Sick of seeing the Kansas City Chiefs celebrate? Well, their wins mean a great deal to the long-suffering fan base.
These days, the Kansas City Chiefs are everywhere. It seems like the club is on national TV virtually every weekend. Some combination of Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Andy Reid appears in just about every commercial. And that’s not even counting the Taylor Swift factor, which has bumped Kelce’s profile up to a new level.
The rise to prominence has been somewhat divisive. If you take legendary sportscaster Bob Costas at his word, Kansas City has replaced the Dallas Cowboys as America’s Team. But, at the same time, there are the social media maps showing how fans around the country were rooting for seemingly anyone other than the defending champs.
From afar, that largely makes sense. Whether we’re talking about the Patriots, the Chiefs, or any other dynasty, opposing fans hate to see the same team win again and again. It is, at best, boring and, at worst, a crushing reminder of your own team’s failings.
But, for those within the Chiefs Kingdom, this run of success hasn’t come lightly. It’s been a long and arduous journey to the top.
Remember, Kansas City wasn’t a franchise blessed with success at the quarterback position. And while the importance of that position has ebbed and flowed over the years, the Chiefs seemed uniquely destined to fail there. Despite boasting some big names under center, like Len Dawson and Joe Montana, the club couldn’t draft a star signal-caller.
„You look at all these fanbases in the league who haven’t gotten there, and that was this team for the longest time. In fact, I have a very vivid memory of my father and my grandfather. Every Sunday, they would have a phone call at some point during the Chiefs game. … At some point during the Chiefs game, they would get on the phone together, and they would just commiserate. And it would always come back to, you know, that same thing, which was the quarterback,“ Goldman said.
„And it was always something to hear that interaction and how frustrated they were because, you know, it had just taken [the Chiefs] such a long, long time to figure that position out…The last time before Patrick Mahomes that they had taken a quarterback in the first round was Todd Blackledge, and he did absolutely nothing.“
Blackledge’s name is uniquely painful, as he came to town with the seventh overall pick of the 1983 draft, leaving Jim Kelly and Dan Marino (plus Hall-of-Famers and Pro Bowlers at other positions) on the board. He went 13-11 in five seasons as a starter, only appearing in a single postseason game.
But he wasn’t the entirety of the organization’s quarterback woes. As mentioned above, Joe Montana came to Arrowhead and couldn’t get KC over the hump. Trent Green played well but left town without much to show for his efforts. There was an entire unfortunate era featuring the likes of Damon Huard, Tyler Palko and Tyler Thigpen under center before Matt Cassel arrived to be the franchise’s chosen one. He, of course, failed to save the day.
Alex Smith helped turn the tide and, of course, Patrick Mahomes took things to an entirely new level. A position that seemed cursed is now a source of both pride and security. With No. 15 under center, anything is possible.
„It’s just interesting to see how specifically Patrick has completely changed, you know, I guess the trajectory of this franchise when it was just pure misery for so many fans,“ Goldman added.
But the story of the Chiefs franchise is about much more than simply quarterbacks. There was also a lingering, Brooklyn Dodgers-esque feeling that, no matter what went right, there was always a failure looming around the corner.
Sometimes, Kansas City was outright bad. There was a two-win season in the 1970s, a three-win campaign in the 1980s, and two-win seasons in both the 2000s and 2010s. But even when things went right, heartbreak was never far away.
There were great seasons that ended in disaster; KC, at various points, had gone more than 30 years without a postseason win and played six straight home playoff games without a win.
