We Need to Pump Up Trent Green Pt. 4: It Takes Two

Part four of the Trent Green story finally sees him in the NFL playoffs, but would it have been less heartbreaking to just miss them?

(Welcome back to the Trent Green saga. As with all other chapters, this works as a standalone article, but for full effect it does require some knowledge of what’s happened in the first three. Read as you wish. Thank you.)

One more year. One more disappointment.

It’s the night after the 2003 NFL Draft, and once again, the Chiefs have wasted all of their picks.

When we left off, remember that Trent was trying to lug around one of the worst defences in NFL history to a winning record, and he got really close, but in the end petered out with an 8-8 record and no playoffs. The Chiefs had tried to address this in the 2002 Draft, using all but one of their selections on defensive players, but this failed miserably.

In the first round, the Chiefs make one of the more underrated Draft night mistakes of all time by trading two picks to the Cowboys to move up two positions, surrendering the privilege of drafting DT John Henderson (who in his best years was an All-Pro player), who dropped to their original pick, instead choosing to draft DT Ryan Sims, a total nothing at the NFL level. He can’t even start for the dreadful 2002 KC Chiefs, and a sixth overall pick not being able to start for one of the worst defences of the new millennium should tell you all you need to hear about his career.

Now with a pretty empty cabinet of picks, the Chiefs proceed to miss one after the next, with the only passable player out of the draft being LB Scott Fujita, who at least is a defensive starter, but even he is going to do most of his damage after leaving the Chiefs.

Recall I said how in the NFL it’s hard to create as much separation as the Chiefs did to become so bad at defence? Even squandering every pick of an entire draft (except Fujita) is not enough to create that much space between yourselves and the rest of the league. To see that, we must go back to the 2001 Draft, where KC traded their first round pick for Trent Green (fair enough), but still had nine draft picks.

They missed on every single one of them.

I’m not kidding about this. I’m serious. There’s not even one small beacon like there is in 2002. Not a single NFL player of note went to Kansas City in the 2001 Draft. There were some starters for the horrendous 2002 team, but that’s not a difficult unit to start on, and none of them started anywhere afterwards. That is how you mess up a defence so badly that it holds your team back for years.

Keep in mind that at no point through this process did the Chiefs draft an offensive player of note either. They pulled a masterclass in building a team through other methods than the Draft. With two of the four headed dragon (Will Shields and Tony Gonzalez) being incumbents that predated the new regime, the Chiefs then traded for Trent Green, saw what nobody else saw in backup RB Priest Holmes, signed touted free agents LT Willie Roaf and WR Johnnie Morton, lured Eddie Kennison out of retirement, and made Dante Hall into a real NFL receiver, which meant at no point in this whole process did they have to successfully scout and draft a college player.

Thank goodness for that, because they had no ability to do so.

The 2003 draft sees one of (perhaps the) most horrendous, team killing, draft day mistakes I’ve seen in my football watching life. Nobody ever talks about it, but I guarantee that if the victim of this mistake were a QB with more notoriety than poor Trent Green it would be talked about endlessly.

Going into the 2003 NFL Draft, the Chiefs (for the third season in a row) are hellbent on improving their defence by any means necessary. Coach Dick Vermeil has told the whole world that the Chiefs will pick a defensive player at number 16. He is determined to do so.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so open about it, because in the leadup to the Chiefs’ pick, every notable defensive player goes off the board. Dewayne Robertson gets picked. Terence Newman goes off the board. Then the Hall of Fame calibre players start. Kevin Williams becomes a member of the Minnesota Vikings, and not the Chiefs. Terrell Suggs becomes a member of the Ravens, and not the Chiefs. Not everybody can be a Hall of Famer, but solid NFL starters Marcus Trufant and Ty Warren become members of other teams, and are not available by the time pick number 16 rolls around.

By the time the Chiefs are on the clock, they do not see a defensive player worth selecting. There are not really any offensive players worth selecting either. TE Dallas Clark is here, but the Chiefs have that position sewn up, so the only option they see is to trade backwards, but nobody is really calling. In the end, they have to accept a lowball offer from the Pittsburgh Steelers to move back 11 spots for just a third and a sixth. This in itself is not the end of the world. It only becomes the end of the world once you see who the Steelers traded up to select.

Hall of Fame Safety Troy Polamalu.

You mean to tell me that Chiefs’ brass could not see a defensive player worth selecting when Troy Polamalu was right there staring them in the face? That’s unimaginable. It’s incomprehensible, especially once you realise that the Chiefs don’t even select a defensive player anyway. With the 27th pick they select RB Larry Johnson. Larry is good value at 27, but gets a lot less good when you learn that the Packers draft LB Nick Barnett just two picks after at 29.

