GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: As Super Bowl nears again, Chiefs’ 2019 and 1969 parallels abound
Sift through the circumstances of the Chiefs’ Super Bowl triumph 50 years ago and superimpose those images over today, and you might be struck by some parallels between the most momentous season in Chiefs history and the intriguing prospect at hand now.
It’s part of what seems like a golden opportunity on a golden anniversary.
As the Chiefs prepare for their playoff opener on Jan. 12 at Arrowhead Stadium, 50 years and a day since the Chiefs beat the Vikings 23-7 in Super Bowl IV, the weeks ahead will reveal whether this glow was mere fool’s gold or the real deal.
“Fifty years later, we’re still after another one,” Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker Willie Lanier said during a recent panel discussion of Michael MacCambridge’s book, “ ‘69 Chiefs: A Team, a Season and the Birth of Modern Kansas City.”
Added Lanier, “So, obviously we understood how to get things done.”
Naturally, we won’t understand for weeks whether this group has that in it. And to be sure, there is as much or more in juxtaposition as alignment between the teams.
(Not to mention between the times, even if they coincidentally each feature such points of interest as new airports on the way amid a prevailing wave of modernization in town.)
But we’ll come back to some of the differences that remind us of how these are stories unto themselves. Let’s look first at what links them, both in points of fact and perhaps less weightily.
Start with their leaders, men largely known as offensive innovators with vast arrays of schemes and plays who perhaps not coincidentally grew up with entertainment-minded fathers: Hank Stram’s was “The Wrestling Tailor”; Andy Reid’s was an artist for Disney who created sets for movies, musicals and plays.
Each coach has been employed by the Hunt family, from Lamar then to son Clark now, with each owner enjoying a distinct and tone-setting connection to his coach.
“Both teams were characterized by the comfort and closeness of that relationship, of ownership believing in the head coach’s program, and providing all the necessary support for the franchise to thrive,” MacCambridge, also the author of Lamar Hunt’s biography (“Lamar Hunt: A Life In Sports”), said.
“Hank Stram and Lamar Hunt were like brothers, in many ways. And though I have no special insight into the relationship between Andy Reid and Clark Hunt, there seems to be an immense amount of trust there, going in both directions; the stability and success for the team has followed.”
Their teams were led by a prospective Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback (Len Dawson in 1969 and, yes, prematurely presumptive HOFer Patrick Mahomes now). And each star suffered early-season knee injuries that made for mass local hysteria that was mercifully weathered by their replacements, and their respective returns.
That was then: the so-called “Honey Bear,” linebacker Willie Lanier; a star safety from Louisiana State (Johnny Robinson); a pass-rushing threat out of the Big Ten (Bobby Bell of Minnesota); a key defensive tackle born in a tiny town in the deep south (Buck Buchanan of Gainesville, Alabama, pop: 187); a uniquely talented game-breaking receiver in Otis Taylor; a game-changing kicker in Jan Stenerud; and running back-by-committee.
This is now: the so-called “Honey Badger,” star safety Tyrann Mathieu … who also happens to have gone to LSU; a pass-rushing threat out of the Big Ten (Frank Clark of Michigan); a key defensive tackle from a small town in the deep south (Chris Jones of Houston, Mississippi, pop: 3,459); a uniquely talented game-breaking receiver in Tyreek Hill; a pivotal kicker, Harrison Butker, who led the league in scoring; and, yes, a running back-by-committee approach on the ground.
Then there were the prequels.
Each of their previous seasons was punctuated similarly — with momentous thuds in the form of defenses dissected by the most relevant rival of the time.
Fifty years ago, a 41-6 loss to Oakland stood as the most lopsided defeat in franchise history; just under a year ago, the Chiefs fell to the Patriots 37-31 in the AFC Championship Game in part due to an offsides penalty and a coin toss, but ultimately because of a defense that was hapless when it needed to stand and be counted.
While one loss was lopsided and the other hardly could have been closer, a certain burn lingered for both teams.
Falling “four inches” short, as Reid likes to refer to the offsides call on Dee Ford that negated a likely game-clinching interception, gave the team “a taste of it” — something it has sought to quench since, through the offseason and a 12-4 regular season. That established a No. 2 seed in the AFC and a first-round bye.
That underpinning resembled that of their predecessors … at least to this point. The 1969 Chiefs’ debacle against Oakland funneled into offseason fuel for a team made up primarily of players who had enjoyed an even more substantial “taste of it” just two seasons before, when they played in the first Super Bowl only to be mulched 35-10 by Green Bay.
“As surely as the 1968 Kansas City Chiefs season had come to a bitter conclusion,” MacCambridge wrote, “the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs season had begun.”
Those clarifying ends led to pivotal changes on that side of the ball — though far more subtly and less sweeping in 1969 than the aftermath of last season. Following last January’s loss to the Patriots, the Chiefs changed defensive coordinators, schemes, most of the staff on that side of the ball and much of their personnel.
For all this, of course, much is in contrast.
The coaches — Stram and Reid — are of such different stature and temperament that the flamboyant Stram was commonly known as “Little Caesar” for his rigid ways, while the typically understated Reid is dubbed “Big Red” and known as a player’s coach.
It also bears mention that that 1969 group was a team of historic significance beyond the local scene. It represented the AFL for the last time before the league’s merger with the NFL, and it had a groundbreaking role in advancing racial equality in the game: Featuring 12 players from historically black colleges or universities on their opening day roster, MacCamridge wrote, the 1969 Chiefs were the first team in pro football history on which a majority of the 22 starters were African-American.
Meanwhile, Bell, Buchanan, Lanier and Robinson of that 1969 team are joined by Curley Culp and Emmitt Thomas in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, a staggering number befitting one of the best defenses in the history of the game.
And any specific comparisons between players of those eras are for amusement only.
For instance, Clark at defensive end is a very good player with an apparently bright career ahead. Time will tell what his legacy will be.
But Bell at linebacker was incomparable. The first Chief inducted into the Hall of Fame was so much more than a pass rusher. He had 26 career interceptions and the range and skills to be a great open-field tackler.
And the game itself has changed in so many ways.
Perhaps that’s well-encapsulated in the role of the tight end, with Travis Kelce hauling in 200 receptions over the last two seasons compared to then-star tight end Fred Arbanas having 198 over his nine-season career.
Certainly, the difference is underscored by how Mahomes has changed the boundaries. After throwing for 50 touchdowns in his first season as a starter, his numbers were less gaudy this season when he threw for 26 — which nonetheless matched the most Len Dawson ever threw for as a Chief (though he threw 29 when they were the Dallas Texans in 1962).
But the most pertinent and acute difference from then to now is this: Since winning three AFL titles from 1962-69 and playing in two of the first four Super Bowls, the Chiefs have won just five postseason games and not been back to a Super Bowl.
Only three NFL teams have suffered longer without a Super Bowl berth. The Jets haven’t been back since winning Super Bowl III, and the Browns and Lions have never appeared in the big game.
Fall short of what has become no less than an expectation, and the shadow of 1969 that has grown by the years and decades into a half-century now will only get more imposing.
Break through with this golden opportunity, and these Chiefs will stand alongside those remarkable ancestors ... no matter how much or how little they specifically have in common.
This story was originally published January 11, 2020 at 5:00 AM.