Forward Progress Was Stopped.

This blog posting is actually a piece I wrote back in January, right after the Chiefs lost their home playoff game to the Titans, after blowing a huge lead at half time, in what became known as the "forward progress" game.

                The stage was set, the stadium was filled, and as Alex Smith dawned his number 11 Jersey and helmet, for what was almost certainly his last game in Arrowhead Stadium, I once again located my radio frequency for KCFX 101 the Foxx, and the booming, jovial voice of Mitch Holthus and his fast talking partner, color commentator Kendall Gammon, filled my living room once again. The game was on my television, being broadcast by ESPN, but the TV was in its perpetual state of mute, for the visual aspects of the fast moving plays were completely lost on my blind eyes, but throughout the afternoon, my ears would not miss a word of Mitch’s exact and precise description of the game, and my brain, which has a full playbook of all formations and plays inside it, would absorb every last pass, catch, tackle, formation and play, both offensive and defensive.

                During the relatively short time I have been a football fan, I have made it my passion to have as deep and complete an understanding of the game as a sighted fan. I have carried out this task, by endlessly and tirelessly acquiring knowledge of the different plays and formations in football, and teaching myself how to visualize them in my head as they are happening. I cannot see the formations on the TV, or what plays are being run out of them, but in my mind, I have a playbook, filled with diagrams which I can visualize, of formations and different plays. To balance my practice of constant visualization, of the game I have never seen but love so much, is the ever present voice of football, Mitch Holthus, letting me know exactly what formation is being assumed, what play was just ran out of that formation and the result of that play, for better or for worse.

                So, with the voice of the Chiefs in my ear, and the Wild card matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tennessee Titans on the line, Mitch informed me that the Titans had won the coin toss and elected to defer and the Chiefs would be receiving the ball to start the first quarter, and I opened the playbook in my head to offensive formations and plays. Mitch’s first explosion of excitement came not long after kick off, in a 46 yard catch and run by Tyreek Hill, shortly after Mitch had described, in a deadpan tone, Hill’s two drops prior to that. I would not have to wait long to hear the words I long to hear, that were screamed by Mitch at the end of a 13 yard pass from QB Alex Smith to Tight End Travis Kelce, “TOUCHDOWN KAN ZUZ CITY!!!”

                The game continued in this manor for almost the entire first half. Mitch telling me, that Alex Smith was going for a play action Pass, and in my head, I visualize Smith, faking the ball to Kareem Hunt,, as he drops back in the pocket, and lobs the ball deep to an open receiver, usually Albert Wilson or Tyreek Hill. Once Mitch even stated that Smith tossed the ball to Hunt, who then tossed it right back to Smith, who then threw a dart towards Hill, and I visualized the “flee flicker” play, right before Mitch announced to his radio mass’s, that it had been a flee flicker, but had been all for not, as the pass went through the hands of Hill. The only play that would come to confuse and befuddle me, not being able to see it, was when Titans QB Marcus Mariota was sacked, the ball was fumbled and number 50 Justin Houston, swooped in to recover the fumble. The description of this play, was easy enough for me to follow in my head, so you can imagine my surprise and confusion, when Mitch told me it was being reviewed. “Reviewed for what?” I asked myself. Mitch went on to explain to me, that it was being reviewed, to determine if forward progress had stopped, and that the play was considered dead by the time the ball was recovered by Houston. This is something, that with all my knowledge and visualization, I fail to understand, and it would not be the last time. Mitch’s voice, as he described the circumstances surrounding the “forward progress” seemed as befuddled as myself, making me feel better that my constant voice of football, had no more of an idea then I did.

                The Chiefs went into half time, leading the Titans 21-3, making a Chiefs victory, and progression to the divisional game all but a certainty. Chiefs Tight End Kelce had suffered a head injury near the end of the first half, and was now in concussion protocol. The cause of such an injury, was a helmet to helmet hit by a titan’s defender, and to this blind man, that sounds like targeting to me, but the player was not ejected, and not a flag was thrown. Unfortunately, the explosions of excitement from Mitch, and his use of meddafores such as “He is tasting the sweet nectar of the end zone” which permeated the first half, would be completely absent during the second half. My heart would sink, as Mitch’s tone became more and more docile, more deadpan. I could tell by his tone, when a flag was thrown before he announced it, when a pass was dropped or deflected it before he described it, and then, in the brief seconds of raw excitement when Alex Smith threw a deep bomb, followed by a tone of despair as the ball fell to the field like a stone. These tones of disappointment would rule the second half, just as his tones of jovial excitement in his discriptions of the flawless plays had dominated the first.  To my trained ears, the tones were those of a man who is reluctant to comment and describe what he is seeing, but knows he must, for those such as myself, who are unable to draw their own conclusions from what is being shown on TV, rely on him to paint the detailed and always moving picture of the gridiron and its constantly moving players, no matter how exciting or disastrous they might be.

                One of our star defensive linemen, Chris Jones, would suffer his own knee injury, removing him from the game, and the Titans would overtake the Chiefs, 22-21, and then, when the loss was looming ahead, Mitch’s voice voice exploded once again, in a way I had not heard sense the 46 yard catch and run by Tyreek Hill in the first quarter. Mitch described the events as fast as they were occurring on the field, telling me that Derrick Henry had been tackled, had the ball stripped from him, and the Chiefs defender had ran the ball in for a Chiefs touchdown, making victory inevitable. But just as quickly as Mitch’s joy had overtaken the broadcast, it was replaced with dismay and clear disappointment, as it was ruled that prior to the ball being stripped, Henry’s forward progress had been stopped, that he was down by contact, effectively whiping the scoreboard clean of the Chiefs touchdown and sealing their fate.

                The game, along with an up and down Chiefs season, would end moments later. The Chiefs forward progress had been stopped. And with an end to the Chiefs season,  an off season of change is without question. What will happen to the Chiefs coaching staff? Should Defensive Coordinator Bob Sutton be fired? Was that indeed the final game for number 11 Alex Smith as a Kansas City Chief? And will he come to be replaced by rookie Quarterback and the number 11 draft pick Patrick Mahomes? I will not hide my disappointment, that a season that began with such promise, by defeating the New England Patriots, in Gillette Stadium, followed by four more wins, and a back to back AFC West divisional title, would end the way it did, but I am hopeful that my Chiefs will return, as will my constant companion Mitch Holthus, the voice of the Chiefs, to help a blind man see the game of football once a week.