Nick Barnett isn’t going to set the world alight, but he’s going to be a solid starter for some good Green Bay defences throughout the next decade, and we could’ve had him just like that, but the allure of a backup running back was just too strong to pass up, apparently.

Because of the player Larry Johnson turns into (a very good RB in his own right), Chiefs fans don’t tend to see this 2003 first round for the team killing missed opportunity that it was. If the Chiefs hadn’t gifted the right to select Troy Polamalu to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and instead selected him themselves, that would’ve been a real turning point towards getting this awesome offence some real defensive backup which (spoiler alert) they could really use this year, but to no avail.

The Chiefs do find LB Kawika Mitchell in the second round, who is a good get, but also isn’t going to be of much help this year. Therefore, the Chiefs have gone three drafts in a row without bringing in any immediate help at all. Imagine as you read ahead what could’ve happened if the Chiefs would’ve had Troy Polamalu, or if they would’ve had Nick Barnett, or if they would’ve had one of many late round DBs and WRs they’ve passed on through the years, or if they would’ve had all of these players.

Where does this leave our man Trent?

Trent in 2002 was the NFL’s second best QB (behind only 2002 Pennington) on a rate basis, and its third best (Rich Gannon) overall, yet could not find any MVP votes, any Pro Bowl votes, or anything of that nature. It’s almost like it was a secret how well he was doing. Think of Trent like a much, much better version of 2023 Jordan Love, who was tearing up the NFL while nobody was talking about him. That’s exactly what Trent did, except he did it quite a bit better.

Once again over the 2003 offseason Trent’s knee has been in flux (as it always will be), but it’s getting better every year. He will always live in fear of reaggravating his injuries, but he’s alleviated those concerns some by not missing a single start since being traded to KC. For the first time in his entire career Trent gets a little continuity. He’s not going to miss training camp. He’s not teaching a new team a new offence. He’s not going through a full team change in his skill position players. None of that.

This is a KC team that knows their offence, knows each other, and knows they’re good. This is unlike any season Trent has ever been a part of. Over the offseason Trent signed a shiny new contract to give the Chiefs some extra money to shore up the defensive side of the ball, so there’s some hope there now too. Everybody knows before the season starts that this is the season the Chiefs are going back to the playoffs, but I don’t think anybody could’ve predicted just how good it was going to go.

In the first four weeks of the season things look easy in Kansas City.

Recall last season when we lost 35-34 to Drew Brees and the San Diego Chargers because Trent was the only one who played like he wanted to win? No longer. This time around we win 27-14 in a very well orchestrated team effort. This is the beginning of the new Kansas City Chiefs, a team who does not need Trent to do everything and more in order to win. This is showcased even clearer in week two, where Trent is held to negative EPA/Play by Pittsburgh, but the Chiefs win anyway. Fairly easily in fact. 41-20.

I’m going to say that again in case you missed it. Trent Green generated negative EPA/Play, and the Chiefs won anyway. If you’re a new reader, this may not make any impression on you, but those who have been along for the ride know that this does not happen to Trent Green. It happened once in 2001 (week eight, San Diego). It did not happen at all in 2002.

That’s right. This is now Trent’s 34th start as a KC Chief. Two of those starts have seen Trent winning while playing below expectation.

Two.

Don’t get me wrong. It is not normal to win when generating less points than expected. That’s the whole point, but Trevor Siemian got two wins playing negative EPA football in 2023 in just three starts.

Never could any of that luck fall on Trent.

Thankfully, it seems in 2003 we’ve finally rid ourselves of the Trent Green rule. Week three sees another complete team performance in another easy win, which brings us to week four, in Baltimore, where for the second time in four weeks Trent manages to generate negative EPA and win anyway. Give this one a caveat, because the 2003 Raven defence is one of the best of all time (article here for more detail), and generating -0.06 EPA/Play against a team that allowed -0.182 season long puts Trent a long way above average. It’s actually one of the better performances any QB put up against the 2003 Ravens.

At this point it’s becoming clear that the Chiefs are a real team in the AFC. It’s not 2002 anymore. Through four weeks, our defence is allowing just -0.172 EPA/Play, seventh best in the NFL, and while the offence is not playing as well as it has in the past, it’s only fallen to sixth. Nobody expected the Chiefs to be playing this well. Their over/under for the season was just nine wins.

Week five at home against Denver is an important game, as it’s a matchup between two 4-0 AFC West rivals. It’s more of the same as the Chiefs keep on winning. However, it’s one of the luckier wins in NFL history. Trent struggles badly, and so does Priest and the rush offence, but thankfully so does Jake Plummer, and with the benefit of a short field off a muffed punt catch, a missed field goal, several key defensive stands (out of a defence that while much improved still ought not to be relied on), plus a return touchdown from Dante Hall, the Chiefs are somehow able to get out of this crucial game between 4-0 division rivals with a 24-23 victory.

