Chiefs Chronicles: The Prophecy is Being Fulfilled- 2024 Season Week 10

Some of The Things I Predicted Are Coming True, The First Football Prophecy, Just Like The Chiefs I Traded Tyreek, The Broncos Are Doomed & All The Usual Links and GIFs and Videos!

Some of The Things I Predicted Are Coming True

Before I start this portion of the column I want to say that I am not a prophet. I don’t make any claims of having the ability to foretell the football future. There is no sealed envelope (like in the clip above- I know I’ve used it before, but there are new people here and it never stops being funny) on my desk containing a list I wrote six months ago of things that will happen this season. The fact that my Chiefs predictions each week are often hilariously wrong, should be painfully clear to anyone who has been reading Chiefs Chronicles for any length of time.

Here are just a few examples of things that I’ve predicted from the offseason through now that didn’t come to pass:

1. The Chiefs were going to trade-up to draft WR Brian Thomas Jr. (In my defense, NFL draft predictions are notoriously tricky to hit on and I’m never going to be able to outguess Veach.)

2. Louis Rees-Zammit would make the team and dominate as a RB/KR (In my defense, I honestly thought he would pick the game up more quickly and was shocked when he signed with the Jaguars.)

3. A Chiefs blowout- every game since Week 2 (In my defense, they must be due, statistically speaking.)

4. The Chiefs WR corps would be fine because of Rashee Rice (In my defense, it would have happened if he didn’t get injured- this one still hurts.)

5. My fantasy team would suffer because I didn’t get Patrick Mahomes and had to settle for Lamar Jackson (There is no defense- I was WAAAY off on this one.)

To be fair, we all knew (you probably more than me, and I’d appreciate it if you’d just shut up about it) some of those predictions were more likely to happen than others. No human is always right. That’s why pencils have erasers. It’s not like you’re so great! Blah, blah, blah.

Isn’t that always the way?

Ok. I’ve swallowed my pride and been the bigger man, admitting that my predictions have been wrong, on occasion. With that unpleasantness out of the way, let’s take a look at some of the things I’ve said about the Chiefs this season that turned out to be right:

1. I’ve correctly predicted that KC would win every game. (Note: I forgot to predict the score in Week 1 but I did say that the Chiefs were going to “whup up on the Ravens” so I’d say that counts as predicting a win)

2. I said that DeAndre Hopkins would open up the Chiefs Offense and make Patrick Mahomes’ stats look better. Here’s the quote from two weeks ago, before he had played a snap for KC:

   “Now the Chiefs have added DeAndre Hopkins and His Spider-Man Hands (I think there’s another prospective band name to add to the list!) to the offense. He should acclimate fairly quickly and his presence alone will help unlock Kelce and Worthy, IMO. These things will all help Patrick look (statistically) like the great QB we all know he is.”

   (Note: The Worthy part hasn’t happened yet (I still think it will) but the Hopkins, Kelce, and Mahomes parts have and hitting on three out of four ain’t bad.)

   

   Let’s gooooo!

3. Patrick Mahomes doesn’t care how he wins, he just wants to win. Here’s what I said on that topic, in the Chiefs Chronicles from 10/27:

   “In the 49ers game he threw two picks but also got a key first down with his feet, scored a rushing TD, and the Chiefs won. He’s happy with that result. He wants the offense to be better but he’ll gladly trade good stats for a win.

   To contrast, if he were to throw for 452 yards with 5 TDs (plus 49 yards on the ground and a rushing TD) against the Raiders on Sunday but the Chiefs end up losing the game? All of those pretty stats won’t mean anything to him.

   The math for Patrick Mahomes is simple:

   WINS > everything else

   The only thing ‘wrong’ with Patrick Mahomes is that he prefers winning over stats.”

   Patrick Mahomes said this during his Press Conference on 10/31 (4 days later, but who’s counting?):

   “When we win, it doesn’t hurt as bad. Obviously, I want to be perfect. I want to be great. I don’t want to put our defense in bad positions like I did the other day.

