Reliving the Last Time the Chiefs Played the Colts in the Playoffs
The Colts hold a 4–0 all time playoff record against the Chiefs in the playoffs, but the results of their last meeting make it feel much worse than that.
January 4th, 2014 was the worst day of my life. That may sound a bit dramatic, especially when you consider that since then I’ve been heartbroken, fired, haunted, lost loved ones, and found out I’m a felon, but nothing causes a pit in my stomach as deep and wide as the one that forms when I reflect on that day.
It was a typical winter weekend in Dubuque, Iowa: frigid, overcast, and mostly devoid of life. Fitting since that was how my heart would feel later that evening following the Chiefs eventual loss to the Colts in the wild card round of the NFL playoffs. But I’m already getting ahead of myself.
My best friend Steven and I, both lifelong Chiefs fans, were visiting our Iowa hometown for winter break. While we had both been born in different states (me in Missouri, him in Montana) we had spent the majority of our childhoods in Dubuque and came to know it as home. Since each of our families left town after we went off to college, we were staying at a mutual friend’s house that had acted as our second home growing up. As much as I appreciated their family’s hospitality, the downside was that they didn’t have cable, forcing us to find somewhere to watch the Chiefs game. We also didn’t want to subject them to the ugly messes we would inevitably become during the game. There’s no way they would invite us back after seeing that side of us.
We settled on Buffalo Wild Wings. I’m not sure why since I don’t like Buffalo Wild Wings, and I’m pretty sure Steven doesn’t like Buffalo Wild Wings, and I’m pretty sure no one actually likes Buffalo Wild Wings. What I am sure of is that part of the reason we chose it was we knew it was a place we could get away with ordering nothing but a couple of Cokes with no consequence other than a few sideways glares from our waitress. We were frugal. It was college.
When we showed up to watch the game we were surprised by how empty it was. Dubuque, Iowa sits on the border of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois, so it’s primarily made up of Bears and Packers fans. But this was a playoff game between two fellow midwest teams in the Chiefs and Colts. We had expected it to at least be humming.
We ordered our sodas (“Two Cokes please. No, no, that’s all for now.”) and settled in to watch the first playoff game of the Andy Reid era. This was his first season with the Chiefs, as well as quarterback Alex Smith’s, and while they each had their own set of perceived limitations they’d gotten the Chiefs back to the playoffs in their first year together. Not only had they made the playoffs, they started the season 9–0, becoming the first team in NFL history to be the last undefeated team in the same year they had the number one overall pick in the draft. It felt like the franchise had finally turned a corner and was ready to shake the stench of mediocrity.
The Chiefs have experienced plenty of regular season success in the past, so it was the postseason that was the final hurdle. Kansas City hadn’t won a playoff game since 1993 heading into their matchup with the Colts, which meant they hadn’t won a playoff game in my entire existence (I was born in 1992 but scientists say you don’t start developing long-term memories until the age of three). The solution? Pair a franchise suffering from a lack of playoff success with a coach suffering from a lack of playoff success with a quarterback suffering from a lack of playoff success and hope that three negatives somehow work out to make a positive. It was so crazy it just might work. And so far it had, despite losing the division to the Denver Broncos down the stretch and falling to the #5 seed.
As Steven and I sat waiting for the game to begin, a man in his early thirties and his nine year old looking son wearing matching Colts jerseys sat at a table kitty corner from us. I hated this kid the second I saw him for no reason other than the fact that he was a Colts fan and I was a Chiefs fan and our teams were playing each other in the playoffs that day. He was also loud and chewed with his mouth open.
The game kicked off and within about four seconds Jamaal Charles, the Chief’s leading rusher, receiver, and all around most dangerous player left the game with a concussion. It felt like a bad omen at the time, but the Chiefs still managed to rip the Colts limb from limb on their way to a 31–10 halftime lead.
Steven and I were ecstatic. We ordered another free refill of Coke as we gushed over how good the Chiefs looked. Alex Smith was stretching the field vertically. The defense was flying. Donnie Freakin Avery was involved. Andy Reid and Alex Smith were going to get us over the hump; it was actually going to happen. I’m pretty sure we threw around the words “Chiefs” and “Super Bowl” in the same sentence. I know that I joked about building an Andy Reid statue outside Arrowhead. We broke every rule in the “How Not to Jinx Your Favorite Sports Team” book.
The Chiefs marched down the field with ease on the opening drive of the second half the for yet another score, making it 38–10. Then on the ensuing drive Andrew Luck threw his third interception of the game and Steven and I began planning Super Bowl parade routes. The Chiefs were up by 28 points in the second half of a playoff game with possession of the ball. Absolutely nothing could rob us of the happiness of finally watching our favorite team win a playoff game. Nothing.