This really is a contender for the luckiest win any NFL team has ever gotten, and perhaps is a symbol of Trent’s luck beginning to turn. Prior to 2003, nothing has ever gone right in Trent’s football career. Nothing at all, but now all of a sudden we’re getting lucky wins in key games against division rivals?

Is this Trent Green or Tom Brady?

It feels good to be 5-0, but the offence struggling is now officially a thing.

The opening to this season has really been a struggle for Trent.

Through five weeks, Trent is really not doing so hot. He ranks 18th in the NFL with a -0.016 EPA/Play. Granted, one of the games was against the vaunted 2003 Ravens, but there’s also a game in there against the horrendous San Diego Chargers (who are the worst team in the NFL). There’s no way around it. So far, this is not the Trent we saw in 2002.

For whatever reason, the entire offence is down, and can’t seem to get out of the mud. Keep in mind that we’ve only fallen to sixth place in the entire NFL, so it’s not that bad, but this is Kansas City. We have high standards. People want the 2002 offence, and they’re just not getting it. I’m trying to hype Trent up here, but I would be being disingenuous if I didn’t tell you the truth about how bad (more accurately, okay) it’s gotten on offence.

The Chiefs don’t generate negative EPA in games very often, but they’ve now done it in back to back weeks. This is not a team very well suited to being carried by its defence, but that’s exactly what’s happening right now. This is a disaster just waiting for a chance to happen, and in week six we get to see it all fall apart.

Think back in your memory bank.

Do you remember what game is coming next?

It’s one of the most important (non-playoff) games of Trent Green’s NFL career.

Week six of the 2003 NFL season takes us on the road to Green Bay to face the 3-2 Packers. 3-2 is misleading though, because this Packer team is good. It’s really good. I clowned on 2002 Brett Favre a bit in the previous installment of this series, but the 2003 version is much better. In all, the Packers are going to finish the season with the NFL’s ninth ranked defence, and its fifth ranked offence.

It’s the perfect opponent to pick apart our limping Chiefs squad.

Despite coming into this game 5-0 compared to the 3-2 Packers, the world is not stupid. They can see that we’re limping, and as such we come into this game as four point road underdogs, and this game starts out horribly for us, with Green Bay jumping out to a 14-0 lead while we can only respond with two three and outs, and on the third drive of the game we again see who the Kansas City Chiefs believe in.

Remember Cleveland last year when the Chiefs desperately needed a score, and all of a sudden stopped handing the ball off and just let Trent do it?

Dick has decided that down 14-0 on the road in Green Bay is desperate enough times to play the trump card. He lets Trent cook, calls just one rush play on this drive, and is rewarded handsomely for it, as another player who exists in this offence, did not make much impact in 2002, but is coming back out of his shell in 2003, Johnnie Morton, catches passes of 38 yards and then 21 yards to clear the way for a 26 yard touchdown to Tony Gonzalez to keep the Chiefs in this game.

It’s important to keep in mind that while the Chiefs don’t pull this trump card often, it is a tool in their toolkit to eschew the run entirely and just let Trent go score. It’s one they frequently use in truly desperate times, and it’s one that in the years since people seem to have forgotten that these Chiefs had.

Just like always after they pull the trump card, on the next drive they settle back into being the Chiefs (four passes, four runs), and go get another easy score to knot the score back up at 14-14. Unfortunately, two Packer touchdowns around the half mean the Chiefs begin the second half down 28-14.

At this point, our estimated win probability (according to NFLFastR) is just nine percent, and falls even lower when the Chiefs try to play the trump card again and fail, as Trent throws three incomplete passes, we have to punt, and GB responds with another field goal to see us down 31-14.

This doesn’t change either, as each of the Chiefs’ next two drives also cannot produce a score, which sees us going into the fourth quarter with the same 31-14 score, and coming back from break to start the fourth, CBS broadcaster Dick Enberg says what I’m thinking better and more succinctly than I ever could.

“Trent Green has had a solid passing game, but the difference in the game is that Priest Holmes has not been able to rush for significant yardage, while Ahman Green has.”

How better can you say it than that?

The Trent Green trump card is extremely effective when used sparingly. However, Priest Holmes has run the ball nine times so far in the game. Add in two attempts from Dante Hall trying to do some cute tricks (they didn’t work either) and you get 11 rush attempts in the whole game. This team is not designed to operate that way.

This is where the Trent Green haters (I’ve found newspaper articles from 2003 calling them the Trent Green haters) really begin to believe they have a point. No Priest and no defence means no Chiefs, and Trent just isn’t good enough to save their bacon on his own, they think, because he’s already played quite well (17 for 27, 190 yards and both TDs already) and they are down 17 points. We’ve now tried to play the Trent Green trump card several times, and succeeded only once.

