The Chiefs Make A Comeback For The Ages
Well that Chiefs vs Texans game was certainly one of the craziest halves of football I have ever watched. Probably the most hilarious 2 quarters of football played all season. All I could think heading into the 2nd half was how funny it would have been if some jaded, bitter fan had already given up and bailed on the game, only to get outside the stadium and realize he was missing the greatest comeback the team has ever performed. Lol and behold, someone did just that!
Mr. Big Buck Chuck (as I presume he likes to be called) was either genuinely superstitious enough to consider himself cursed or he was just using it as a joke excuse to bail on the game because it was depressing him at that point. Either way, we must thank him for his sacrifice. His post got enough views that he got a little bit of playful media attention and Pat Mahomes straight up told him to stay home next week. It must be weird getting viral fame for being cursed.
I feel bad for anyone who missed that game, especially the first half. The Texans jumped out to such a fast lead and it felt like everything was going wrong for Kansas City. Dropped passes. Blown coverage. Tyreek Hill straight up muffing a punt and giving Houston the ball in the red zone. It looked like the kind of hole that would be difficult even for a team like the Chiefs to climb out of. I mean, just the day before, the Ravens fell into a smaller hole early and never even came close to climbing out. Chiefs fans looked dead inside when they cut to the crowd.
I guess for a moment we all forgot what a dunce Bill O’Brien is. Thanks to Lamar Jackson’s amazing year and the early knee injury, we also kinda forgot what a cheat code Mahomes is. It took us roughly ten minutes to be reminded. It started small. The Texans were deep into KC territory and had a 4th and inches. They appeared to be going for it. Then Billy Buttchin called it off and kicked a supremely cowardly field goal instead. That was a perfect time to go for it, really put KC in a 28 pt hole and make this game feel unwinnable. The coward kicked the chipshot instead.
This act of cowardice was immediately repaid by the Chiefs waking up. A quick Chiefs TD later and the Texans faced a punt. For reasons I cannot quite fathom, the Texans decided this was the time to be aggressive, and called a fake punt. It failed, the Chiefs got another TD, and suddenly we had a ballgame on our hands. I can’t for the life of me figure that fake punt out. They were in the middle of their own territory. They were up by 17. There was a ton of game left. They needed several yards. Punt that ball, send the defense out there, and if things go bad on that drive then you can start pulling out the weird shit. The only thinking I can fathom behind the fake punt was “this is the dumbest time to fake punt, so THEY’LL NEVER SEE IT COMING!”. They saw it coming and stopped it.
After the quick TD following the punt, the rest of the game somehow felt inevitable. A muffed runback of their own put the Texans in an even worse spot, and we ended up going into halftime with the Texans down by 4 points after leading by 24 points with 10 minutes left. By the end of the game it was hard to fathom that a comeback had even occurred. The Texans went completely to shit and the Chiefs offense suddenly looked like the inhuman terror cell it was last season. Pat Mahomes is back, baby.
I can’t wait to see how the Titans somehow turn this team to putty this weekend because King Henry cannot be stopped. Whoever wins that game I hope becomes the champion though. Both teams are far more interesting than the 49ers or Packers. Bleh.
The only reason I defend the decision to kick the FG is… well… you ever had that sense of creating an omen that tells you to stop? I believe they would have failed to convert had they went for it. You see, it’s not the decision to kick the FG that I considered dumb. It’s the time out they took. Here you are, having KC’s defense reeling, ready to go for it on fourth, and you screw things up bad enough to call a time out… and you realize you just gave KC’s defense enough time to collect themselves. The momentum is killed. I felt it. I knew they’d fail to convert if they tried to go for it. You never laugh in the face of bad mojo.
I’m superstitious like that.
I was also in favor of the FG, but simply on the grounds of almost certainly adding a bit to the lead is more helpful when you’re already up by several scores than possibly adding slightly more to that lead.
They were up three scores and inside the Chiefs’ 15 yard line. Kicking the field goal left them still up three scores while giving the Chiefs standard field position. Had they gone for it and failed, they were still up three scores and the Chiefs would be stuck under their goalposts. Had they gone for it and succeeded, they had the opportunity to go up 4 scores, take some more time off the clock before kicking a field goal, or at least give the Chiefs even worse field position.
Usually taking the points is the best outcome, but this was one of the outlier situations where it would have been better for them to fail to convert than take three points that were of little marginal advantage.
The chance of going for and making three two point conversions is only slightly north of 12.5%. For all intents and purposes the FG made it four possessions.
THANK YOU for not writing “intensive purposes.”
You’re welcome my good Patsbro. I pride myself on not being a complete idiot.
