ChiefsPlanet - Football Narratives That Need to Die

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Narratives That Need to Die (https://chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=336664)

Narratives That Need to Die

2021:

Spoiler!

New for 2023-24!

Fallacy: Big underdogs willing themselves to victory in the playoffs.
Possible Narrative: The underdog has nothing to lose! They'll B-E aggressive!
The Truth: Mahomes has only ever lost to Brady and Burrow in the playoffs, and two of those games went to OT. Stop worrying about every brokedick quarterback, every run-first team, every "tHeY'rE cOnFiDeNt AnD nOt InTimIdAtEd!!" team.
Examples: Being fearful of the Browns, Jags, the Titans FFS.

Fallacy: Paying a franchise QB handcuffs your team towards mediocrity (or at least fewer Super Bowls)
Possible Narrative: Rebuild year, reload year, the imminent demise of the Kansas City Chiefs, and the general "complete team vs quarterback".
The Truth: The quarterback position is pretty important. It's so important, in fact, you can get away with having an average or below average defense, a mediocre run game, unproven receivers, and so on... even to the extent that a one-legged franchise QB is better than most NFL teams. Obviously, the rest of the team can't suck ass and there's always a fine line between winning and losing in the biggest games of the year, where those other pieces matter the most, but you wouldn't be in that position if it weren't for paying the man.

Possible Narrative: The Chiefs need to retain non-Mahomes guy or sign the best player at their position in free agency.
The Truth: A franchise QB makes up for lesser talent elsewhere on the roster, and having the top QB in the league is a much larger gap than "only" having a top 15 guy at another position.
Examples: Tyreek, Hopkins, needing the best LT ever, etc.

Fallacy: The NFL is out to **** the Chiefs.
Possible Narrative: Every loss is rigged for whatever reason is made up after they lose. Basically everything that happens is the NFL's way of figuring out how to **** the Chiefs.
The Truth: Can we please just let this one ****ing go? LMAO The Chiefs won the AFCCG and SB on defensive penalties at the end of the game and still didn't have to play a road (or neutral site!) game. I think we're good.
Examples: Every single loss. Hamlin is the drama the NFL needs to push the Bills to the SB... oh, and the NFL wants to experiment with neutral sites forever after they force the Chiefs to play in Atlanta. Ratings. Fly over country. Vegas. New stadiums.

Fallacy: Regular season momentum exists.
Possible Narrative: Teams can't flip a switch. (this is from the 2021 version, but should be reiterated)
The Truth: A team with playoff experience and success can certainly play vanilla in the regular season and do things to avoid injury, etc; and then dig deep into the playbook while recklessly throwing themselves into defenders when the games really matter.
Examples: The Defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bearcat (Post 15512913)

Fallacy: Games are created equal.
Possible Narrative: Any given win streak is impressive.
The Truth: Beating non-playoff teams in the regular season doesn't mean shit for the playoffs. Beating several non-playoff teams in the regular season doesn't mean shit for the playoffs. Losing to non-playoff teams isn't indicative of much, either, unless of course it's a habit.
Examples: The Bills being -->this<-- close to winning 12 in a row despite beating only 2 playoff teams in that span, who were both eliminated in the first weekend. The Bucs "being on a roll" because they beat a bunch of shit in December, after losing to 3 playoff teams in 4 games. As far as losing to non-playoff teams, see the Chiefs/Raiders and the numerous times the Patriots have struggled in September or lost to the Dolphins.

Possible Narrative: Strength of Victory/Strength of Schedule always matters.
The Truth: Beating a bunch of ~9-10 win mediocre teams doesn't mean anything when it comes to beating true Super Bowl contenders. The only indicator when it comes to success against true Super Bowl contenders is beating Super Bowl contenders (or at least contending). SoV/SoS tends to matter more when you're looking at a complete cupcake schedule.
Examples: See, Bills. In terms of "success against true SB contenders" and cupcake schedules, see the Browns' schedule and Packers' schedule.

Fallacy: Regular season results are truly indicative of playoff success.
Possible Narrative: Any given 11+ win team is primed to upset an experienced playoff team.
The Truth: The playoffs are a different beast and playoff experience matters. A lot.
Examples: Browns, Bills, Ravens for the past two seasons.

Possible Narrative: Point differential matters.
The Truth: It can matter in extreme cases, such as an 11-win Browns team having a negative point differential. It may matter to a certain extent, but is a small part of the overall big picture. It certainly does not matter against non-playoff teams.
Examples: The Bills blowing out non-playoff teams. The Chiefs not blowing out non-playoff teams (or most teams).

Fallacy: Regular season momentum exists.
Possible Narrative: "They have all the momentums!"
The Truth: No. They don't.
Examples: Bills and now the Bucs.

Possible Narrative: Teams can't flip a switch.
The Truth: A team with playoff experience and success can certainly play vanilla in the regular season and do things to avoid injury, etc; and then dig deep into the playbook while recklessly throwing themselves into defenders when the games really matter.
Examples: The Defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs

Possible Narrative: Team is on a roll, they clearly want it more, etc.
The Truth: No. They aren't and they don't.
Examples: Every fan base who's shown up here in the past 3 months.

Possible Narrative: Teams can be rusty after resting their starters.
The Truth: A team won't forget how to execute in a matter of 2-3 weeks. Playoff pressure, playing playoff teams for a change, bad playoff match ups... are all more likely reasons for losing.
Examples: The Defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs.

