Chiefs have been telling us Super Bowl was long behind. They proved it Thursday night
Since at least June 15, when the Chiefs held their Super Bowl LVII ring celebration at Union Station, their most consistent narrative has been that last season was fading to black.
That night would be what Travis Kelce called “the last hoo-rah,” a mantra reiterated over and over during training camp and faithfully upheld on Thursday night:
Rather than be part of the hype, the Chiefs remained in the locker room at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium during a pre-game celebration that featured the unveiling of the championship banner.
Trouble was, the Chiefs also spent the rest of the night proving the point about last season being a distant memory with their bungling, deflating 21-20 loss to the Detroit Lions.
Among the glaring issues were being snookered by a pivotal fake punt and an absurd spree of dropped passes.
Those included a particularly galling one for a pick-six off the hands of Kadarius Toney — whose crucial performance in the Super Bowl suddenly seemed a long time ago on an off-kilter night surely in part because of missing much of training camp.
That was then. This is now. Never mind that the idea of coupling them together is irresistible for onlookers as the Chiefs seek to become the first NFL team to repeat in nearly two decades.
“Last year is over with, and this should just highlight that more than anything,” safety Justin Reid said in a subdued locker room after the Chiefs lost their opener for the first time in nine seasons. “Whatever we did last year won’t help us win a game this year.”
None of which necessarily means the Chiefs are in trouble after one game played without two of their most fundamental players: tight end Travis Kelce, who sat out with a hyperextended knee, and defensive lineman Chris Jones, who continues his holdout.
But all of which affirms that past results are absolutely no guarantee of future performance — a point amplified after Reid swatted down Detroit quarterback Jarod Goff’s fourth-and-2 pass to give the Chiefs the ball at their own 45 with 2 minutes 30 seconds left.
Exactly the dire scenario we’ve become so accustomed to Patrick Mahomes alchemizing into sheer gold.
This time, though, the Chiefs just unraveled in the crucible.
On first down, a wide-open Toney dropped another pass that would have put the Chiefs in field-goal range. Then what would have been Mahomes’ lone connection with Skyy Moore was negated by a holding call on Donovan Smith.
On second and 20, Moore had a ball batted away that he should have secured. On fourth and 20, Jawaan Taylor was called for a false start.
On fourth and 25, a fully extended Moore just couldn’t reel in a Mahomes lob he got his hands on.
“Mahomes is one of the most exciting, fantastic players you’ll ever watch,” Reid said. “Not (every game) is always going to be a magical, fairy-tale ending.”
Just as this game needn’t imply the magical, fairy tale time is over for the Chiefs. But this one will leave a mark, perhaps ultimately for the greater motivational good even as it reverberates painfully now.
On the way we’ll wonder.
Asked afterward if it was embarrassing to lose under the celebratory circumstances and on national television, Mahomes said, “It’s embarrassing for me to lose any time.”
That’s the sort of thing you can only say with conviction when you seldom do lose. And you can bet Mahomes and coach Andy Reid and his staff will be consumed with amending all they possibly can before the Chiefs play Sept. 17 at Jacksonville.
Meanwhile, yes, if the Chiefs had had Kelce on Thursday, to say nothing of Jones, this might have turned out differently.
But to focus on that also is beside the point: Injuries are just part of the deal for every NFL team.
The bigger “reality check,” as Justin Reid called it, is that their margin for error in the parity-focused NFL has been reduced to begin with — at least in part because they’re everyone’s Super Bowl now.
By way of fresh example, the Lions have won just one postseason game since 1957 (in 1992) and hoisted a long-suffering fan base on their shoulders with what must be considered one of the most meaningful wins in modern franchise history.
Meanwhile, it’s easy to feel disillusioned now if you’re a Chiefs fan.
The idea, after all, was that they’d have a better sense of what they need to do to repeat this time around than they did after winning Super Bowl LIV. But obscured by the 31-9 jackhammering they were administered by Tampa Bay in Super Bowl LV is the fact those Chiefs had rather a successful go at it:
After all, they went 14-1 that season before resting Mahomes and other starters in the regular-season finale.
If their offensive line hadn’t been decimated by the time they got to the Super Bowl, maybe they’d have pulled it off after all.
As he’s looked back at that season, though, Mahomes has made the point that the Chiefs at times seemed content along the way to just win — eight times by six points or fewer during the regular season — and not continue to build and improve.
This time around, though, the Chiefs suddenly already have lost as many regular-season games as they did that season with their best available lineup.
The Lions earned this victory. They deserved it.
But the good news, if you can call it that, is that the Chiefs made many mistakes that are correctable.
Whether they’ll do that is another matter that remains to be seen.
After all, last season is long ago and far away in every respect.
This story was originally published September 8, 2023 at 7:00 AM.