The chance of making three 2 point conversions is roughly 55% for each try. Each one is independent of the other, so their probabilities don’t stack.
Yes they do, because you are talking about 3 of them.
The probability of making all three (assuming a 55% success rate) is 0.55 x 0.55 x 0.55, or 0.166, so around a 17% chance.
Taking the fg was the safe choice, but I feel like you need to be a bit more bold in the playoffs. If was too early in the game for Houston to take the boot off the neck. That 4 point lost, plus the 7 given up because of the short field due to the idiotic fake punt, was more than half the margin of victory. Without the huge momentum swing those caused, Houston may have had a realistic chance at winning.
Love it. The sports superstition by the fan who now has a go fund me account which paid for more than his ticket. The athlete superstition of not changing socks is no more. It is fans leaving. I may be drunk
i’m still convinced the pats comeback against the falcons was because i finally grudgingly put on the pats cap my friends found on the street that they’d been cajoling me to wear all evening. the turnaround started THE NEXT PLAY.
And initial reports are that the Texans are keeping the coach who called for a fake punt on 4th&5 inside his own 40 as well as the defensive coordinator that let the Chiefs score seven straight touchdown drives.
The Texans curse is to eternally be the gatekeepers of the wild card round.
I don’t want to take anything away from the comic, but if you read up on the guy, he didn’t “bail” on the game assuming they would lose. Every home playoff game he had ever been to, they lost. Every game he didn’t go to, they won. He almost didn’t go to that game because he felt like his presence was a curse.
He intentionally left with the EXPECTATION that they were going to come back. I mean, I’m sure there are some fans who were pissed and just quit, but he left the stadium smiling, fully anticipating a comeback.
All of that being said, the comic still gave me a chuckle.
I came here to say this š
The field goal is getting so much criticism for being “cowardly”, but I still think it was the right call. They botched the execution, but it’s a bad idea to give your opponent the free momentum shift of a fourth-down stop, and the field goal added the big pressure of either needing to nail three straight two-point conversions, or turn it into a four-score game, like it did.
Any “cowardly” from that was completely overshadowed by the insanely stupid overconfidence of that fake punt. That thing has gotten called out but really deserves more thrown at it, I’m still trying to wrap my head around that decision now.
See what I said above. In most cases taking the points is the best decision, but in this case, the points were worth a lot less than the opportunity to break the Chiefs’ back, especially when the worst case scenario was still pinning the Chiefs deep in their own territory.
You should never be stopped on 4th and inches with a QB sneak. It’s one of the most automatic plays in football (86.5% success rate since 2007). Moreso you have Deshawn Watson.
it was a fucked-up weekend for analytically-sound decisions.
That “fan” is no hero. He’s a pussy who gave up and bailed on his team. It frustrates me how he’s getting so much positive attention for it.
Agreed
Here’s to hoping the publicity reverse jinxes them. Don’t get me wrong I like Mehomes, but if Ryan Tannehill advances to the super bowl IN Miami, I will be rolling on the floor laughing for at least the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl.
And this is why I’m not a fan of how Dave misrepresents him in the comic. His depiction is *not* true to life.
The video he posted to his twitter feed as he was leaving the building was positive, happy, and very much expecting them to comeback. He may be misguided and extraordinarily superstitious, but if you read the interviews and check out his twitter feed, he did *NOT* bail on the team. He seems genuinely convinced he was helping them. The opposite of how he’s shown in the comic, basically. I really wish Dave just put a generic fan in and left this guy out of it, because now everyone who reads the comic is being led towards this take. Which is a shame.
āa pussy who gave up on his teamā
yeah im sure the players were pissed when the refs brought them the bad news that a fan had left the game
If you have Deshawn Watson, you should always go for it on 4 and 1. Otherwise, you don’t deserve Deshawn.
O’Brien is a hack.
Hell of a weekend for Houston sports, lol.
I’ve been saying it everywhere the Texans’ botched game comes up: the Texans should dump Bill O’Brien like the Broncos dropped John Fox. It’s obvious at this point that the problem is the coaching.
MARVIN LEWIS TO THE TEXANS!
the first panel looks a bit like a strip club
Ok now that you mention it I see it. Had to scroll back up a check though.
The full story of that fan is honestly hilarious. You can call him a pussy or fake fan all you want but this isnāt the first time this ācurseā came into play. Heās apparently gone to watch the Steelers game from 2016/17, the titans game from 2017/18 (lmao) and probably my favorite part of this story, he stayed home for the colts game last year but went to go watch the patriots game. Friends were also tweeting at him while he was at the game telling him to leave immediately because they already knew about his history. Call him superstitious but this entire storyline is just too entertaining
Nice station, tho.