BAD BEATS: WEEK 14

BY ADAM GREENE

Listen, I’ve been telling you the same thing for weeks. I’m not picking the Kansas City Chiefs to lose. It’s not that they can’t lose, they’re not perfect, but they’re the best team in the NFL right now thanks to having the best quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, by a pretty wide margin. But they have a flaw.

And that flaw is, simply, they don’t care about the point spread. In fact, they laugh at your lines, your totals, your parlays. The mock your vigs, your dogs and your sharps. That chalk? Well, you can just break out the hose and wash it from the sidewalk. The Chiefs ain’t got no love for any of it.

And I’ve warned you. Kansas City plays down to its opponents. In fact, Mahomes and the Chiefs love nothing more than spotting an opposing franchise a double-digit lead only to blow past it. They won a Super Bowl that way last year.

This season, it means they refuse to cover a spread. They won’t do it and make no effort to. It doesn’t matter if they set offensive records in the opening quarter, as they did a few weeks ago against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They did not cover.

You thought, wrongly, a month ago that while they were facing the worst team in the league, the New York Jets, there was no chance they wouldn’t cover that game. As your money lit afire in your hand, Andy Reid laughed at you. A jolly laugh like Santa Claus. So you couldn’t even be that mad. It was your fault. You bet on the Kansas City Chiefs to cover and it’s just not going to happen.

It’s not been a secret to me. I’ve been informing you of this particular fact for weeks in any way that I could. But you looked at that Kansas City Chiefs -7.5 against the Miami Dolphins on the road and you thought, “They can’t underestimate the Dolphins. That’s an 8-4 team playing at home. Surely they’ll cover that spread.”

To which Andy Reid says, as he often does, “Don’t call me Shirley.”

So you sat there Sunday afternoon, watching your money go right into the woodchipper as the Dolphins charged out to a 10-0 lead. There was no danger of the Chiefs losing the game. This is what they do, but that 7.5 points was now seemingly far too massive to overcome in what would likely be a back-and-fourth game the rest of the way.

But this is exactly how insidious the Chiefs are. Because they scored the next 30 points, took a 20 point lead, and carried it into the fourth quarter. You were relaxed then. You’d broken into the good egg nog and were grooving, thinking you were about to make your daughter’s Christmas dream come true with a set of $500 Sky Blue AirPods Max. You were a fool.

Kansas City’s defense, with the game well in hand, decided to pack up, board the bus and leave the field early to beat the traffic as Miami scored two touchdowns and pulled within six.

You’re no math wiz, but you do know that six is less than 7.5 so you needed the Chiefs to go ahead and get some breathing room there. And they did, when Harrison Butker split the uprights from 46 yards out with barley more than a minute to go. And you even had some of that good egg nog left.

Kansas City would not let you go out like that. There would be no celebratory winning ticket turned in anywhere, no money paid on a Chiefs spread. Not in 2020, sir!

Five plays later the Dolphins lined up for a 44 yard Jason Sanders field. He hit it. Miami failed the ensuing onside kick and you spilled your egg nog. Your daughter will now be forced to listen to music through her normal, already too expensive and stupid AirPod buds and you’re re the worst parent in the world.

Maybe pay attention to me next time.

Follow our BetOnline Twitter account for the latest sports news and betting odds, and stay tuned on the Instagram feed for more good information too.