Maybe 17 Games is Partly to Blame, but the AFC Stinks. Advantage, Kansas City.

In an AFC full of good-but-not-great teams, the Chiefs are sitting pretty once again after beating the Chargers in OT. (Photo Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)

For nearly two decades, I’ve asked the same question over and over: what is wrong with the rest of the AFC? It applied almost year in and year out, when it was only a Peyton Manning-led team that seemed to stand up to Tom Brady and the Patriots. The rest of the conference – even the Steelers, because they could never get past the Patriots – simply could not get its act together.

Well, Brady is no longer in the AFC, but sadly, the problem persists. Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs – who, like Steelers, still can’t overcome Brady – are the team standing alone at the top, simply because the rest of the conference refuses to mature into real contenders.

Last week was a perfect example of this. The Chiefs, once 3-4 and fooling everyone into thinking the sky was falling in Kansas City, have won seven straight. This included an extremely lucky win over Los Angeles in which the Chargers continually shot themselves in the foot (sound familiar?) until they had no foot left and simply ran out of gas in overtime. A few days later, with the Chiefs nearing yet another AFC West clinch, several other teams had golden opportunities to keep the heat on KC. Instead, each one of them fell flat on its face, pushing the Chiefs right back to the top of the pack.

The Patriots? Not even Bill Belichick can solve every problem, and they fell behind by 20 points to the Colts before making it close but ultimately falling in Indianapolis. The Titans? Given a chance to beat the middling the Steelers, they, too, handed the game away with three turnovers. Not even holding Pittsburgh under 20 points was enough to get the win. Wait, how about the Ravens? Give them credit for fighting hard without Lamar Jackson, but in the end, John Harbaugh decided to take a page out of Brandon Staley’s ego-driven book, taking every gamble imaginable and watching those decisions backfire in a gut-wrenching, 31-30 loss to Green Bay.

If this feels familiar, it should. It’s essentially the same script with different actors playing the antagonists. Sure, there are “dark horse” teams you can point to if you wish. The Bills, Bengals, Chargers, and Colts are all 8-6, but you want so badly to believe they are better than their records indicate and capable of making a run. But do you really trust three franchises with zero combined Super Bowls (and a cumulative 0-7 record to boot) and a Colts team led by Carson Wentz? Especially the Chargers, who you-know-what the bed when they had a golden opportunity to seize control of the division. In the words of a popular ESPN segment, “C’mon, man.”

People will tout Kansas City’s success, and in some ways, they should. To me, they kind of act like the Dodgers in baseball. For years, both teams were pretty good, but never great. Finally, when everything broke right for them and the path was made easier, they ended their championship droughts. But neither could duplicate that title success a year later when the road wasn’t so convenient for them, or they had to play a legitimate full season. The Chiefs’ five playoff wins the past two years have come against four franchises without a Super Bowl win, and another led by Jimmy Garropolo. Beating, say, Tom Brady or even Aaron Rodgers? That might explain why they have one Super Bowl win in the last 51 years.

You could even make a comparison of the Chiefs to LeBron James, who for years was never pushed in the Eastern Conference. He was dogged for the first eight years of his career that he couldn’t win a title, but then won three on that coast. And what helped was the fact that, essentially, James only needed to produce one difficult series win – over a Western team. In that same vein, it always felt that for years, the Patriots and now the Chiefs never had to sweat much to get through the AFC, and only needed one truly strong game to become Super Bowl champions.

But, alas, who is ready to stand up and challenge the Chiefs? Any of the aforementioned teams that all have plenty of warts and heavy playoff baggage? Peyton Manning won’t be taking the field again, and Brady has moved to the NFC. Roethlisberger is on his last legs. Consider that those three men, combined with Mahomes, have combined to win 17 of the past 18 (!) AFC championships, with only a one-year reprieve thanks to Joe Flacco in 2012.

What makes you think things will be different in 2021, especially in a season that is dragging on longer than usual because the owners decided they just weren’t making enough money before?

We as a society are addicted to football. That’s why people like myself who want so badly to quit watching and boycott the league continually making unnecessary changes, like Thursday Night Football every week and 17-game seasons, are still hooked. If we as a whole could push back by not caring as much, we may not get walked all over by the greedy owners. Or at a local level, if we as Chargers or Bills or Browns fans could push back and say “we’re tired of watching a team that is sometimes good, but never great,” we might finally persuade the powers that be to put a better product on the field.

But, much like the rest of the AFC outside of Kansas City, we are weak.

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