Sports Brawl

Something I’ve learned many times over the years is that the law of ‘luck’ favors better teams over time. If you look at a team that gets lucky breaks many times over the years – I’m not talking about favorable ref calls or anything like that – I’m talking about an ice chunk falls off a passing plane and knocks a field goal try out of the air.You know, the ‘bounce of the ball’ type stuff.

I’ve come to realize that good teams, over time, put themselves in the right place to get more of these ‘lucky’ breaks than losing teams. Sure, all teams have bad breaks now and then. But when I saw this story about the Kansas City Chiefs over the weekend and the ‘bad hop’ on a pass which resulted, eventually, in a stunning loss, I took as just another point in the Herm Edwards’ legacy.

When you’re a fan of a team, it’s hard to admit when the rebuilding process isn’t going to happen, and it’s hard to know the difference between a rebuilding process with a team that no one could win with and a bad system that will never win. I think that there are often specific points in time when one or the other becomes apparent. It’s pretty easy to tell when the turnaround is working – witness Alabama this season under Nick Saban or North Carolina under Butch Davis, or even Rutgers under Greg Schiano. It might take a few seasons of steady improvement, but it happens.

Then there’s the other scenario.

That’s when the bad losses of the coach’s first season, which are written off as part of the previous regime, start showing up in year four and five. The doubt starts to creep in, and people start to wonder if things are actually getting better or not. Then there’s a game or even a play where it finally sets in: it’s not going to get better.

When this moment happens in mid season, most organizations might see and recognize it, but they aren’t going to make wholesale changes in the middle of the season. Some organization will make an immediate change, like the Raiders, pretty much tanking the season and doing even more damage.

However, I think this weekend’s game was the final moment of doom for the Herm Edwards era in Kansas City. The team has too many ‘unlucky’ breaks, too many bad losses and no improvement. This was the curtain call for Edwards, I’m afraid.