Chiefs’ victory over Ravens reiterates aura of invincibility they are building
For decades, the Chiefs and their fans had been foiled and driven to dejection by any number of nemeses: personnel decisions or coaching hires gone awry and John Elway and Peyton Manning playoff fiascos and the Patriots Dynasty, for starters.
At some point, it seemed like only the other guy was meant to get the right breaks or the transformational player. And that the Chiefs were just destined to stay on the outside looking in.
Until it wasn’t that way anymore, starting with the hiring of Andy Reid after the 2012 season and accelerated by the drafting of Patrick Mahomes in 2017 and all the granular organizational developments that led to the franchise’s first Super Bowl triumph in 50 years.
And now we see the metamorphosis as reinforced Monday night at M&T Bank Stadium, where the Chiefs plowed past Baltimore 34-20 as if they were pylons instead of their most potent apparent competition in the AFC.
In winning their 12th straight game, including last postseason, the Chiefs continued to construct an almost tangible aura of invincibility blossoming over the last two seasons.
Suddenly, resistance is futile.
Got a double-digits lead on them? Ho-hum, they’re 6-0 in those situations since the start of last season.
Think you know what they’re going to do at any given time?
Nah:
See offensive tackle Eric Fisher’s touchdown catch on Monday … or Mahomes’ softball fast-pitch TD pass to Anthony Sherman … or a remarkable array of screen passes … or Mahomes’ beautiful passes for long touchdowns to Tyreek Hill and Mecole Hardman.
Believe you have an offense that can score at will, led by 2019 NFL most valuable player Lamar Jackson? They’ve got some rebuttals for that, it turns out.
Presume yourself to have the best defense in the NFL, at least in terms of points allowed entering the game Monday night? Even if his numbers might ebb and flow at times, Mahomes just keeps growing every game. And now he has a budding star in the backfield in the form of rookie running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire to go with the absurd forces of Travis Kelce and Sammy Watkins Hill and the emerging Hardman.
Add it all up, and it’s the others on the outside looking in.
Jackson now is 21-4 as a starter in regular-season games, and three of those losses are to the Chiefs.
Reid now has won four in a row against his Baltimore counterpart and protege, John Harbaugh, leaving him 13-6 against former assistant coaches.
The two still could very well be on a postseason collision course, and the Ravens could beat the Chiefs in a rematch. And Jackson is so good he could one day reverse the trend in the head-to-head matches with Mahomes that figure to be an NFL highlight for years to come.
But until they prove otherwise, the Ravens will be lugging their own version of the burden the Chiefs faced for so long in so many different ways and that everyone else now is left to face.
The Chiefs have become the scourge of the NFL, everyone else’s Kryptonite or invisible fence.
They demoralize and exasperate and intimidate psychologically, because … what do you have to do to beat them?
Especially now that they have a stout defense that coalesced in the second half of last season under new coordinator Steve Spagnuolo and was spurred by newcomers Tyrann Mathieu and Frank Clark ... and now has picked up where it left off.
The Chiefs’ hopes of repeating on the way to creating a dynasty of their own won’t go unchallenged, of course.
And up next is a matchup with the Patriots (2-1) that would go a long way toward further asserting that some sort of torch has been passed … or would puncture some of this gathering mystique if they lose.
But the Chiefs are the defending Super Bowl champs, have most of their team back and many of their key players signed for the long haul. They have won 30 of their last 33 against the AFC West and have some sort of mojo over the Ravens.
And above all else they have Mahomes, for whom the superlatives already are running out as he somehow continues to expand our imaginations while demoralizing opponents.
In this case, the Ravens had hopes of breaking through, with Harbaugh before the game even violating coachspeak protocol and acknowledging this was something more than just one game.
Indeed, it was touted nationally as the game of the early season. And without the ever-lurking pandemic, you would have felt the pandemonium for a game like this crackling hours before around the stadium or in nearby restaurants.
In fact, the empty scene echoed the eerie circumstances surrounding the Chiefs’ game last week in Los Angeles … though, unlike in L.A., the Ravens did allow in 250 family members who live in the same household as a player, coach or staff member.
But that also all stands as a reminder that even everything is fleeting or in flux in this world, including football.
For instance, consider the last time the Chiefs played in this stadium and how things have pivoted since.
On Dec. 20, 2015, when the Chiefs won 34-14, the franchise still was seeking its first playoff win since the 1993 season after missing the playoffs the season before and starting the season 1-5.
Since then, the Chiefs have won more postseason games (five) than they had from 1970 to 2014 (three) while the Ravens are 0-2 in the playoffs.
Their victory on Monday suggests at least a mental edge for the Chiefs should they indeed meet again in the playoffs. Suggests, though, not assures.
One reminder of how this game isn’t the end-all: Fifty years ago to the night, the defending Super Bowl-champion Chiefs came to Baltimore and won 44-24. But it was Baltimore (albeit the Colts) that went on to win the Super Bowl as the Chiefs missed the playoffs altogether.
Thus started a long period of being on the other end of this — something the Chiefs at last have reversed to stand above it all until anyone can prove otherwise.
This story was originally published September 28, 2020 at 10:46 PM.