As we decided where to we should watch the divisional round the following week, we noticed the nine year old Colts fan at the other table had started to cry. For a sliver of a fraction of a moment I actually felt genuinely bad for him. I knew that pain. I had experienced that pain. That pain sucks. But I reminded myself that it’s a pain all sports fans must endure at one point or another and the sliver of a fraction of a moment passed. His dad tried to console him as they left the restaurant sulking.
That’s when the Chiefs turned into a Kleenex in a dishwasher.
Andrew Luck began conducting a comeback so abusive it felt like a personal attack. The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion and breakneck speed at once. With each touchdown, Luck made Chiefs fans feel something they were (and still are) all too familiar with: hopelessness. I vividly remember Donald Brown’s fumble at the goal line with the Chiefs still leading 41–31. Eric Berry laid a perfect hit on the Colt’s running back that forced the ball out…only to have it somehow bounce right into Luck’s hands. He dove into the end zone for a touchdown and my heart broke. The Chiefs still had a three point lead at that point but I knew God had already decided the outcome, and it didn’t favor Kansas City.
Sure enough on their next drive the Colts took the lead on a 64 yard bomb to T.Y. Hilton with just over 4 minutes remaining. When it was all said and done the Colts won 45–44, completing the second largest comeback in NFL playoff history and handing the Chiefs their seventh straight postseason loss.
Steven and I were stunned into silence. The surrounding TVs taunted us with the results of the game as we sat there unmoving. The excitement of the announcers filled the otherwise silent and mostly deserted restaurant. I tried to zero in on one of the smaller TVs that was showing some D-II college basketball game, but the reality of what had just happened was inescapable.
My mind turned to the nine year old Colts fan. I wondered if he’d mustered the courage to finish watching the game. I know I wouldn’t have. I imagine when he got home he went to his room, tossed his Colts jersey into the corner, and played video games as an attempt to escape the sadness. His dad turned the game on in the living room because what the Hell? With each Colts touchdown he contemplates yelling to his son to come watch, but holds off: he doesn’t want to get his hopes up just to see him crushed again. But when the Colts finally take the lead his excitement boils over.
“Charlie! Get in here! You won’t believe this!”
His son runs into the room and asks what’s going on. All the dad can manage to do is point to the TV, speechless. The son sees the score and proceeds to lose his mind. The two of them dance around the room together and it’s a great father-son moment for the two of them that they’ll never forget. From the pits of absolute misery to immeasurable elation in a matter of minutes.
And for us, the opposite.
Then I cried. Shamefully at first, then without an ounce of it. I can’t articulate the feeling of watching your favorite sports team lose in the playoffs, let alone the way the Chiefs just had. The only way to know the feeling is to experience it yourself. It’s like being drop kicked in the chest by a silverback gorilla into a bottomless pit. I reflected on all the pain I had experienced as a Chiefs fan up to that point and quietly hated my parents for birthing me in a town doomed to disappointment. My team was cursed, and I would never experience joy as a sports fan.
The waitress brought our check. I tipped her well, although I’m sure seeing me in pain was all the tip she needed after refilling my Coke for four hours. Steven and I grabbed our coats and trudged out into the cold. I haven’t been to a Buffalo Wild Wings since.
The Chiefs are the #1 seed in the AFC coming off a historic offensive season led by a cyborg programmed for destruction, yet I can’t help but feel the same dread I felt that cold January night in Iowa. The hangover from that game has stuck with me for five years and a loss to the Colts on Saturday feels as inevitable as the sunrise. While the Chiefs have managed to win a playoff game since their 2014 collapse (a 30–0 shellacking of the Houston Texans in 2016), they’re still winless in home playoff games since 1993, going 0–6 during that span.
Based on preseason expectations, this season should already be considered a success. The Chiefs started the year with a 23 year old sophomore quarterback who had only one career start to his name. The team appeared to be entering a transition year from the Alex Smith era, but Mahomes ended up exceeding our wildest expectations and the Chiefs seem to have found their QB of the future to build around.
So while a first round exit might have been seen as a mild success to fans in the preseason, losing a seventh straight home playoff game as a #1 seed won’t be interpreted as anything other than a massive let down. Especially against the same team that caused us so much heartbreak on that cold January day five years ago. Most of the roster has changed since then, but the comeback’s two main orchestrators, Andrew Luck and T.Y. Hilton, are still there to remind haunt us.
The Chiefs have another chance to show they’ve turned a corner Saturday, this time with Mahomes, and are ready to shake the stench of mediocrity in the postseason. They’re either going to get revenge on the Colts and exercise some demons, or reinforce the narrative that Andy Reid and the Chiefs aren’t built for playoff success.
All I know is I won’t be watching the game at Buffalo Wild Wings.
