Vahe Gregorian: Why Chiefs' 38-0 loss at Broncos was as irrelevant as it was hideous

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — While I was at Kansas City International on Saturday afternoon working through what eventually became five canceled flights to Denver, I felt some flickering envy of the Chiefs when they got liftoff after a four-hour delay.

Turns out the two-time defending Super Bowl champions, who already had clinched the AFC’s postseason No. 1 seed and were most committed to resting key players, might have been better off getting stranded here, like so many others of us were.

Bummer enough the wretched weather here kept them from returning Sunday night.

More unsavory was the abominable way they played in a 38-0 loss.

While out-gaining the Chiefs 479-98, the Broncos administered their most lopsided winning margin in the 130-game history of the series, the first shutout of the Chiefs in the Andy Reid era and the second-most whopping walloping of Reid’s career. (The worst: a 42-0 loss to Seattle in 2005 when he was coaching the Eagles.)

About the only thing the Chiefs really accomplished was to get some snaps for the likes of left tackle D.J. Humphries working back from a hamstring injury — to mixed results — and other reserves.

Oh, and the Chiefs tied an NFL record by going a seventh straight game without committing a turnover — a stat that evidently doesn’t matter much when you’re mulched otherwise.

It would be embarrassing if you didn’t know better about what happens when a team whose priorities are first doing no harm and replenishing its stars takes on a team with everything to play for — in this case, the Broncos aiming for their first playoff appearance since the 2015 season.

Heck, even if you do know better it’s still a jarring result that will linger for …

Maybe a day or two?

Because in an instant all we’ll be thinking about is the beginning in earnest of the Chiefs’ quest to become the first to win three straight Super Bowls.

And because, unsightly as it was, the Chiefs achieved all they needed to on Sunday with what might be considered a purely pragmatic victory even if in no other way at all.

In a meeting we can safely say had virtually no resemblance to an actual competition.

You know, that would have featured superstars Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Chris Jones and such vital players as Nick Bolton, Hollywood Brown, DeAndre Hopkins, George Karlaftis, Justin Reid, Drue Tranquill and Xavier Worthy.

Oh, and the keys to the offensive line, Creed Humphrey, Trey Smith and Joe Thuney, who played just one three-and-out series.

The team on the field didn’t get better. But all of that group just mentioned got healthier after a long and punishing season.

That doesn’t mean the Chiefs couldn’t lose to Denver if the seventh-seeded Broncos win at No. 2 seed Buffalo next weekend to become the first postseason foe for the Chiefs.

And it doesn’t even mean that this situation isn’t a little funky for the Chiefs, who effectively have gone from playing three games in 11 days, as of Christmas in Pittsburgh, to what will amount to either 24 or 25 days off for the aforementioned core group by the time they take the field again on the third weekend of January.

But here’s the thing:

Reid has been here before.

Lots and lots and lots of times.

Both in terms of preparing for the postseason — in which he is 26-16, including 16-7 with the Chiefs and 15-3 with three Super Bowl victories with Mahomes — and overall working with a bye.

As The Kansas City Star’s Sam McDowell researched last week, Reid is a staggering 29-3 in his career when his team has a bye and the other one doesn’t.

Now, that’s no guarantee of future success. And the result Sunday does little to reassure that the Chiefs were maintaining the psychological edge they wanted to keep after going 15-1, when they were actually trying to win.

But that past suggests a template that works: keeping the stars out of harm’s way yet sharp through more concisely amped-up practice paces and other preparations.

You saw that formula at play most recently last season when most of the notable starters sat other than Jones, who was playing for a $1.25 million bonus.

But maybe the most apt parallel was in 2004, when Reid’s Eagles beat the Cowboys 12-7 to improve to 13-1 and clinch homefield advantage for the postseason.

On Dec. 19 — 28 days before their playoff opener.

With two regular-season games left.

Technically, Reid played the starters for another week. But that was about in name only: They took the field for only one series against the Rams on Dec. 27 in what became a 20-7 loss.

A week later, Reid kept them out altogether in what became a 38-10 loss to the Bengals — a defeat that was, at the time, the most one-sided of Reid’s career. The Philadelphia Daily News deemed it “a deep cut beneath unacceptable.”

The “County Fair butt-whupping … (by a) 7-8 AFC North team wearing cat suits,” it continued, “was beyond the scope and intent of whatever the hell Reid was trying to accomplish by spiking his guns, folding his hand, pulling in his oars and coating his voluminous playbook with vanilla.”

Most to the point, the paper added, if Reid “and his Rip Van Winkles nod awake from their long winter naps in 13 or 14 days, he should register whatever light switch he flips with the Patent Bureau.”

Two weeks later, those refreshed Eagles beat the Vikings, 27-14. Then they beat the Falcons, 27-10, to advance to the Super Bowl and lose to the Patriots, 24-21.

That loss hurt, of course, and losing the Super Bowl this time around would sting, too.

But in that case, it was the Eagles’ first appearance since 1980.

And it was early evidence of what now has turned into a Pro Football Hall of Fame career for a coach whose next victory will make him just the fourth coach in NFL history to have won 300 games.

No word on whether Reid ever got that patent.

But he certainly has earned some license in his approach this time of year — unsettling as it might be at times.