Kansas City Chiefs 31, Las Vegas Raiders 17
Back in 2013 I drove to Surprise AZ to watch the Rangers during Spring Training in the Cactus League. I was at the pinnacle of my baseball consumption, and at the time the Texas Rangers had like the perfect marriage between a borderline great major league team (on paper) and a high-upside blue-chip-filled farm system. As the game between the Royals and Rangers was being played I walked off to the outskirts of the stadium complex to watch batting practice among a bunch of 18- and 19 year-olds — the highest of the high-upside, the blue-chippiest of the blue-chip hitters. Joey Gallo was there. Nick Williams. Lewis Brinson. Ronald Guzman. Nomar Mazara. Names that used to mean a great deal to me. One day, all those dudes ended up playing in the major leagues.
At the time the thought, or the dream, really, was that this collection of young players would one day inherit the big league team and carry the Rangers to their first ever world championship. As a 22 year-old (at the time), in my head I considered myself a legitimate baseball scout. I knew who all of these players were, and I knew whatever was going on in that batting cage was much more interesting than the end result of the spring training game, one where former top-prospect-turned-washout Brandon Wood hit a game-winning two-run homer in the top of the 9th inning.
The Rangers wanted these guys to grow up together, in a sense. One of the luxuries of having a really good big league team is not feeling like forced to rush any of the top young prospects. Let them grow and develop, together. Let them win, together. It creates this certain type of culture — a winning culture, you could say — and even though that dream of winning a championship was never realized, not among this particular five-some, it is incredibly difficult to argue that playing amongst one another, and winning together, didn’t eventually one day earn each of them a bunch of money for the major league teams they played for. And looking back, ten years ago, it is one of the most talented Single-A teams that ever took the field together.
I say all of that to say this: I never became a baseball scout. But one thing I remember from that era, my baseball consumption era, where I learned more about the sport in an 18- or 24-month span than I’ve learned at any other time, even in my playing days, was that the best scouts were not the ones that tracked every single pitch that got thrown. They didn’t analyze every at-bat. They were the ones who walked around and generally observed the happenings and goings-on. It’s a very specific, details-oriented business. But ironically those specifics and details are best found out in the most casual way possible. It doesn’t make any sense.
In the actual profession I chose, or came into, however you want to call it, as a dealer in the casino, I have kind of assumed the mantle as the de facto designated trainer of all the new dealers or new hires who come in. As still (after ten years in the business) one of the younger dealers, I’ve never particularly understood why this is the case. I kind of joke around and tell everyone ‘It’s because I’m the best,’ and that’s probably not too much of a stretch. Maybe it’s more to do with the fact that I don’t give management a hard time about it — like others — and they know they can rely on me to suck it up and sacrifice a few dollars here and there. I don’t fucking know.
The point is, the more I have trained (and by now we are talking about like 30 new dealers or 40 or maybe even more) the more I realize just how little I give a shit about the X’s and O’s of dealing, following procedures, making sure the left hand is doing this while the right hand is doing that, etc., and the more I am focused on the culture. The culture is what matters to me. Of course we will go over all of the important shit. But long ago I understood that no one is going to deal the way that I deal. However you came in is going to be the way you go out. I learned how to deal in the most anal details-oriented way imaginable, and I gave up expecting that from everyone else. I’m simply the guy you go to who asks: How are you? Where did you come from? Where are you going?
And so all of this goes into the pie, into the fucking stew that made me such a sports fan who notices certain things that don’t really matter, but that actually matter a whole lot. The details, and the casual nature of acquiring them, all at the same time. I think I’m a pretty good judge of character, and I think I’m a pretty reliable source at diagnosing the details of consequence.
What I have learned about this Kansas City Chiefs team — having watched every snap of every game this season, whether while the action is occurring live or replaying the game on YouTube TV because I had to work that given Sunday — is that the reason the offense doesn’t appear as good, or as strong, is because this is not the classic off-script team that Patrick Mahomes can run around and make weird plays happen with. Travis Kelce isn’t distracted from dating Taylor Swift; he’s just old. The young wide receiving corps isn’t bad, or untalented, they’re just young. They haven’t played with Mahomes for long enough to know how he does what he does.
They, the Chiefs, that is, trailed 14-0 against the Raiders. I was watching the game at work and wasn’t especially thrilled about that, but my panic meter never crossed a 4/10. The offense stopped stubbing its toes and really simplified itself, running the ball with Isiah Pacheco and throwing simple crossing routes to Skyy Moore and Rashee Rice, Travis Kelce picked up a few chunks, and points were scored.
If it is to be the case that the Chiefs somehow figure it out and return to Glory for the third time in five years, it’s going to be for two reasons: The first is that the defense is genuinely great. If they can consistently hold the opposition to 20 points or less, then Patrick Mahomes is going to find a way to take Kansas City past the finish line. The second is a completely simplified offensive approach. No longer do Tyreek Hill and prime Travis Kelce flood the field; no longer can so much attention be drawn by two players that everyone else is wide open. No longer can Patrick Mahomes buy time, and run around, and find an open guy. That is not how the 2023 Chiefs can operate.
Instead, they are going to have to take their six or seven yards at a time. It’s boring, and it’s not what any of us (Chiefs fans) are accustomed to, but it is the way it will have to be. At the end of this road we are on there will be a matchup against either the Miami Dolphins (whom KC beat 21-14 in Germany) or the Baltimore Ravens (who currently at 9-3 possess the best record in the AFC), and while I am certain the Chiefs will be favored in either matchup, whether home or away in the playoffs, it is going to be a grind no matter what.
I believe the only way out of that, the only cheat code that could potentially make a Super Bowl run easier, is by truly unlocking number 4, pictured above. He seems to be the only guy where if the ball is in his hands, good things happen. This game against the Raiders is, if I’m not mistaken, the first this year where the Chiefs had a double-digit deficit and ended up winning. And it was because they started throwing the ball to number 4, who objectively had his best game of the year.
Every week is its own campaign. Something about the holidays that I hate is that they seem to go on forever. I worked my normal five-day slate and on three separate occasions either got held up by traffic or went out to a bar afterwards to kill time so I wouldn’t have to deal with said traffic. Never before have I more looked forward to a boring Wednesday, or Thursday, when I don’t have to deal to strangers and don’t have to fuck around with hanging out at a nearby establishment for a few hours.
That’s on me, though. That is what I get for living an hour away from where I work. Everything I do, I do to myself. Everything that happens to me, happens because in some way I have made a choice for it to happen to me. When I do something great and meaningful, I deserve all the credit. When I don’t, I deserve all the blame. It’s a fair exchange, and I love that so much.
But whether it’s baseball, or football, or some random that I will be showcasing the work experience to, it will be in the details. It will be everything and nothing. It will be a shoutout from long distance to remind you that I am still here, and to remind myself that you are still there. It will be about the culture. And it will be as casual as casual can be.
Future Bets 
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