   But at the end of the day, I want to win. However we have to win the football game, I’m good with it- if that’s scoring a lot of touchdowns, not scoring touchdowns, if that’s running the football. Whatever it is- if it’s playing defense to win football games- I just want to win at the end of the day.”

   (Note: This is possibly a well-documented aspect of Patrick’s personality but I don’t remember him outright saying it before. How about y’all just give me this one, ok?)

I’m not sure what I was going for in this section, exactly. Maybe it was just my long-winded way of saying that I’m not some loudmouthed sports writer who always thinks they’re right. Sometimes my Chiefs takes are going to be spot on and sometimes they aren’t. As long as people are (mostly) reading and (kind of) enjoying my wacky columns, it will all work out in the end.

I guess.

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The First Football Prophecy

Back in the early 2000’s, my wife Kelly and I moved back to Northern California and I resumed working for my dad, who is a drywall contractor. Now I know that information might put some ideas in a lot of your heads (because of portrayals like the one in the video above), but he’s a legitimate businessman and a highly sought after drywall contractor- even though, historically, some of (read: many of) his employees have fit the stereotypical “shady drywaller” image. (See above video. Note: If any of his current employees are reading this, I’m not talking about you. You guys are great!)

In drywall, you often have to take what you can get when it comes to hiring employees. Case in point: my dad had to hire me once I got back in town- I’m his oldest son and namesake, after all. It was a good thing for me that nepotism is undefeated in hiring, because it seems like jobs were hard to come by in Humboldt County back then.

As I was a huge football fan, I talked him into starting a company-wide football pick competition. Anyone who wanted to play could (including our significant others), but you had to get all your picks in before the games started every week. Miss a week and you were disqualified (or you could take a full week’s worth of losses). We had a big dry erase board on the wall at the shop where we kept track of each person’s picks and win/loss totals.

It was free to play and we not only picked every game each season, we also had our preseason predictions for the Super Bowl (including the winner) at the top of the Big Board. On the Monday after the Super Bowl, the overall winner got a crisp $100 bill. If anyone had correctly guessed the Super Bowl teams and winner before the season started, they got $100 (Note: Kelly actually pulled this off in 2001 by correctly predicting that the Ravens would defeat the Giants in Super Bowl XXXV before the season started).

The overall loser, on the other hand, received a 12-pack of the cheapest malt liquor available (if they drank alcohol)- usually something like Hamm’s Ice or a brew of comparable (low) quality. If they didn’t drink, I believe they got off-brand diet soda. The main requirements for the last place prize were 1) that it be a beverage the recipient didn’t want and 2) that they would drink it to drown their football picking sorrows.

Heading into our second year picking games, we had pretty much weeded out everyone too unreliable to get their picks in each week. There were eight of us, if I remember correctly, and on the last day before the first game everyone had their picks in except for a (drywall) hanger named Mark. He showed up at the shop that morning and, with a smile on his face, handed me a thick manila envelope.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Those are all of my picks for the entire season,” he said. “I call it ‘The Prophecy’ and I’m going to use it to beat you all.” His smile had turned into a confident smirk.

Over the course of the day everyone else playing heard about his so-called “Prophecy” and it amused one and all. He had obviously put a lot of thought and work into his predictions but there was no possible way it was going to hold up. Since he had effectively lost already, everyone else now had a one-in-seven chance of winning. Everyone had a good laugh at his expense.

When we showed up at the shop Monday morning, the only one laughing was Mark. Most of us had gotten around half our picks right- Mark had only missed on one or two. He could barely contain his glee.

“Check it out, boys,” he crowed, pointing at the board. “You doubted it, you mocked it, but look! ‘The Prophecy’ is being fulfilled!” His face was red from laughing and, no matter what we said to him about his prospects for the rest of the season, for this week his crazy scheme had defeated us all and that made him our better.

