lee’s question, though, because there does seem to be some segment of the football world that believes the Chiefs are something only slightly better than garbage.
The lead was written intentionally, because I do think the Chiefs have work to do. They are no longer the NFL’s darling. They are no longer the dynasty in waiting. The Chiefs have been the NFL’s Next Big Thing, and now they are the champ that’s been knocked down, and I don’t know which one America loves to go HAM on* more.
* The kids probably don’t still say that, but their old uncles do.
The Chiefs probably got too much love before last Sunday — I believe you need to win at least three to start calling yourself a dynasty, not one or two — and they’re getting too much skepticism now.
The Marcellus Wiley take made its rounds, and I disagree with the broader message for a lot of reasons, but the rules of sports that have been set up in society mean that when you lose the Super Bowl you get dumped on.
The Chiefs won last year’s championship on a razor’s edge — if the 49ers can defend 3rd and 15, they probably win — and it meant everybody assumed they’d win the next 73 Super Bowls.
They lost this year’s Super Bowl with a junior varsity offensive line, some awful in-game breaks, and in the wake of an unthinkable tragedy caused by the head coach’s son, so now it means lots of people think the Chiefs are fundamentally flawed.
They’re not. They are a wildly talented bunch with some specific flaws that we talked about frequently last season and that conspired in the worst ways at the worst time.
We will talk a lot more about this in the rest of this time suck, and in future columns and podcasts, but the Chiefs have one four-alarm emergency and that’s the offensive line.
They have to get that fixed. If they don’t, then nothing else we talk about will matter.
But the rest of the to-do list is manageable. They could use some more pass rush, they could use a No. 2 receiver, and they could use a linebacker. If there’s time and money or draft picks leftover, NFL teams can never have too many defensive backs. So that would be swell.
The Chiefs are who we thought they were before the Super Bowl: talented, ambitious, and specifically flawed in ways that make anything possible in a league built for parity.
Also, I just have to say this: Mahomes played well. I don’t care what the numbers say nearly as much as I care what these videos say. You’ve probably seen these clips, but it’s worth going through quickly.
Here’s a play where Mahomes escapes immediate pressure, scrambles to his left, and against his body throws 30-some yards downfield to a window that only he can see for a pass that literally bounces off his top receiver’s facemask. This should be a touchdown. Instead, a field goal.
Here’s a play where Mahomes escapes pressure and puts it on the hands of his most reliable pass catcher, only to see the ball bounce off said hands. A disastrous series ensued from this drop: punt, penalty, shanked punt, defensive interception wiped out by penalty, field goal attempt wiped out by penalty, touchdown surrendered.
That’s at least a seven-point swing, maybe more.
Here’s a play so impressive it had Bucs players calling him a magician on the sideline.
Honestly, this is the best individual play of the night, by anyone, on either team. This play had no chance. Mahomes somehow put it on a teammate’s facemask anyway. The ball bounced off said face mask because of course. Seven points gone.
There are more clips we could show here, including some terrific throws that were actually caught. I’m not making the case that Mahomes played his best game. I’m making the case that people who see the statistics and say he played poorly should not be trusted.
The guy just needs some help. The Chiefs were remarkably unlucky on injuries and opt-outs across the offensive line, but nobody is feeling sorry for them and now it’s time to keep the roster as strong as possible.
The luck really is remarkable. We’ll talk about Brady a little bit later, so right now let’s focus on the Chiefs’ side of this.
The NFL’s structure does not allow for perfect teams, or for a front office and coaching staff to prioritize everything. You must make choices, and the Chiefs have chosen to invest in stars and to support Patrick Mahomes in every way possible.
They have chosen to devote resources to their starting tackles and playmakers, and try to make it work with cheaper and lower drafted players on the interior line.
That philosophy may have to change now, but either way losing both starting tackles — and really good players — to major injury in one season is an awful break. You can make a credible case that the Chiefs would have won the Super Bowl with Eric Fisher and Mitchell Schwartz both healthy, but now they’re in a spot where they can’t depend on either player for the 2021 season.
Fisher’s injury has an average recovery time of around 11 months, which would put his return around Christmas. Schwartz missed the last 14 weeks of the season with a back injury, and in a rare public comment about his health stopped short of saying he’d be back next season.
Fisher is 30. Schwartz will be 32 in June. The Chiefs expect Laurent Duvernay-Tardif (starting guard on the Super Bowl champs) and Lucas Niang (3rd round pick last spring) back but they must approach the offseason as an offensive line teardown, and not just a renovation.
