Instead of marking doomsday, October loss to Raiders ignited Chiefs, made them better
In that deflating 40-32 loss to the Raiders last month, the Chiefs were overrun on both lines of scrimmage, exploited in the defensive secondary, caught somewhere between flat-footed and just plain flat and otherwise outed as mortal.
Yet it was easy to remember that they had won their previous 13 games and remained defending Super Bowl champions with virtually all of their vital elements intact. For all the brooding and paranoia it conjured in some circles, the most logical scenario was that the game would stand as a mere asterisk in an abundantly promising season.
Other than snuffing out the improbable prospect of becoming the second team in NFL history (joining the 1972 Miami Dolphins) to win every game, the loss simply could have been reconciled as just one of those days in the course of a challenging season.
Instead, it might be the best thing that could have happened to this team in its pursuit of becoming the first repeat NFL champion since the 2003-04 New England Patriots. And not just because it alleviated the looming tier of pressure that would be attached to an intact hope of going undefeated, another of those ways that perfection could lurk as the enemy of the great and detract from the true goal.
Plenty of further developments ahead will help define the arc of the season, of course. But this sure looks like a key pivot point on its current trajectory: What safety Tyrann Mathieu called “a gut check” and a “reality check” came back positive.
So the loss was unsightly, yes. But it wasn’t untimely … and not entirely unwelcome given the truth serum it provided in everything from schemes to attitudes.
Because thus far it’s proven to be not so much a speed-bump as a launch pad. It illuminated vulnerabilities, yes, but simultaneously cast light on the essence of this group dynamic.
Instead of something to shrug off or sulk about, the game was a jolt that disabused any lurking notion this team was somehow good enough to not have to keep improving. It was an episode that reset resolve and certainly shattered any temptations towards complacency.
And it has demonstrated the meaning of that old saw about life being 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it.
That’s certainly been apparent in four straight wins since. And it’s plenty likely to be further on display in a grudge rematch against the Raiders on Sunday in Las Vegas, where the longtime rivals will meet for the first time. Anticipate some rekindled edge to the proceedings after the Raiders (6-3) beat the Chiefs (8-1) for just the second time in their last 13 games … and then evidently drizzled some accelerant over it all with that bit about their bus taking a victory lap around Arrowhead Stadium.
“Well, listen, they won the game, so they can do anything they want to do if they end up winning the game,” coach Andy Reid said Monday, adding a rare little jab that suggested otherwise. “That’s not our style, but we’ll get ourselves back, ready to play, and that’s where we’re at.”
In the broader context of the implications of that loss, maybe it seems only natural or inevitable that a team would convert it into improvement and incentive. But it’s hardly automatic for people to look long and hard in the mirror in defeat, to run audits of themselves instead of clinging to plaudits. It’s easier to make excuses or blame others if the culture isn’t healthy.
This culture, though, could hardly be healthier. Under Reid and with compelling and impassioned leaders like Patrick Mahomes and Mathieu, it’s emerged as what Clark Hunt the other day accurately called a “virtuous circle.”
And in keeping with the adage that adversity doesn’t build character so much as reveal it, the very reason the Chiefs are where they are in this thrilling era in franchise history hinges on what they did with defeats.
It was out of the ashes of gloom in 2012, for instance, when Hunt turned to Reid to revive the organization. with each in dire need of a new beginning.
It was the excruciating 37-31 overtime loss to the Patriots in the AFC Championship game on Jan. 20, 2019, that drove a defensive purge featuring the ouster of defensive coordinator Bob Sutton in favor of Steve Spagnuolo and scheme and personnel shakeups crucial to the Super Bowl run.
For that matter, the last time the Chiefs lost before they fell to the Raiders was 35-32 at Tennessee last season — a defeat that left many fans imploding.
Meanwhile, the Chiefs didn’t lose again the rest of the season, including rising up to overcome the imminent threats of defeat by double-digit deficits in all three postseason games ... a tendency now in their DNA.
After the loss to the Raiders, Mathieu calmly spoke about getting right back “in the lab” and said he hadn’t felt this motivated “in a very, very long time.”
“We won’t ever forget this day,” he added.
Mere words, yes, but the actions ensued.
The Chiefs followed that up with a rugged 26-15 win at Buffalo (then 4-1, 7-3 now). Then they clobbered Denver 43-16 and the New York Jets 35-9 before fending off Carolina 33-31 going into a bye week … after which Reid is 18-3 in his career.
Among the points taken from the loss to the Raiders, though, is that past performance is no guarantee of future results. And that cue comes regularly and directly from Reid, who didn’t quite say you learn more from losses than defeats but ...
“I’m a big believer that you dig in on both wins and losses, and you figure it out,” he said. “Wins, because you won it doesn’t mean everything’s pretty, so you go in and you try to learn from both. Obviously with a loss you can see how people handle a loss and kind of what they’re made of. But you see the same thing when they win in a different way.
“So, you want to just be consistent and I try to do that by example. I try to be as diligent as I can with admitting the problems when we win, admitting the problems if we don’t, and then saying the good things if we win or lose. There’s always a good and bad to it, so I try to be honest with it and that helps you get better I think, whatever direction you go there with the wins or a loss.”
In this case, it made the Chiefs examine how the Raiders were able to harass Mahomes, who was pressured 22 times and sacked three in part because of the line and in part because of some unnecessary drift of his own .... each since cleaned up. And why they were able to scald the Chiefs for seven plays of 20 or more yards, including Derek Carr’s 72-yard touchdown pass to Henry Ruggs.
“A little bit of everything,” Spagnuolo said, noting he held himself personally responsible for some alignments and calls and said Carr was “one step ahead of me the whole game.”
Such accountability and reflection, which has been equally evident among players, has led to the Chiefs to step ahead since. The loss reiterated the urgency of every day and every game and the mindset that they have to be “making sure that we’re doing everything under the sun” to win, as offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy put it.
And even with other twists and turns looming ahead, just maybe that loss will be something they point back to if they pull off another moment in the sun with a repeat Super Bowl triumph.
“I thought we needed it,” Mathieu said. “Obviously, coming off the Super Bowl victory and starting the season the way we started it, you can kind of get complacent. You can kind of think that things are always going to go your way. So I was glad that we kind of had that moment. Because we’ve really been getting better, in my mind, since that day.”
This story was originally published November 22, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Instead of marking doomsday, October loss to Raiders ignited Chiefs, made them better."