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Rapidly, right here’s my prediction for Sunday: the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs will beat the Cleveland Browns. I’m certain it would end as a one-score recreation due to a final-minute Browns landing after they spend the remainder of the sport trailing by 14+. That ultimate rating, from the Browns’ dying gasps within the face of a stop protection, will guarantee the sport wasn’t a blowout however was, the truth is, very shut and one the Chiefs totally could have lost.
The narratives working into this recreation are of two groups held to requirements galaxies aside.
A part of the narrative disconnect comes from anybody merely attempting to promote a playoff matchup the place the Chiefs are 10-point favorites as a recreation that may truly be aggressive. A part of it’s as a result of everybody however Chiefs followers are already exhausted by the Chiefs. A part of it’s the product of the contrarian nature of sports activities speak morning exhibits.
The Chiefs have crushed the Ravens, Payments, Buccaneers, and Saints, all on the street. The Browns misplaced to the Jets three weeks in the past. They have been nice in opposition to the Steelers within the Wild Card spherical, however the Steelers have been even worse than the Browns have been wonderful.
This isn’t to say the Browns aren’t good — they’re. However they’re a Wild Card staff. There have been solely two really playoff-caliber groups within the AFC North, and the Steelers weren’t one in all them. The Ravens are nonetheless the category of that division, however the Browns aren’t too far behind.
In the meantime, the “Kansas Metropolis by no means blows anybody out” narrative lives on. I touched on this a couple of weeks ago, so I received’t repeat myself an excessive amount of. The Chiefs’ shut wins appear to return up way more usually as stains on their playoff resume than the Browns’ loss to the Jets or the Buccaneers’ loss to the Bears.
It wasn’t that way back the Chiefs have been in the identical place the Browns are at the moment in. Even the smallest quantity of playoff success is so recent and new for them. The truth that they’re even within the playoffs and previous the Wild Card spherical is sort of cute. Everybody goes to make a case that they may beat the Chiefs, however nobody is definitely choosing them.
That was the Chiefs’ lot in life for years. Whereas the Browns have been nonetheless trapped of their decades-long tire fireplace, the Chiefs have been the playoff-version Browns — the perpetual underdog who’d make it to the postseason to be a observe dummy for the AFC’s true contenders. The way in which the Browns have been a warm-up recreation for groups within the common season, the Chiefs have been the warm-up playoff recreation for Tremendous Bowl-caliber groups.
Now, the Browns are the place the Chiefs was once. Rather than the Browns are, like, the Jets or the Lions or no matter. However the Browns are lastly an precise, real-life, correctly functioning soccer staff. They’re simply ok.
That is the Browns’ “the rest is simply gravy” 12 months. They might lose 70-0 on Sunday and their followers would most likely nonetheless be completely happy with their season. That’s one other feeling that’s acquainted to the Chiefs’ latest previous. The catharsis Chiefs followers felt upon their 2015-16 playoff win in opposition to the Texans is what Browns followers simply skilled tenfold.
Now, in fact, the Chiefs are the face of your entire league. The unbeatable monster — the proverbial ultimate boss of the NFL. Seemingly in a single day, a playoff win has gone from feeling like an impossibility to a given.
Because of this there isn’t a ton to say about this recreation. It’s by far the one on the divisional spherical schedule with the least intrigue. That doesn’t imply it received’t be enjoyable to look at. Removed from it; Patrick Mahomes and Baker Mayfield at their bests is among the many most ideally suited matchups within the league if you need offensive fireworks and bonkers schoolyard nonsense. The ending, nonetheless, all of us already know. The Chiefs have been on the opposite facet of it numerous occasions.
Read more: The Chiefs’ one-score wins haven’t been as close as they seem.
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