Chiefs Chronicles/Remix: The Dangers of Confidence- Remembering the Chiefs Catastrophic 2012 Season
It was probably the worst season for a franchise in NFL history. Here are my thoughts on that 2012 season, as it happened, captured in Tweets.
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The Dangers of Confidence
(Note A: I’m reposting this portion of the last Chiefs Chronicles by itself, just in case anyone missed it. It has been expanded and also offers more links, GIFs, and a surprisingly weird section about various-sized spheres composed of precipitation in the form of crystallized ice and the band names they inspire.
I’ll be remixing some previously posted stories from Chiefs Chronicles, that new subscribers may not have seen or longtime subscribers may have missed. Also, I encourage you to go back and read any of the older Chiefs Chronicles columns. They’re chock full of reread value and Vitamin C(hiefs)!)
(Note B: This column has Tweets in it. If the screenshot is of more than one Tweet, it should be read from bottom to top.)
Confidence is a nice quality for regular folks to have but, in NFL players, it’s a necessity. Football players that don’t have confidence in their abilities aren’t likely to become college players, much less professionals. Without that bordering-on irrational faith in what they can do on the field, they are much more likely to become teachers, cashiers, realtors, elevator repairmen, or anything else other than professional football players.
The crazy overconfidence that our favorite players have can, through repeated exposure, rub off on us. That is where the danger lies for us as fans. For example, I’m sure most of us know (or have heard) someone who’s said something along these lines recently: “The Chiefs have won two Super Bowls in a row and are going to destroy everyone in their path to pull off the Threepeat! They can’t be stopped! They might even go undefeated!”
While I’m impressed by the chutzpah (never tried that one before- got it on the first try!) of someone who can say all that and believe it, just the act of typing those words made my stomach hurt. Most likely it’s the pre-Patrick football scars that I (and much of Chiefs Kingdom) still deal with that causes me to feel this way. I learned a long time ago, that having even an average level of confidence in any upcoming Chiefs season can bring untold misery to the holder of said confidence.
Let me explain. I recently tried to access my personal X (formerly Twitter) account for the first time in a few years. Unsurprisingly, I don’t remember my login info and none of my current email addresses seem to be connected to that account (which seems impossible to me). I’m at an impasse with their support team (not the most supportive support team I’ve ever dealt with) and am sadly locked out until I can think of some way to prove to them that I’m actually me.
Looking at my profile picture (three birds I saw perched on a telephone pole while driving on the aptly named Scenic Drive in Trinidad, CA) and reading the quote under my name (“Who’s got the looks? Who’s got the brains? Who’s got everything? I’ve got this pain in my heart. That’s all.” - from Underground by Ben Folds Five) brought on a wave of nostalgia, so I decided to wallow (I don’t wade) in it. I went as far back as I could in the timeline and reread some of my earliest available Tweets (the first few years seem to have been erased).
Remembering the Chiefs Catastrophic 2012 Season
There was a lot of Chiefs-related activity to look at, but I zeroed in on Tweets (are they X’s now?) from 2012 (not the movie) and was amazed at the level of confidence (Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!) I had in this team that had disappointed me so many times over the 22 years (currently sitting at 34 years, give or take) I’d been a hardcore fan. Always the optimist when it came to the Chiefs, I thought (and I’m sure much of Chiefs Kingdom at the time would have agreed) I’d been through nearly everything (and seen the rest) when it came to Kansas City Chiefs football-related heartbreak.
As is often the case, I was wrong. This time, though, it was in spectacular fashion.
That particular season would teach all of Chiefs Kingdom an incredibly harsh lesson about what it truly means to be a sports fan. As Chiefs fans, we’d never experienced anything quite like that season before.
I hope we never experience anything like it again.
The year, as I mentioned earlier, was 2012 and a lot was happening in my life when it came to football. (Note: I’ll try to lighten this section up, where I can- the 2012 Chiefs Season is too much for anyone to take straight-up.)
We’ll go through the Tweets in (mostly) chronological order. I’ve decided to start with a couple things that are only kind of related to the Chiefs:
The first thing I noticed, was a surprising reference that pops up amidst all my Tweets about the Chiefs. Did I somehow know in advance what was going to happen in the Chiefs future (Travis Kelce wasn’t drafted until the following year)? Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. You be the judge:
BTW, my key to winning at Monopoly is patience. I will strategically extend the game as long as possible and by any means necessary- eventually everyone else gets bored and I win by default. Now back to a more football-centric game:
(Note: Since that day a little over 12 years ago, I have lived up to that vow every season that I’ve played fantasy football. I will continue to do so at my fantasy draft this Saturday!)
