I watched a terrific football game between two terrific teams last night, but apparently I was just hallucinating. See, I missed the part where Joe Zebra ran for two scores and threw for another, Jimmy Zebra caught six passes for 85 yards and another score, and Buddy Bill Zebra ran for 64 yards and a touchdown on almost four yards per carry.
Apparently it was the Zebras, not Patrick Mahomes, Xavier Worthy and Kareem Hunt, who did all of that last night in leading the Kansas City Chiefs to their third straight AFC title. Also they played great defense when they had to, being two-way Zebras.
Score it another major heist for the Chiefs in Arrowhead Stadium, where they robbed the Buffalo Bills 32-29 in the AFC championship. My loss, because I missed all that while watching the the two best quarterbacks in football match one another heroic for heroic.
On the Kansas City side, Mahomes was Mahomes, throwing for 245 yards and a score and running for 43 yards and two more scores on 11 carries -- including the 10-yard dash and pass to Justin Watson for the two-point conversion that got the Chiefs the lead back in the fourth quarter.
And on the Buffalo side?
Josh Allen was Josh Allen, your presumptive league MVP, who threw for 237 yards and two touchdowns -- including the 4-yard pass over two defenders to Curtis Samuel in the back of the end zone, on fourth-and-goal, to tie the game again with 6:15 to play.
Hell of a play. Hell of a game, a time-capsule game, an instant-classic game.
Of course, that's if you leave out the part where the Bills got Ponzi-schemed by Joe, Jimmy and Buddy Bill Zebra.
According to the Great Conspiracy believers, the game didn't turn on anything Mahomes or Allen or anyone else did; it turned on two 50-50 calls that both went the Chiefs' way. The first was Xavier Worthy's catch-or-not-catch he pried away from a Bills defensive back on the way to the ground. The second was a critical fourth-and-one keeper by Allen that the Chiefs either did or didn't stop.
You can certainly make a case that the officials got both calls wrong, depending on which angle you viewed them from. On the Worthy play, it looks from one angle as if he had the ball tucked when he hit the ground; from another, it looks like the ball wasn't close to being secured.
The Allen play, same deal. From one angle it looks like he didn't make the first down; from the other, it looks like he did. Happens all the time in football.
However, because the officials ruled in the Chiefs' favor on both plays, and upheld the original calls upon review, the howling started up again on social media. The NFL is rigged! The fix was in! The entire enterprise is as crooked as our Felon in Chief!
More rational minds would point out that neither call decided the outcome; Mahomes and Allen and the Chiefs and the Bills did that. More rational minds would also point out that continually claiming the NFL is just handing out wins to the Chiefs like candy does a huge disservice to an impeccable organization by implying everyone in it is a massive fraud.
That is, of course, ridiculous if not out-and-out delusional. It throws mud on Andy Reid, one of the greatest coaches in NFL history, and on Mahomes, one of the great clutch players of this or any era. And it diminishes Travis Kelce, Worthy, many others -- including Steve Spagnuolo, the genius mind behind Chris Jones and the Chiefs' defense.
Two weeks from now, all of them will get a shot at a Super Bowl three-peat. No other team in league history has ever done that. If the Chiefs do it, it'll be time to stop saying they're just lucky, or that Joe and Jimmy and Buddy Bill Zebra have gotten them where they are. It'll be time to start acknowledging greatness when we see it, because not doing so will only make you look like the biggest fool walking.
If you aren't already.
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