They’ll be up against the cap, which makes the task more difficult. But a lot of teams will be up against the cap, so a lot of players are going to have to take less than they would’ve expected a year ago. Also, like many teams, the Chiefs have some contracts they can rework to kick the can down the road and create immediate cap space.
This is going to require a strong draft, and all the scouting acumen and creativity Brett Veach’s front office has.
There’s major work to be done. But let’s keep perspective. There are 31 teams — yes, I’m including the Bucs here — that would trade strengths and weaknesses with the Chiefs.
You know what’s wild? This was the second most successful season the Chiefs have had in 50 years, and it feels like a failure.
Last week, someone who works on the football side told me it was the worst they’d felt after any season, even losing seasons.
We all fan our own way, but I know a lot of you can relate to that. Human nature is stubborn. If you feel this way, it doesn’t make you a bad fan or ungrateful or without perspective. Just makes you human.
We have this weird thing in America where the further you go the worse the loss. Like, let’s say the problems with the offensive line showed up earlier. Let’s say that Mike Remmers couldn’t make it as a right tackle. Or let’s say that Eric Fisher’s Achilles ripped apart in week 6, not at the end of the AFC Championship game.
Let’s say that Fisher getting hurt earlier meant the line was overmatched for most of the regular season, instead of just in the Super Bowl, and the Chiefs made it to 10-6 or so but just couldn’t find the consistency without the protection.
That would be the exact same circumstance we have in reality — the Chiefs’ chances to repeat torpedoed by injuries to the offensive line.
But it would not have hurt nearly as bad as this. We would have had more time to see it coming, and the loss would not have come on the doorstep of history. Marcellus Wiley would not be talking about Mahomes stinking in big games.
I know two things beyond even a shred of doubt.
First, the Chiefs remain in the greatest period of franchise history.
Second, many of you could not give even the tiniest damn about that, because the Chiefs lost in the Super Bowl, and that’s an entirely reasonable thing to feel.
Yeah. I mentioned this on SportsBeat KC but every day that passes I feel like the wreck had a bigger effect on the game than I did the day before.
That’s a different thing than blaming the loss on the wreck, by the way. I don’t think that’s a fair conclusion.
But I do believe this is an unthinkable tragedy, with a 5-year-old girl left fighting for her life. How could that not have some effect?
Andy Reid is universally loved in that locker room. He is “abnormally steady” but everyone has their limits. I don’t think Andy would be human if he wasn’t effected by that, and I don’ think the players’ love for him would be genuine if they didn’t hurt for their coach and that little girl’s family.
There is still so much we don’t know. According to police, Britt said he’d been drinking before the wreck, and he was presumably driving home from work. The Chiefs must be transparent here on what they know and what they learn, and the police investigation must be full and supported.
Britt’s contract was left to expire, and if the wreck is what it appears then he will and should be punished harshly. This is a tragic event for that innocent little girl’s family, and a life-changing one for the Reids.
Humans in general and professional athletes in particular are often amazing at compartmentalizing, but in a sport and game in which the margins are already so small it’s hard to imagine something like this happening without any effect on the humans involved.
So, just to be doubly clear: I don’t think it’s fair to blame the loss on the wreck, and I think we all would agree that’s irrelevant anyway when a little girl is fighting for her life.
My wife reported tears, and since we’re all friends here I can tell you he did not go to first grade the next day.
Now, some of this can be helped with some qualifiers. I believe that at some point in the leadup to last year’s Super Bowl he was told that if the Chiefs played in the Super Bowl he could stay up to watch the whole thing and take the next day off. He took that to mean in perpetuity, and, honestly, screw it. He’s a good kid. Doing well in school.
Before I left for Tampa, we talked about watching the replay together after school one day last week.
“Daddy,” he told me shortly after I got back, “don’t take this the wrong way but I don’t want to watch the Super Bowl again with you.”
I get it, I told him.
“Because that was a terrible game.”
Right, I understand.
“I mean, there weren’t any good plays.”
Yep.
“They didn’t even get a touchdown.”
I know.
“They just didn’t do anything, Mahomes got hit and Tom Brady kept completing passes and nothing good happened.”
Right. I know.
“So I don’t ever want to watch that game again.”
OK. I hear you.
“But daddy?”
Yeah buddy?
“Can we watch last year’s Super Bowl again?”
Of course.
So, that’s how he’s handling it, you guys.
For years and years I had conflicting beliefs on this.
Because my general mantra is that in professional sports we give too much credit to coaches, and not enough to players.
This is especially true in baseball, and I don’t know that we’ll ever have a better example than the way a lot of people in Kansas City twisted themselves into hairballs trying to make sense of Ned Yost’s part of the Royals’ struggles and success.
But I also believe it’s true in football.