Next, we see that Chiefs Training Camp has started and I’m already feeling pretty confident:
At least I’m not the only one (wrongly) expecting big things from the Chiefs in 2012:
The season has finally started and my optimism is not being rewarded:
Resounding losses to Atlanta and Buffalo put the Chiefs at 0-2 and have me in a rotten mood. Three days pass and I’m trying really hard to stay optimistic about the season:
By end-of-day on Oct. 12th, the Chiefs have dropped to 1-4. Fantasy football has been a mixed bag at best for me so far. It’s on to next week and things aren’t improving:
Romeo Crennel benched Matt Cassel in favor of Brady Quinn and the offense is somehow much worse. The Chiefs lose to the Bucs 38-10 and they fall to 1-5. I’m riding a rollercoaster of (⬅️this link is for my buddy, Phil) emotions:
I’m stressed (not just about football- life was well into the process of beating me up at the time) and grasping at straws. There’s no saving this season and, deep down, I know it. Maybe, if I try to turn the negative into a positive, things will look better:
By Nov. 2nd the Chiefs are 1-7. The “Save Our Chiefs” movement in KC is going strong and I’m so desperate for a great, homegrown QB that I’ve somehow convinced myself that either Geno Smith or Matt Barkley could become the hero (this link is for my buddy, Nick) that KC needs.
Two weeks later, the Chiefs are 1-9 and somehow my resolve firms up. I’m still a Chiefs fan, and I’ve decided that I will always be a Chiefs fan. The same day that I post my #foulweatherfan Tweet, I win an autographed football from Coke Zero. Finally, a reward for enduring this lousy season! Things may be turning around:
Or not.
Coke Zero sent me a Matt Cassel autographed football. There were two choices and, believe it or not, that was the more desirable option- I can’t remember the other choice. Maybe, Jon Baldwin? Not an autographed ball, just Jon Baldwin moving into my house…
By the time the ball was delivered, Cassel was back on the bench. He never started another game for the Chiefs and they cut him in March of 2013. After that, he played 7 seasons for 4 more teams, but never recaptured the brief success he had during his two best seasons: 2008 (NE) & 2010 (KC)
It’s now November 29th, the Chiefs are 1-10, and a kind of cool (it’s a new football), kind of lame (it isn’t one of my favorite players or even a starter) autographed football has been the high-point of the 2012 season so far. How much worse could things get, really?
On December 1st, 2012 I found out. We all did.
Things were about to get much, much worse.
Before you continue reading, I feel compelled to issue warnings (one here and one below) about the next portion of this column:
TRIGGER WARNING
The following section contains material of a disturbing nature. Please skip ahead to the next section right now (just scroll down- I’ll make it clear where to stop) if you would like to completely avoid reading about it. If you just want to look at my Tweets and read this column, I will not write in detail about what occurred.
What I will do (in the second trigger warning) is outline the topics that are covered in detail in the linked article below. Also, there are links (located at the very bottom of this column) to organizations that can provide you with help, if you are dealing with some of the issues discussed here.
TRIGGER WARNING
The article linked just below deals with the following topics: domestic violence, gun violence, murder, suicide, concussions, CTE, and bullying.
(If you’re unfamiliar with the whole sad story and want to know what happened, click here for details.)
There were many on-field and leadership problems that make 2012 easily the worst football season in the history of the Kansas City Chiefs, but until the morning of December 1st it was just about the game of football. Big business, sure, but still just a game played for the enjoyment of the masses.
The criminal act that Jovan Belcher committed against Kasandra Perkins that day (and all that followed, which included the workplace allegations mentioned in the article above and medical results that can be found here) was a huge and terrible thing. It made Zoey, the couple’s infant daughter, an orphan and damaged both families immeasurably. Belcher’s mother, Cheryl Shepard, Coach Romeo Crennel, GM Scott Pioli, and others saw things that morning that probably haunt them to this day.
When compared to matters of life and death, what that event did to the Chiefs organization can seem rather unimportant, but this is a column about the Chiefs, so I will press on.
The tragedy that unfolded on December 1st, 2012 cast an enormous black cloud over the entire Chiefs organization, the community, and the fans for the remainder of the season. For some, it still does. I imagine it was a very big factor in Clark Hunt’s decision to completely remake the franchise.
