Kansas City Chiefs fans can finally be unbothered by tomorrow
I haven’t watched a single second of a single play involving any college player the Chiefs may draft. I’m sure whoever they do draft will be good at playing football and will be excited to join the team.
Other people on this site are much better at covering the draft than I am, because they study it and care about it and love it. Part of me doesn’t like the draft because I don’t like the idea of grown men being given no agency in where they work for the next half-decade. But I understand the necessity of it, because if players had agency over where they first worked, the Bengals would have zero players. I also understand a giant sum of money makes up for the lack of choice in workplace for most people.
The other part of me that likes the draft, likes it because it’s like a big lottery with bright colors and whizzy graphics and sometimes your team trades up for the best football player who ever lived.
But since the draft this year is going to be one big Zoom call, and the Chiefs aren’t going to trade up for the best football player who ever lived, I’m not going to write about the draft. I’m going to write briefly about time.
Time is fake. That’s why it feels like it accelerates as we age. Actually, I think it feels that way because the amount of space a year takes out of our lifetime gets smaller with every new one. When we are one year old, a year is our entire lives. When we are 65, it’s 1/65th.
We frame our existence around our own invented structure, and then the stress of that structure weighs down our existence. Have you ever met an animal outside our species who was running late?
Since time is fake, we can define it by whatever arbitrary chunk we want. We can control it, that’s how Tom Brady continues to be Tom Brady.
Andy Reid has been the Chiefs’ head coach since 2013. That’s seven years. If you go back seven years from 2013, it’s 2006. Patrick Mahomes turned 11 that year.
Trent Green feels like forever ago, but the end of Trent Green in Kansas City is also 2006; only two Andy Reids ago. Three Andy Reids ago, Warren Moon was a Chief. About five Andy Reids ago, Todd Blackledge was drafted. Jump back only seven Andy Reids, and the Chiefs are champions of Super Bowl 4. I’m only four Andy Reids old.
If we make a “Full Andy Reid” his entire head coaching career, only two Andy Reids ago, LaserDisc hit the market.
Time feels like it has slowed these last couple months. This whole pandemic deal is a new one for us, and new experiences tend to slow the way we feel time. But once it’s over, or at least once we’re back to some new normal where our routines fall back into some semblance of their places, time will return to its usual breakneck speed. Sometime in the near future, NFL games are being played, with or without fans.
So, what’s the point of this, right? In part, the point is I’ve been sitting at home all day, alone with my thoughts. This probably doesn’t happen if everything is functioning as we are accustomed to. Writing about football is difficult, and I already didn’t like the offseason.
There are reasons not related to insanity brought on by isolation, though. The Chiefs are entering the beginning of what should be many seasons of success. Multiple championships.
It’s no exaggeration to say that only one Super Bowl win would be a massive disappointment if that is where the Mahomes Era finishes. I have little concern that will happen, though.
It’s fun to think about what lies ahead for the Chiefs, but it’s also something I try not to get too caught up in. I don’t mean that in a hippie-dippie “live in the moment, man” sorta way. This era of Chiefs football will one day die, that much is a guarantee. Remember when the Patriots’ success began? It suddenly doesn’t seem like an eternity ago, now that it’s over. Hell, it’s less than a Full Andy Reid ago.
Time is definitely on the Chiefs side, at least as far as something like time can be on something’s side. The team is young, talented, and wants to win. Soon they’ll be older, talented, and want to win. Then they’ll be old, talented, and want to win. The level of the first two will fluctuate, but the level of the last one probably won’t.
With every passing moment, we get closer to the end of this version of the Chiefs. I’m not exactly in a rush to experience that ending. I watched Yankees fans and Patriots fans experience extended, dynastic winning. They always seemed unbothered by tomorrow. I feel like that’s where I need to be now with the Chiefs. What’s tomorrow hold for my team? I don’t know, but it’s probably good, so I’m just along for the ride at this point.
Football is violent and volatile. This run for the Chiefs could take up fifteen years or fifteen months. We know exactly how long it’ll last, though: One Full Patrick Mahomes.
