Kansas City Chiefs: What Super Bowl LIV means to the franchise

By Gage Stagner | Feb 1, 2020

(Original Caption) The stage is set at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the Super Bowl, starring quarterbacks Len Dawson, of the American Football League's Kansas City Chiefs, and Bart Starr, of the National Football League's Green Bay Packers. In prominent supporting roles are Chiefs' coach Hank Stram and Packers' coach Vince Lombardi. /

(Photo by Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)

(Photo by Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images) /

The Kansas City Chiefs will face the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV this Sunday. What does appearing in the sport’s biggest game mean to the Chiefs organization?

A lot of things have happened since “65 Toss Power Trap.” The Cold War came and went, the internet was created, and much, much more. One of those things was the passing of Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt in 2006.

In 1970, the businessman never would have imagined that he wouldn’t live to see his team in another Super Bowl. Here we are though, 50 years later. We have since lost the great Hank Stram as well, leaving almost no remnants of the Super Bowl IV besides Len Dawson.

The Kansas City Chiefs have a long history. However, the history of the franchise is not that complicated.

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Many Kansas City fans not only know exactly where they were when the Royals won the 2015 World Series, but they could tell you the miles per hour on Wade Davis’ pitch that ended it. You see, with so few championships on the city’s resumé, the ones that do occur are cherished. That’s why the Chiefs, five decades later, are celebrating their third ever Super Bowl appearance so passionately.

I sat, like many others, with so many emotions as the organization passed around the trophy that Lamar made. Twenty minutes after the final snap, not a seat was empty in Arrowhead Stadium. Twenty minutes after last year’s heartbreaking overtime defeat in the AFC Championship, I was walking out of the stadium with 75,000 other fans, filled with disappointment. That type of letdown however, was not due to another Kansas City choke, but the feeling was from the lack of opportunity to change that notion.

Much of my thinking towards sports can be attributed to Kansas City teams, especially the Chiefs. My uncle took me to Arrowhead for the first time when I was just a kid and I fell in love from then on.

The adoration I had for the Chiefs was, to say the least, difficult. I hadn’t realized what I had hitched my wagon to. For Chiefs fans I looked up to, it was a lifetime of heartbreak, negativity, and misfortune. I shortly took on those same characteristics.

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How could we not after living through the quarterback carousel of Damon Huard, Brodie Croyle, Tyler Thigpen, and Tyler Palko? For seven straight years, one of them started at least one game for the team, with Brady Quinn, Kyle Orton, and Matt Cassel sprinkled in, thank goodness.

After a few more years of obsessing over the team, I soon came to realize that Tyler Thigpen was the least of the problems for the organization. I grew up watching Priest Holmes runs and Tony Gonzalez dunks and I didn’t get a chance to see Joe Montana, Marcus Allen, Steve Bono, or anything before them. Maybe that was a blessing. For fans like my uncle, my dad, and many other Kansas City-lifers, they’ve seen even more Chiefs failures than I have.

For brand new Chiefs fans who may have just seen a little of Alex Smith and a lot of Patrick Mahomes, it’s hard to describe to them the agony Kansas City has felt so many times before. They may think we exaggerate about the brutality or we don’t get sad enough after a Chiefs loss. The truth is, that’s what we’ve come to expect.

You know a franchise is cursed when the fans can tell you the end result before it happens. I’ve seen Trent Green stretchered off the field, Jamaal Charles fumbling his way to a loss, and Romeo Crennel’s puzzled look on the sidelines, but those are just regular season nightmares. What really haunts me is the Andrew Luck comeback, seeing the Colts in the playoffs in general, Tom Brady‘s dominance, and the all-field-goal game in 2016.

When those types of losses pile up, Kansas City fans start to label them. There’s the dreaded “no punt game” in 2003 that fans coined to differentiate the Colts losses. In fact, from 1990-1997, before I was born, Kansas City lost in the playoffs seven of eight years without reaching the Super Bowl; That includes six straight and the only year they didn’t lose was because they didn’t reach the postseason.

That’s when I realized just how lucky I was to have not witnessed those years. Since Super Bowl IV, the Chiefs have been to the playoffs 17 times, losing all 17, with two conference championship appearances, and no Super Bowl appearances.

That all changed Sunday, January 19, 2020 around 5:30 p.m. central time. Decades of despair, bad luck, and complete hopelessness was culminated into one game. As the confetti fell and all the members of the organization hugged one another, the pressure was finally off.

For the first time in 50 years, fans, players, and management could breathe a sigh of relief. The Chiefs are headed to the Super Bowl, the best thing that has happened to Kansas City since the Royals five years ago.

I’ll remember exactly where I was when Patrick Mahomes scampered into the endzone for a 27-yard, history-defying run. It’s right up there with Wade Davis’ 95-mph fastball. He could’ve taken the conservative way out, just like many Chiefs before him. It was easy to just step out of bounds, save the clock, going into halftime with a field-goal.

He would have just been doing his part in Kansas City sports history, but he didn’t; He laid his body on the line for something much bigger than him, me, or Andy Reid‘s legacy. That play was a microcosm of just how this team broke through the stereotypical Chiefs season. They aren’t tentative, they do not care what history says. They are breaking the mold.

Somehow, from all the years of being a fan, I believed I contributed to the losing culture that was the Kansas City Chiefs. I believed, like so many others, I had to do something different on January 19 to shift the way seasons have ended every year of my lifetime.

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Making it to the Super Bowl is actually something bigger than just a win for the franchise, it’s proof that sports can change the way a city looks at itself. For the first time, I’m proud and confident in the Kansas City Chiefs.

Let’s go win a Super Bowl, Kansas City.

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