If you had compiled a list of all the factors that would lead to a Kansas City loss on Monday, most would have been ticked off.
An inability to stop Le’Veon Bell, an anaemic offence, the limitations of Alex Smith and of course, good old Andy Reid playoff clock management.
The two-point loss to Pittsburgh is another gut punch for an organisation which is starving for playoff success and an awful contrast to the regular season form of a franchise often considered underrated with the ability to rip off wins in the regular season.
The Chiefs are 23-9 over the past two regular seasons, winning a division title and making two trips to the playoffs. The net result of this supremacy? A single playoff win, over Brian Hoyer and a Houston side which fell apart at home.
On the surface and in the box score, you see a side which didn’t give up a touchdown, scoring two of their own, yet losing due to a playoff record six-field goals from Chris Boswell. There was also more unwanted history by becoming the first team to score two more touchdowns than their opponents and lose in the playoffs.
However, looking deeper, the loss is far more brutal. Kansas City left a litany of yards out on the field, wasted scoring chances and made some critical mistakes at important times which saw them knocked out again in a game where they were outplayed, yet was still very winnable.
Defensively the Chiefs followed their “bend but don’t break” mantra, allowing yards while still becoming incredible stingy in the redzone and despite a feeling that the Steelers always had the upper hand, they still never scored a touchdown.
Through the air they largely kept Ben Roethlisberger in check, even if they couldn’t force consistent pressure up front, limiting Big Ben to 224-yards and stymying Brown’s influence after a 52-yard bomb in the first quarter, while covered by Justin Houston, keeping him to 56-yards for the rest of the game and importantly keeping him out of the endzone.
The Chiefs lost the game on offence and Smith was one of the main culprits. There’s a clear ceiling on having Smith at quarterback, somewhere between the heights of Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady and the dregs of your Jay Cutler and Ryan Fitzpatrick and every so often you see his limitations.
For all the hype of Kansas offensive playmakers, it’s really two players and the Steelers made it their mission to limit the impact of Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce.
Hill had little influence on offence, minus drawing the attention of linebackers to open up space for teammates. He didn’t have a single punt return and there were no vintage kick returns to light up Arrowhead Stadium. Kelce disappeared after the first quarter and had two brain fades, the first a 15-yard penalty on a ridiculous unnecessary roughness call and after the game, abusing the refs for calling Eric Fisher’s obvious hold. He always dropped a catchable touchdown pass, all combining for an ugly night from their star tight end.
Outside of that, they didn’t get enough from their run game, rushing for a total of 61-yards and Jeremy Maclin was the second-best receiver with 28-yards, although some of that is on Smith. Even the idea that your most explosive offensive players are a tight end and a return specialist, suggests you lack playmakers in key positions.
Back to Smith, he had a massive chance to score earlier on the final touchdown drive as he missed Maclin on a deep ball in the redzone, throwing to the wrong side, stopping a certain touchdown for the wideout and he also missed Hill when the speedy receiver had burned the Steelers secondary, only to see Smith scramble out of a clean pocket.
For all the effort from the Chiefs defence to keep it tight, it felt like a one-sided game and there was never a feeling that Smith was going to rise another level to legitimately make it a contest.
An event much more of a certainty than a Smith-led comeback was Reid’s famous playoff clock management rearing its ugly head again and of course it did on an eight-minute touchdown drive in the final quarter which left them almost no time to get the ball back after their failed two-point attempt.
The slow pace was made worse by stupidly wasting a timeout before a key fourth down play, when surely you would have two plays lined up on third down in case you didn’t initially convert.
The Chiefs’ march through the regular season under Andy Reid is often ignored, but they show a level of consistency and ability to just pull out close games which few teams can match. However, it all goes away in January, leaving opportunity and reason for Kansas City to be ignored.
And for all the hype of Arrowhead being a fortress rivalling even that of Seattle, the Chiefs have staggeringly won just two-playoff games at home since 1970. Two! They are also 0-4 when going into the playoffs as the number one seed.
Those stats obviously aren’t all to do with the current Andy Reid-led team; however, it does highlight an offseason ineptitude which continues to plague the AFC West side.
So now the inevitable questioning must commence about how far Kansas can go under the current regime and what does stability mean early in the year when it generates little at the end.
The league may not notice Kansas City’s consistency from September to December, but there’s no shying away from what continues to happen in January.