BAD BEATS: NFL WEEK 15

BY ADAM GREENE

Is this it? We waited a whole extra day to see if we could surpass it for a Bad Beat and we couldn’t. In what had to be the weirdest week of NFL action, we’re stuck with the oddest Bad Beat of all time.

Because any other week, it wouldn’t have even registered. Of course, on paper, it counts as a Bad Beat. But it’s one we’d usually wave off, replaced with another more brutal last second loss of fabulous cash and prizes, But this week? Covid Christmas? This is what we get.

I waited it out. All the way until the Tuesday Night Covid games were final and nothing surprising happened there. If you took the Seattle Seahawks against a team that’s owned them since Jeff Fisher was the head coach, you were off on an iceberg by yourself.

Same if you went for the Washington Football Team, starting Garrett Gilbert at quarterback and pulling him straight from the grill at Fudrucker’s to do it against the Philadelphia Eagles. Honestly, when you lost money on either of those games, you deserved it.

If this is your first Bad Beat, you need to understand it’s not just a tough defeat. Everyone wants to dump on John Harbaugh for going for two against the Green Bay Packers in the Baltimore Ravens’ 31-30 loss Sunday, but there were 42 seconds to go in the game. You want to tell me, with all honesty, that Aaron Rodgers wasn’t going to get the Packers in field goal position with 42 seconds to go if the Ravens kicked the extra point? Do you believe that, in your heart? Are you putting money on it?

You’d lose it. Harbaugh was playing at the chance that the Packers’ kicker would miss a long field goal. That was, legitimately, his only chance to win with his back up QB Tyler Huntley playing out of his mind.

Nope, there is only one, and I mean JUST ONE, candidate for a Bad Beat in Week 15 and it’s downright pathetic. I’m talking, of course, about Kansas City Chiefs 34, Los Angeles Chargers 28.

Yes, the first game of an absurdly long Week 15 is the only qualifier for our Bad Beat and I’m just as disappointed as you.

Regular readers know the deal. A Bad Beat article is a short story, a tall tale about some poor plebe who had delusions of spending the giant wad he’d make from his win, only to see defeat and destitution snatched from the jaws of victory in the final seconds.

There are times and I’ve tossed that to the wayside, whether it be the rare frustration of no Bad Beat or the fact that I was personally affected. This week, I’m not doing it simply because this result is not worth the creativity. The fact that the Chiefs covered -3 in a division they have dominated for half a decade getting designated as the Bad Bat frankly pisses me off.

I mean, I called it for you in last week’s Thursday Night Football Preview. I’m pretty good at this. There’s a reason I’ve made a career out of it.

But you thought you knew better. You figured that the Chiefs were still suffering their Super Bowl hangover that ruined their September and October, ignoring the fact that they’d ventured down to the closest mom and pop or bodega and downed a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, curing that thing in its tracks.

Hey, I know better than anyone that a defense is the hardest thing to fix mid-way through the season. But I also know it’s happened before. The Seattle Seahawks were a garbage gyre for the first half of the 2020 season, but in the second half rebounded across the board. When you have the players, and a coach that knows what he’s doing (and Steve Spagnuolo does — at least when it comes to defense), then it’s possible.

The only question coming into the game was if the offense could come to life after showing signs against the hapless Las Vegas Raiders. Is Patrick Mahomes still there? If so, then, yes, they can.

So it came as a shock to you, but not to me, that Mahomes looked like he’s back to back Super Bowl self against the Chargers Thursday night, passing for 410 yards and three touchdowns with a pick.

Of course the Chargers made it interesting. Brandon Staley has that team on the right track. A Super Bowl track, but that’s probably next year. This year, they’re still putting it together and, sure, they’re exciting with Justin Herbert, Austin Ekeler and Keenan Allen, but the Chiefs are the Chiefs and Andy Reid remains the God King of the AFC.

So, it should shock no one that the Chiefs tied the game up 28-28 with an eight play drive with a little over two minutes left in the game. I mean, the Chiefs didn’t even need the full two minutes. They scored a touchdown with 1:16 to go, with Mahomes hitting Travis Kelce for a seven yard touchdown.

That play should have prepared you for the end. 1:16 is a lot of time and Justin Herbert is fantastic, a franchise QB and a guy that will probably hoist a Vince Lombardi Trophy before his career is over, but he’s not Aaron Rodgers. Not yet.

So overtime it was and as soon as the Chiefs won the toss, you knew it was over. You still had to watch it play out as Mahomes worked his team down the field, not only to take control of the AFC West, but of the entire AFC after being written off before Halloween, with a five play drive capped by a 34 yard touchdown pass to Kelce that should be used against every Chargers defender asking for a new contract for the next three years.

The Chiefs won. As I knew they would. And the Chargers lost. As you were shocked they did. You earned this Bad Beat. There’s nothing any of us could do to help you.

Follow Adam Greene on Twitter @TheFirstMan.

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