Amid pandemic, Chiefs and quirky NFL Draft at least momentarily fills this sports void
Over the years, maybe you’ve read or heard the expression “nature abhors a vacuum.” Aristotle said it, it turns out, so it must have meaning. But I never thought much about the concept until Thursday night, when the NFL Draft came to pass for the center of the universe.
A certain fascination with this cleverly hyped event built on speculation and offering no immediately tangible result might come naturally for NFL fans and draftniks.
And it probably would have had ample appeal for any Chiefs fan basking in the afterglow of the team’s first Super Bowl triumph since 1970 … and their ongoing perch as the last major champion crowned this year.
Never mind that as such the Chiefs were picking 32nd. That’s a fine fresh symbol of the organization’s change in fortunes since Andy Reid took over as head coach after the 2012 season and inherited the No. 1 pick overall but not necessarily an auspicious spot to be in.
Their selection late Thursday night, LSU running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire, is plenty intriguing — he rushed for 1,414 yards and caught 55 passes for the national champions last season — even if he does stand only 5-foot-7.
In time, we’ll know more about what a fit he is for the Chiefs and what he’s about as person and how he’ll bolster their offense and what the draft does for this team.
Right now, though, we just know this about the impact of the draft on us all:
Amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, when the only scoreboards we are seeing night-in and night-out are the daunting ones tracking virus infections and deaths, this year’s version assumed an entirely different complexion than its predecessors.
The diversion morphed into a cosmic form of group therapy, at least if saturation media coverage and the apparent national tweet-along were any measures.
Even if you’re among those who tend to see this affair as much ado about nothing, or just plain about nothing, it was a night with enormous appeal to tune in and embrace the absurd.
Because who wouldn’t want to see general managers and coaches working in their lairs?
Heck, HGTV should have tried to get in on this, whether by highlighting Reid’s basement setup or the stunning “War Room 2.0” home of Arizona coach Kliff Kingsbury that compelled Patrick Mahomes, one of his quarterbacks at Texas Tech to Tweet, “I’m trying to have a crib like Kliff!”
Because who didn’t need the entertainment and distraction of seeing the initial destinations of not just the next wave of NFL stars but the bizarre administration of the proceedings, technical glitches and all?
Because this spectacle somewhat, at least momentarily, filled a speck of a smidgen of an iota of the void left by the shutdown of sports for the foreseeable future.
And it provided a hopeful glimpse for many toward the presumptive season ahead … precarious as that might be given the ongoing uncertainty caused by the virus.
In the case of Kansas City, that included plenty of time to anticipate the last pick of the night and consider where the Chiefs were as a team even before the addition of Edwards-Helaire and the others to come in the next two days.
As the defending champions apparently built to last for years, as a team perhaps more equipped than any other to perform with minimal offseason preparation, the Chiefs entered this week from such a position of strength that they stood as a fascinating X-factor: free to hold steady at No. 32 but always with the potential to do something bold (as they did to trade up for Mahomes in 2017) or even trade down.
It’s a statement in itself that they stood in the pocket.
As much as this draft might in some ways seem a luxury or a wild-card for the Chiefs, though, the truth is every team needs to replenish its inventory for crucial depth and ongoing financial considerations as veterans age into bigger contracts.
It’s a little like that Woody Allen line in the “Annie Hall” movie, about relationships being like a shark. “It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what (we’ve) got on our hands is a dead shark.”
These Chiefs, of course, are anything but a dead shark.
Not with the transcendent Mahomes and a young nucleus and, at least at this stage, 20 of 22 starters and all three coordinators coming back and Reid doubtless energized by the prospect of coaching Mahomes for years on end.
Whatever the Chiefs achieve in this draft figures to be more substantial than the class they concocted the last time they won the Super Bowl, though that nonetheless provides a cautionary tale.
In the first of a wretched few years of selections that was instrumental in their undoing even as they stood on the verge of a dynasty, their 17 picks that year ultimately combined for a total of seven starts in a Chiefs uniform and soon illuminated an aging core.
Instead of a worthy encore after appearing in two of the first four Super Bowls and winning Super Bowl IV, the Chiefs went 7-5-2 that season and failed to make the playoffs.
A season later, in an AFC Divisional playoff game on Christmas Day 1971, they suffered the star-crossed double-overtime loss to Miami that came to stand for the continental divide in the franchise’s fortunes.
They didn’t return to the playoffs until the 1986 season and didn’t win another playoff game until 1991. Then they won two in the 1993 postseason only to have that prove a blip.
Another 20 years would pass before they won another, during which they lost eight playoff games in a row.
Shazam, along came Reid and general manager John Dorsey, followed by general manager Brett Veach, to create a durable foundation.
Presto, along came Mahomes, the man who changed the essential calculus on the field and in the faith of teammates and fans.
All of which has helped make them a team with which to reckon next season amid this draft like no other … a draft that we couldn’t resist but can only hope never to see the likes of again.
This story was originally published April 24, 2020 at 12:01 AM.