Kansas City faced a team that had won 4 of 5 games, had a strong running back in Anthony Thomas, and an intimidating defense. Some analysts had said that Chicago might be playing like one of the best teams right now...
...and Kansas City easily dispatched them.
Denver has a top-10 offense and defense. They ran all over the Colts with a back-up running back.
But they lost to Chicago at home, and barely beat Cleveland and Detroit, also at home.
Minnesota wipes out KC, and their season is fixed, but then they go and struggle against Arizona, lose to Chicago...
Kansas City's easy defeat of Detroit wasn't supposed to mean anything; after all, even Detroit was able to run easily on KC. But they did far worse against most of their common opponents than KC, then just beat the top NFC team by ten points.
New England needed overtime to beat Houston, and finally won its first game by more than 14 points all season.
The Colts lost to Denver at home, and struggled against Houston until barely winning at the end. Tennessee struggled against Houston, as well, then badly beat the Tampa Bay Bucs, supposedly a strong defensive team.
What does all this mean? Good teams generally play better at home, but one game really doesn't mean all that much.
Thus, look at what Kansas City has done at home all season before you count them out in the playoffs. Look at Denver's road record for the season, and some of their struggles against weak teams before you anoint them AFC Champs again. New England has the inside track, yes, but they don't necessarily match up very well against any of the teams they will face, and may not be able to pull out a close win twice in a row...a 12-game win streak adds quite a bit of pressure.
In fact --and I'm going out on a limb here, I know-- when you consider homefield advantage, KC actually matches up better with every single team in the AFC playoffs than New England. Although undefeated at home this year, New England doesn't play all that much better there. It is easy to conceive of any of the playoff teams beating them there, but it is hard to imagine any team beating KC in Arrowhead by only getting 110 yards rushing and 200 yards passing....
...think about it.
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Comments (3)
Denver out played KC in bot... (Below threshold)1. Posted by Tom | December 28, 2003 7:43 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Denver out played KC in both games this year and did so in a big way. You can bet that Denver players would be drooling over a chance to play the AFC Championship game in KC.
And you can paint the KC / Bears game with all the happy crappy nonsense that you like, but in the end Chicago was a sub .500 team that beat mostly a bunch of other nobodies and got lucky against two much better teams.
It isn't luck that had Denver hammer both the Cheaps and the Colts so badly. Both teams have similar strengths and weaknesses and Shannahan has them both figured out.
1. Posted by Tom | December 28, 2003 7:43 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on December 28, 2003 19:43
2. Posted by nathan | December 28, 2003 8:05 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Sorry, Tom, your fantasies of outplaying KC in KC this year were merely that: fantasies. You lost. L. O. S. T.
The game in Denver was a fluke, nothing more.
You can rewrite history any you wish to, but nothing will change the fact that we did better during our injury streak than you did during yours. We won the AFC West while you were battling for a wild card slot. We'd love to get you back in KC to quiet your whiny crying, but you won't last long enough in the playoffs to see us again.
Look again at the facts, my delusional friend: at Arrowhead, KC averages 35 pts/game at home, and only gives up 15 pts/game. At home, we hold rushers to just over 100 ypg and just over 200 ypg passing.
That's Championship numbers, boy.
Oh, yeah: undefeated at home, whereas your team is 4-4 on the road.
We've scored less than 20 points only twice, and the lowest output is 17. The lowest point total we've scored at home was 24. You guys managed a whopping 6 points against Baltimore (we nearly tripled that) and only 10 points against the same weak Chicago team we tagged for 31.
If your team could back up half the smack you try to push, they'd be undefeated. As it is, thought, it's going to be tough for the Broncos to try to win the playoffs after getting humiliated 31-3, isn't it? You can try to spin that one all you want, but the numbers don't lie...
2. Posted by nathan | December 28, 2003 8:05 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on December 28, 2003 20:05
3. Posted by nathan | December 28, 2003 8:06 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
...got lucky against two much better teams
And with that phrase, you described exactly how Denver played against KC. Lucky.
3. Posted by nathan | December 28, 2003 8:06 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on December 28, 2003 20:06