Except I bought fully into Bill Belichick’s genius.
I believed that Tom Brady was an excellent but also incredibly fortunate quarterback, whose legacy went from among the greats to the consensus GOAT based largely on his partnership with Belichick, taking less money, and wild in-game breaks like the Tuck Rule game and Pete Carroll throwing at the 1 and everything else.
Let’s be clear here. Brady was always one of the greats. But it just seemed to me he was elevated by his circumstance.
Well, it’s hard to believe that now. The Patriots went 12-4 in 2019, and 7-9 in 2020. The Bucs went 7-9 in 2019, and just won the Super Bowl.
The story cannot be told as simply as Brady’s arrival, but as Rick Stroud said on the podcast before the Super Bowl that story cannot be told without focusing first and heaviest on Brady.
Brady picked the right team, and brought Rob Gronkowski and Antonio Brown with him. But he is an irreplaceable part of that franchise’s rise, and as Kevin Clark wrote last week, Brady is changing the way we look at the past.
Now, you’re asking about Mahomes and Reid. I don’t think this has much to do with them.
These situations are unique, with different circumstances, but I’ve always believed that if some hypothetical situation existed where the Chiefs had to choose between their quarterback and their head coach then I think Eric Bieniemy would need to hire an offensive coordinator.
I’m no good at themes, but — Eric Bieniemy voice activated — I will say this:
I believe I will write about another Chiefs Super Bowl championship relatively soon, and I believe that when I do a fair case can be made that the next championship push began with Super Bowl LV.
Now, about the Royals, this is something else we’ll talk a lot more about in a column this week and into the future, but, somewhat quickly:
This is the most optimistic any Royals fan has had a right to feel since 2017.
The Royals lost 207 games in 2018 and 2019, and their .433 win percentage last year would’ve been 70-92 over 162 games.
They can’t count on that much offense from Salvador Perez again, and you never know how a bullpen will perform year-to-year. Injuries can sink any team in any season, but the Royals will be an interesting case.
Baseball people move mountains to avoid young pitchers taking big jumps in workload, and the Royals are built around young pitchers who will go from either a 60-game regular season or glorified extended spring training to 162 games.
The Royals (like all teams) did the best they could to prepare for the jump, but the unknowns here are incredible. It’s also true that the AL Central is loaded.
All that sad, I do expect the Royals to be competitive. My general expectation is that they’ll play at, around, or above .500 for four months or so and then fade down the stretch with a lot of individuals who have never gone 162.
That seems reasonable to me.
But the lineup has been lengthened, they’ve improved the athleticism in the outfield, and the pitching prospects who will largely determine this whole thing haven’t yet shown a reason to be skeptical.
Now, a lot still has to happen. Perez has to stay healthy, Mondesi has to be real, Carlos Santana can’t be washed, and so on.
But there’s a lot to like about this group of players, and a lot to like about what the ownership and front office are showing they’re about.
Again, we’ll get into all this deeper soon. Hopefully in a column this week. Please look for it.
They should do it by win percentage.
I assume they’ll give a trophy to any school that asks.
Also, I want to be real with you guys on something. I’ve watched as much college basketball as I can — except K-State, because come on — but it’s as close to feeling like work as watching sports can get for me.
All sports have lost something substantial with crowds limited or prohibited.
But no sports have lost as much as college sports, and basketball might be the biggest loser.
So much of the appeal has been about energy and atmosphere. Now a lot of games feel like televised scrimmages.
Just being real here. I’ll watch, but man. Bring on the vaccine.
The stars get the attention, and they should, but some of the most competitive athletes in professional sports are in the middle or even the bottom of depth charts.
There’s an old saying in baseball, and I can’t remember where it originated, but someone had said that a star pitcher had a lot of guts. The reply was something like, That guy throws 98. That’s not guts. Guts is going out there with 86.
The point I’m making is that if we’re talking purely about competitiveness, then yes, Patrick Mahomes’ chase to be the best ever requires an illogical and unreasonable level of competitiveness.
But Mahomes is also shamelessly gifted physically and mentally.
Think about someone like Anthony Sherman. He was a 3-star high school recruit who had more tackles (63) than rushing yards (61) in college. He built himself into a Pro Bowler and Super Bowl Champion. That takes uncommon competitiveness.
Tershawn Wharton played at Missouri Science and Technology, an NFL dreamer on a campus full of future engineers, but worked like he was a professional. He went undrafted, then chose to join a loaded defensive front with the Chiefs. That takes uncommon competitiveness.
Darrel Williams went to LSU, and stayed even after they signed the No. 1 running back in the country. He was never the team’s featured back, went undrafted, and then chose to join the Chiefs when they were loaded at running back. That takes uncommon competitiveness.
