Reality football

May 20, 2008, 2:42:43 AM by Jonathan Rand - FAQ

How come nobody ever dismisses a 4-12 season as a “fluke?”

The question comes to mind because of a popular opinion that the Giants’ run to a Super Bowl championship last season was a “fluke.”

If you define a “fluke” as a stroke of luck, then you’re paying mindless disrespect to the Giants. It takes a lot more than luck to win three straight playoff games on the road, then upset the Patriots as they sat on the verge of being crowned as the best NFL team of all time.

If you define a “fluke” as an accomplishment not likely to be repeated, then you can diss the Giants all you want and know the percentages are with you.

How come only the winners are accused of getting lucky? If a team supposedly can win a lot more games than it has any business winning, it only makes sense that a team ought to be able to lose a lot more games than it has any business losing.

But you won’t find anybody referring to the Chiefs’ nine-game losing streak to close out last season as “a fluke.” Chiefs players aren’t likely to be assured that they stumbled into an irreversible skid because of injuries, bad bounces or plain bum luck.

You’ll notice the Chiefs aren’t interested in going back to the table with the same cards. Herm Edwards, certainly, wouldn’t have revised his deck if he considered his team’s collapse nothing more than a “fluke.”

The Giants, however, like the cards they’re still holding. So forgive them if they’re getting a tad touchy about the “fluke” angle.

“We were a week or two removed from the Super Bowl and everyone starts predicting the Cowboys to win the NFC East,” Giants center Shaun O’Hara told ESPN.com. “You just won a Super Bowl and it’s like, ‘Hey, what do we have to do to get that respect?’ ”

Maybe the Giants are suffering from guilt by association. Before the 2007 Giants, the 1986 and 1990 Giants were among only 12 of 41 Super Bowl champions that failed to make the playoffs the next season. That list also includes the 1969 Chiefs.

But a lot has to go wrong for the Giants to miss the playoffs this year. And a lot has to go right for the Chiefs, who started off-season workouts this week, to make the playoffs.

Offensively, they need to build a solid line, get Larry Johnson back to his Pro Bowl running form after an injury-ruined season, find a reliable number two wide receiver and see Brodie Croyle develop into a winning quarterback. They also need to quickly absorb new coordinator Chan Gailey’s offense.

Defensively, the Chiefs need to toughen up against the run, replace Jared Allen’s 15.5 sacks and get better cornerback play. On special teams, they need some spark in the return game and a dependable place kicker.

This massive to-do list explains why the Chiefs’ missteps last year don’t go in the “fluke” pile.

Fact is, the Giants had to play consistently exceptional football to emerge from wild-card weekend and defeat the only team ever to complete a 16-0 regular season. Fact is, the Chiefs had to be guilty of multiple weaknesses to lose for nine straight weeks.

As a wise veteran once said after a tough loss knocked his team out of playoff contention, “In this game, you usually get what you deserve.”

What the Giants achieved last year, nobody can take away from them. And what the Chiefs achieved last year…well, they couldn’t give it away if they tried.

The opinions offered in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the Kansas City Chiefs.

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A former sportswriter and columnist in Kansas City and Miami, Rand has covered the NFL for three decades and seen 23 Super Bowl games. His column appears twice weekly in-season.