Why Travis Kelce’s message after Chiefs’ AFC title win is only part of KC’s story

You can hear the music from the visiting locker room inside M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore before you push through the set of double doors. But, well, that’s because Chiefs linebacker Willie Gay has actually brought the party into the hallway via a loud speaker on wheels.

The celebration greets him there, a steady stream of players who have left behind the empty stadium and begun the march toward the room.

“It’s (bleeping) quiet out there!” one player shouts.

Not in here.

Not in the slightest.

The Chiefs beat the Ravens 17-10 in Sunday’s AFC Championship Game between two MVP quarterbacks, one of which had a dazzling half, the other the type of dazzling play that used to end Chiefs seasons. A thing of the past, right? Instead, the Chiefs sit one win shy of becoming the first team in two decades to repeat as Super Bowl champions.

That can wait. For now, this is a celebration that has turned into a tradition nearly as annual as training camp in St. Joseph. The language, fair warning, is fitting of a Kadarius Toney Instagram Live session.

The defense occupies one side of the crammed quarters, posing for a picture with coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, a cigar hanging from the lips of defensive lineman Chris Jones.

But in the back of the room resides the story most symbolic of this Chiefs team, even more so than the much-improved defense, and it’s the reason it contrasts the predecessors.

There stands tight end Travis Kelce, donning a sweat-soaked T-shirt, with a succinct message for his teammates that he wants to make sure every last one of them hears through the noise.

“When they doubted us,” he says, before moving toward a cluster of teammates.

“Nobody,” he says, clapping the hand of lineman Trey Smith.

“(Bleeping),” Kelce says, smacking red the palm of spot-start lineman Nick Allegretti.

“Stopped,” Kelce says, which brings him to the locker of receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling.

The march down the line takes a brief pause, and Kelce pulls Valdes-Scantling closer.

“You didn’t (bleeping) stop,” he says.

We’d hear his buzzword — doubt — again in a walk-off message from Jones at the lectern.

“Ya’ll doubted us,” Kelce said. “We didn’t doubt it.”

The Chiefs wanted to make their post-game talk all about the non-believers — because they believe the proverbial outsiders provided them that motivation. That, however, is only tangentially representative of their most compelling story.

Which is this: They were at their worst this season — we didn’t imagine that — but yet here they stand anyway.

And if you can’t get them at their worst, or their most vulnerable, when will you ever?

The Chiefs have been kings of the AFC for a half-decade — only an overtime loss prevents that from being literally true — but who knew that margin was so great than even during the appearance of an off-year, they’re still standing, crowns atop their heads?

They were playoff underdogs not once but twice this month, forced to play on the road not once but twice — and not because of anything that the outside noise invented out of thin air but rather because of their own pitfalls. They led the league in dropped passes and penalties and turned the ball over 11 more times than they took it away.

Star quarterback Patrick Mahomes finished with career lows in passer rating, touchdowns and yards per game and a career high in interceptions. Kelce failed to surpass 1,000 yards for the first time in eight years, even if just barely.

And then there’s Valdes-Scantling, the most expensive receiver on the Chiefs’ roster who has looked unworthy of a pricey investment. The lasting image of the Chiefs’ regular season is his dropped pass, a perfectly fitting symbol for a team that just couldn’t get out of its own way.

That is the 2023 Chiefs.

Well, the 2023 regular season Chiefs.

The playoff Chiefs? It’s coach Andy Reid calling Valdes-Scantling’s number with a chance to clinch the game Sunday. Valdes-Scantling would haul in a 32-yard catch, the ball sailing in the air so long that you had enough time to consider that the Ravens must’ve dreamed of that throw. It’s what their coverage call intended — to expose a season-long Chiefs weakness.

It sent them home.

He sent them home.

A Chiefs weakness ended the season of the best team in the NFL over an 17-game schedule.

The postseason, in that case, is not about the Chiefs proving the doubters wrong. It’s about an organization that has once again overcome their very real imperfections at the perfect time. It’s about, for the second straight postseason, turning those imperfections into stories of redemption.

It helps to have the guy. There is no disputing the unmatched value of Patrick Mahomes. He is the concealer of imperfections.

But while he was unstoppable for a half, the Chiefs totaled 98 yards on 30 plays in the second half. Didn’t matter. He didn’t need to hide much Sunday.

Not the season’s worth of frustration with Valdes-Scantling. Not the game’s worth of frustration from a defense that struggled with Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen last week.

Not the single play of frustration, L’Jarius Sneed toasted by Zay Flowers for 54 yards on a busted coverage, only to force a fumble four plays later — also on Flowers — for perhaps the biggest snap of the game.

That is the identity of a team that escaped the regular season without one.

Redemption.

Sure, and the reminder that they still employ Mahomes. Can’t both be true?

Baltimore was terrific this season, historically good per the DVOA metric. The sportsbooks in Vegas were practically begging their regulars to put money on the Chiefs.

The Chiefs left the door open for the Ravens to get back into the game with their second-half struggles, but a defense that has struggled to force turnovers all season pried loose three of them, including two in the end zone. The Ravens, one of the best offenses in the league, and seemingly holding the ability to expose the Chiefs’ biggest defensive weakness, scored on just two of 11 possessions.

Because that’s who the playoff Chiefs have become — you finally get the best of them in one aspect, only to lose in another.

I’m old enough to remember when a quarterback catching his own pass represented the ghosts of Arrowhead Stadium playoff games. But now? Mahomes has won a Super Bowl on a bum ankle. He won another title despite trailing by double-digits in every postseason game.

Those were momentary glitches. Which is what makes this postseason run different. They’ve tossed aside a season of glitches — and that’s despite navigating the most difficult four-game path in NFL history, underdogs in three of them, including the Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers in a couple of weeks.

Have the Chiefs — has Mahomes — reached a point of inevitability?

Isn’t that how must it feel to be on the other side of it? If you can’t get this team — this player — on the heels of that kind of regular season, you must be asking one question:

When will you ever?