But, anyway, I realize I’m not answering your question with any of this.
That’s because the answer is Mahomes. Someone close to him once told me Mahomes’ literal best sport is actually ping pong.
So that has to be answer. Zack would get worked.
This is the worst time of year to be a sports fan.
The NFL is over, but free agency hasn’t begun yet. Baseball teams are only now beginning spring training, with opening day still six weeks away. College football is dead. MLS is off. The NBA and college basketball are playing, but even then the best parts of their seasons are still weeks or months away.
There just isn’t a lot going on.
For me, the sports calendar means trying to find an interesting college basketball game, or maybe some Premier League.
When that fails, it’s reading, or doing this same dumb thing where we scroll through Netflix and Amazon and everything else until we still can’t find something to watch and it’s time to go to bed.
I appreciate the opportunity to address this. You’re right, we are being tested. We are being pushed. We are being watched.
Now more than ever it’s important to stick together. To remember who we are, and why we chose this fight.
The haters will blame us. They are blaming us, actually.
We must maintain focus. Avoid distractions. The haters will not listen when we tell them negative temperatures are nobody’s friend. This fight began when The Wrong Ones complain about temperatures in the 20s, the 30s, even the 40s.
This fight began when The Wrong Ones continued to persecute winter, while ignoring the sins of 102 with humidity. This fight began because the world is tilted toward them, and away from us.
The Wrong Ones do not care that we sweat when it’s 81, or that we can’t keep a dry shirt once it hits 90. They act like a steering wheel so hot you can’t touch it is normal. They act like 100 degrees is OK as long as you can find a swimming pool.
The Wrong Ones have shown us who they are, and they’ve shown us they won’t listen. So as tempting as it might be to tell them we don’t like -30 degree wind chills any more than they would like living on the literal sun, those words will not find welcoming ears.
They will find only anger, and bitterness, with more blame toward us and the whole cycle renewing.
That is why we must maintain focus. We will get through this, and we will do it together. The negative temperatures are supposed to be gone after today. We’re supposed to break 20 tomorrow, 30 by Friday, and 40 by the end of the weekend. It is darkest before dawn. We must support each other.
We’re all we got. We’re all we need.
The other day my wife laid on the couch with two blankets, a blanket sweatshirt, a stocking cap and a 50-pound dog on top of her and said she was cold. I checked the thermostat. It was 68 degrees in our house. She puts on a sweatshirt if it gets below 72.
Also, like a lot of you, we’re having some issues at the house. Our brand-new dishwasher won’t work, presumably because of frozen pipes, perhaps even the same frozen pipes that are keeping a toilet from flushing.
She is as into the some of the good parts of cold weather as I am — the fires, the chili, the baking cookies, the blankets.
But what I’m trying to tell you is that right now is not the best time for me to talk to her about the joys of the cold.
And, honestly, I’m typing these words wearing my heaviest sweatshirt, hoodie on.
I said this before but watching the weather this week is a little like watching a child I adore and will defend until the end of time just take it too far. Like we need to have a serious talk when this tantrum is over. Boundaries.
So, some quick background for those who don’t know. Our first grader’s school day was called off on Friday, but because this is 2021 it wasn’t a snow day — it was a virtual learning day.
I understand why, state rules and all that, but I don’t want my kids growing up in a world without snow days. Some parts of the past just need to be protected.
He did the mandatory parts of the virtual learning, but we did make one of the breaks longer than it should have been because he asked if he could play the Super Bowl on Madden.
That’s when this happened:
The cords are an admitted and abject disaster. I offer not an excuse but an explanation.
That picture was taken in our bedroom. Before the world shut down, our bedroom was used to sleep and change clothes. That’s it. Now it’s also my office, our gym, and the kids’ video game room.
I have admittedly let go of the tidiness in exchange for ease, because the disaster is really just a far corner that’s actually hidden by a chair.
One of our kids’ birthday is next week, and don’t tell them this but we’re going to put a TV in a small basement play room and take the PlayStation down there. That means all of those wires except for the TV power cord will be gone.
What you saw is temporary, is my point.
But my staunch Pro-Snow Day stance is permanent.
You mean what would I say when I climbed out of my QT-fueled Jeep powered by the Peanut, Starburst jellybeans, Roasterie 40 Sardines, Tank 7 and the loaded curly-Q fries from The Bar (sour cream on the side)?
I have no idea, Fitz. I’ll have to think about it.
This week I’m particularly grateful for my health, and for yours.
This story was originally published February 16, 2021 at 9:31 AM.