Fallacy: Red zone percentages is all you need to know about red zone performance.
Possible narrative: Just look at their red zone percentage for the season!
The Truth: Reliance on red zone trips to score also matters. The number of trips for/against matters.
Examples: The Chiefs' defense sucks in the red zone (76% against), but allow the 6th fewest attempts. So, you have to get there first. The Chiefs offense is ~20th in the league, but only score 65% of their total TDs from the red zone, as opposed to some opponents scoring 80% or even 90% of their total TDs from the red zone.

Possible narrative: Just look at their red zone percentage in the past 4 weeks!
The Truth: Small sample size + variables across only a few games makes this percentage almost pointless, as a team could move 10 or 20% and 10+ spots in a matter of 1 or two conversions or failed conversions.

Fallacy: Chiefs fans are now arrogant assholes
The Truth: Only some of us! :) We've just grown tired of hearing these same old pointless narratives over and over and over. It's not that the Chiefs are invincible, it's just that these tired, idiotic narratives won't help your case or your team's chances.

Fallacy: Everything is black and white.
Possible narrative: "You're full of shit because ___________!"
The Truth: All of these truths.

Yip!

Good stuff. You should direct every troll to this thread.

The only problem I have with SoS is that by definition teams that the Chiefs play and beat have a worse record (lower SoS and SoV). So a team that sucks but also plays in a tough division will really have a high SoS while the team that wins a division with no other good teams (AFCW) the winner has a lower SoS (and probably SoV as well).

Of course the biggest issue that the NFL season is too short to get truly meaning full data about these things.

Forgot TOP.

And 'sacks have anything to do with winning.'

I went completely "dark" this year as far as listening to sports pundits, talking heads, dweebs like Skip B, SAS and the like. Frankly they are all full of shit. It's like turning off the news, I'm happier. I don't even pay attention to any of the homers.

The proof is in the pudding. I don't need smoke blown up my ass, or someone else to tell me what they think about my favorite football team, the Kansas City Chiefs.

If a person brags that they are hitting the gym all the time, and you see them for the first time in a year and they are still fat, you know they are talking smack. Then you have the person that actually DOES work their ass off, said nothing about it, and you see them for the first time in awhile and they look like a Brick Shit House.

The Chiefs are that BRICK SHIT HOUSE. Nothing more needs to be said, RESULTS DON'T LIE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lzen (Post 15512958)

Good stuff. You should direct every troll to this thread.

That's a big reason I created the thread, actually.

It'll be like a reddit bot: I see you're posting a false narrative... :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Megatron96 (Post 15512964)

Forgot TOP.

And 'sacks have anything to do with winning.'

Oh, I actually had that one in mind and did forget... I was going say "TOP and run it down the throats of the Chiefs".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hydrae (Post 15512960)

Yeah, and there's really just not many games that are great tests. So your SoS could be heavily weighted towards mediocre ~8-10 win teams (Buffalo), when they didn't have any good wins against the best of the best.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bearcat (Post 15512913)

This!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by chinaski (Post 15512965)

Yeah, I never go out of my way to watch anyone besides Kollmann and sometimes Simms, but have been watching more lately that gets posted here... and need to stop. Most of these are directly related to opposing fan bases, who of course are just regurgitating what they hear from Skip Bayless and Cowherd and the like.

<blockquote class="reddit-card" data-card-created="1611716777"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/KansasCityChiefs/comments/l5ea96/oc_mornings_in_chiefs_kingdom/">[OC] Mornings in Chiefs Kingdom</a> from <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/KansasCityChiefs">r/KansasCityChiefs</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//embed.redditmedia.com/widgets/platform.js" charset="UTF-8"></script>

Fallacy: Chiefs fans are now arrogant assholes
The Truth: Only some of us! :) We've just grown tired of hearing these same old pointless narratives over and over and over. It's not that the Chiefs are invincible, it's just that these tired, idiotic narratives won't help your case or your team's chances.

Great job with the whole thing. These fallacies are one of the many reasons that I don't get involved in debate online about just about everything. Too frustrating. But I want to highlight this one specifically.

I am becoming arrogant. We all should be. It is conditioning. Those of us who have truly been Chiefs fans our whole lives, who have suffered the misery (and when I say misery of course the lifers don't need it explained) were conditioned to believe that something bad would always happen. Because in most of our experiences (I am 43) it always did.

Now we are being conditioned that something good will happen. Because it is. So where an opposing fan might call us arrogant, is it really arrogance, or is it that we are realists who are seeing that the probabilities now line up in our favor? It's confidence.

Thanksgiving at my girlfriend's family we go around the table and say what we are thankful for. Everyone says something sincere and heartfelt and then maybe something jokey. This year I was thankful for Patrick Mahomes and for the fact that I am becoming what Patriots fans were. I should mention, her family is split between Bills and Steelers fans. There were a lot of eyes rolling and noises of disgust.

I'm happy to be an arrogant Chiefs fan. It means my team is envied.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chinaski (Post 15512965)

I've been skipping on the network pregame/halftime/postgame shows for years now. It's all human interest nonsense that I don't really care about.

I do love Simms because he talks about the "X's and O's and Jimmy's and Joe's." I avoid Cowherd, Bayless, Smith et al because they have nothing insightful to say other than their opinion which isn't any better than my own. At least guys like Simms understands more about the game than I do and can explain to me what he is seeing.

Mark Sanchez went to two AFC title games

"Chiefs can't stop the run."

"The Chiefs defense is trash." Actually that might just be the three or four reeruns that regularly show up on the GDTs and have to vomit that nonsense during the first drive.