TO ALL WHO SKIPPED AHEAD:
YOU ARE SAFE TO READ BELOW THIS POINT ⬇️
Romeo Crennel was fired by the Chiefs on New Year’s Eve. While Crennel wasn’t a great head coach, he seemed to handle an extremely difficult year with class and I greatly respect him for that. I retweeted these at the time:
Romeo Crennel retired from coaching in 2022 after a 50 year coaching career, which included 39 years in the NFL. I hope he’s enjoying his retirement.
Scott Pioli, staunch proponent of The Patriot Way” and the most disliked GM in Chiefs history by a country mile, was fired 4 days after Romeo Crennel. I think that I can speak for all of Chiefs Kingdom when I say: “He is not missed.”
Thus ended the worst season in Kansas City Chiefs history.
Wow. I had to go very dark at the end there and it was not an easy topic to write about. I’d honestly forgotten exactly how bad that 2012 season was.
The most likely reason for my amnesia?
On January 7th, just three days after they fired Scott Pioli, the Kansas City Chiefs hired Andy Reid to be their new head coach. Because of the way his tenure with the Eagles had ended, I was unsure if he was the right choice for KC.
That sentiment lasted all of a day:
I think we can all agree that Clark Hunt made the right decision.
So, all of the stuff that I wrote about confidence being dangerous? Upon further reflection, I’ve decided that I was mostly wrong about that. My confidence in the Chiefs before that particular lost season was misplaced, but that shouldn’t color my views forever.
Especially in light of all the successes the team has enjoyed since they hired Andy Reid in 2013. That hire got the snowball of winning (“The Snowball of Winning” is being added to my list of cool band names, in case I ever start or join a new band) rolling down the proverbial hill and now, 11 years later, the Chiefs have transformed into a seemingly indestructible snow boulder that has been crushing the rest of the league for the better part of the last five years (I’m not sure where the snow-theme came from, but “Seemingly Indestructible Snow Boulder” has also been added to the list of awesome prospective band names).
Contemporary Chiefs teams have given members of Chiefs Kingdom every reason to confidently expect big things from them before each NFL season. Things have been good (the Alex Smith years), to great (the Patrick Mahomes years), to almost unbelievable (there’s a possibility of a Threepeat this year?!) with Chiefs football for a long time now.
I think I’ll just sit back and enjoy the ride from here on out.
Well, I guess that’s it for the very first Chiefs Chronicles/Remix. It was kind of a spur of the moment idea, but I’m excited to try it again! Please let me know what you think of it or what’s on your mind in the Comments section. I try to respond to all comments and will continue to do so until I become a big success.
I’m hard at work on the next Chiefs Chronicles, but until then…
GO CHIEFS!!!
Here are some resources for anyone who might be dealing with difficult circumstances in their life:
Mental Health Help: Call or Text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
Official Website- https://988lifeline.org/
Domestic Violence Help: Call 800-799-7233 or Text BEGIN to 88788
Official Website- https://www.thehotline.org/
Bullying Help:
Official Website- https://www.stopbullying.gov/resources/get-help-now
What a nightmare. For a team that'd always been so successful, to bottom out to the third worst team of the new millennium (by my calculations, only the 2008 Lions and 2009 Rams are worse) could have been the catalyst for a really bad era. Instead, it became the inflection point to turn the team around in a big way. That says a lot about the Chiefs organisation.
It's also quite lucky. Imagine this had happened the year before. Then, at the 2012 draft the team would've gotten stuck for years with the Andrew Luck experience (big hype, constant underperformance). Perhaps they'd still be stuck with it today, and there'd likely be no Andy Reid, no AFC Championships (maybe one lucky one like Cincinnati got, who knows), and certainly no Super Bowls.
It just goes to show that it takes both luck and skill to succeed in this game.
Agreed, except for the luck (not Luck) part. I wrote about luck (although Luck did factor in to the Chiefs supposed playoff “luck” or lack thereof) and how it doesn’t actually exist in Chiefs Chronicles last season. It was a pretty fun topic to tackle (see what I did there!)- especially when applied to the NFL!
I’d write about it again, right now, but I need to practice moderation in my replies. I have a tendency to let my replies/comments get way too long and out of hand. The season is close and there are lots of columns to write and my overall writing process is notoriously and frustratingly slow. Time management!
Thanks for reading, Robbie!