This went on for much longer than expected. I’m not sure where he did his research, but his picks were mostly dead-on over the first 6-7 weeks of that season. He had built a double-digit lead over everyone and never failed to rub in the superiority of “The Prophecy” over our mere mortal ways of picking the games.

So full of pride. You may be able to guess what happened next. If not, here’s a clue: it’s the same thing that happened to Vizzini in his battle of wits with the Man in Black. I’ll catch up with you after you watch the clip.

The Monday after Week 8 rolled around and Mark didn’t want to talk about “The Prophecy” at all. Everyone else did though.

“Hey, Mark! Looks like you only got two games right this week. maybe you misheard your football god when you were taking down ‘The Prophecy’? Or has he abandoned you?”

He had a sheepish grin on his face but rallied and said, “Well, boys, I may have strayed a little bit from ‘The Prophecy’ this week a tad, but I’ll be just fine by next week. You’ll see. I’ve got such a big lead on all of you it doesn’t matter if I’m a little off here or there. Have faith, boys! Have faith! ‘The Prophecy’ will be fulfilled!”

That week marked the beginning of his lightning fast plummet from first to last place. The actual football teams started performing in ways that “The Prophecy” hadn’t foreseen and Mark’s record suffered accordingly. Every time I saw him was another chance to mock this false football prophet and I always took advantage of the opportunity:

“‘The Prophecy’ isn’t looking so good right now, Mark. Perhaps you should ask your football god for an updated version. Can he hear you calling out to him? Maybe he’s on the privy and can’t answer right now. That’s ok, I’ll wait.” Cue the Jeopardy music. After a short wait, I might throw in, “Where’s your football messiah now, eh?” (in the voice of Edward G. Robinson or Chief Wiggum)

Mark, of course, enjoyed the jabs and found the whole situation highly-amusing because he was a pretty cool, albeit a pretty weird guy. I think he figured that he probably wasn’t going to win, so instead of trying for that he settled for doing his picks in the most interesting way he could. Then if he actually won, it would be in the most amazing way possible. Or something like that.

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Just Like The Chiefs I Traded Tyreek

First off, I said this about my matchup last week:

“For this week, as long as Kelce, Worthy, Butker, and the Chiefs Defense have solid games I am slated to win handily.”

Yeah, that didn’t end up working out for me.

Kelce did great, but Worthy got negative points, the Chiefs Defense had a rare off game, and Butker just did alright. My opponent had Cade Otton, who proceeded to do his best Travis Kelce impression. I lost by 11.5 points.

Before the games started, I tried to trade Tyreek to league-leader (and arch-frenemy) Nick for DHop and Terry McLaurin. My offer came too late as he had already traded McLaurin and Kareem Hunt for Justin Jefferson.

I amended my trade request to include DHop and A.J. Brown for Tyreek. He countered with DHop and Zay Flowers. I wasn’t sure, so I let it sit. If I had accepted that trade before game time, I would have won my matchup. But I didn’t accept it, so I didn’t win.

On Tuesday, I offered him Tyreek for DHop and Zay Flowers and he accepted. Zay, of course, did almost nothing for me on Thursday Night Football, but I have high hopes for DHop. Such high hopes that I named the team after him this week:

I’m currently facing Kristopher’s last place team and am cautiously optimistic. He has Patrick Mahomes at QB but I have DHop, Kelce, and Worthy- if any of Patrick’s TD passes are to those guys, our scores will mostly offset each other.

We shall see how it goes.

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The Broncos Are Doomed

And now for the part where I choose the score of the game.

The Chiefs will win…

In blowout fashion…

By a score of…

38-12

Kelce is about to go off!

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Alright, that’s all I’ve got. I’m still sick, still taking NyQuil, and still unable to sleep regularly. Enjoy the blowout win, everybody! And, as always…

GO CHIEFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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