To me, this is beginning to look like 2002 all over, with Trent playing really well but getting no reward yet again, and even as he gets the Chiefs down the field quick to move the score to 31-21 (with the benefit of only one rush attempt) it’s surely beginning to look familiar to the fans too. They’ve seen this script too many times last season. Trent will draw them close, and they will inevitably lose.

Not this time.

For the second week in a row, the football Gods smile on Trent Green. As the Packers are marching straight down the field, well on their way to a touchdown and an insurmountable 38-21 score, the KC defence finds the turnover that they desperately need. It’s a pick six. Instead of 38-21 it’s now 31-28, and we’re in business.

After a Packer three and out, Trent has no trouble at all getting his team in position to score the field goal that ties this game, and after a FG on the other side the Chiefs are now down 34-31, with 2:48 to go. Trent makes it work, ensuring the drive goes 12 plays to run all of the time off the clock, complete the 17 point fourth quarter comeback, and take us into OT tied at 34.

After the Chiefs win the coin toss, we all know how this is going to end.

Not being able to use Priest the entire fourth quarter must’ve made Dick Vermeil antsy, because to open OT he hands the ball to Priest not once, not twice, but nine times in a row to get the Chiefs into Morten Andersen field goal range (recall this is still the sudden death OT era), and that’s it right? The Chiefs have won?

Luck may appear to be turning, but this is still the Trent Green story.

Of course the Chiefs haven’t won, as the field goal try is blocked, and this overtime has to continue. Thankfully, the defence finds another turnover that allows the offence back onto the field to win this game again.

This time there will be no field goal.

I’d love to hype this up, but quite frankly it’s easy. Trent drops back, executes a killer play action fake, and throws to his first read. Eddie Kennison is wide open two steps behind a defender, and with that 51 yard touchdown pass this game is over. The 17 point comeback is the largest in KC Chiefs history (as of 2003), and Trent pulled it off handing the ball to Priest Holmes four times in the whole of the fourth quarter.

How about that for proving yourself?

This was not a great game for the Chiefs. As a team, it showed even more how they were limping along and were doomed to lose this undefeated streak soon, but this is about Trent Green, and he needed this performance really badly to get out of the slump he’s been in. With no help from Priest Holmes, only four catches from Tony Gonzalez, and only two for Eddie Kennison, Trent was still able to generate 0.433 EPA/Play against a defence that’s going to finish the season ranked sixth against the pass, come back from 17 points down, and defeat a game Packers team.

KC came in as underdogs. They were supposed to lose. Nobody (least of all myself) would’ve blamed them for losing, but Trent just said no. This is the mark of a great QB, to take a team where everybody is playing like they’re okay with losing, and simply not allowing it to happen. If you are or have ever been a fan of a team with an elite QB, you’ve seen them do this too. You know what I’m talking about. This is Trent’s moment.

The Chiefs were not going to lose on his watch.

This brief flashback to 2002 must’ve scared everybody back to their senses, as over the following two weeks we bank two easy wins by a combined score of 55-15 to take us into the week nine bye with an 8-0 record.

Coming out of the bye, all seems well as Trent generates 0.526 EPA/Play in a 41-20 win against Cleveland to prove that his slump is definitively over, but something has changed. It’s not a good change, and it’s thrown in our face in a big way in week 11.

Here, we intersect with an article I’ve written before, as we have to go Cincinnati to face Jon Kitna, right in the middle of his His Year article. If you’ve read that article, then you’ll know that this is the day that the Bungles (the NFL’s worst team since 1990) morph back into the Bengals (one of the NFL’s most successful teams since 2003). What you don’t know is that it was a turning point for more than one team.

Trent plays very well (0.188 EPA/Play), but is let down by a rush offence that can operate at only a 35.3% success rate against the third worst rushing defence in the NFL, and therefore can score just 19 points as the defence cannot slow down Jon Kitna, and we take our first loss of the season.

Those who enjoy attributing Trent’s success to Priest Holmes and the rush attack clearly never watched week 11 of 2003 against Cincinnati. We all know around here that when you’re facing a QB in His Year, anything can happen, but it should not happen via the best rush offence in the NFL folding in the face of one of the worst defences of the entire new millennium. The 2003 Bengals are that bad on the defensive side. I’m not exaggerating. You could probably tell from the previous installments that I’m one of the bigger Priest Holmes boosters out there, but this cannot be tolerated.

Luckily, we’re still 9-1, and still atop the conference, so a lot of these problems remain masked. However, when it takes everything we’ve got to beat the horrendous 3-7 Oakland Raiders 27-24, and the pitiful 2-9 San Diego Chargers 28-24, it’s becoming obvious that what we’ve all feared has come to pass.

It’s 2002 all over.

I’m not sure what happened over the bye week, but it serves as a clear inflection point in the 2003 Chiefs' season. Prior to the bye, the defence allowed a not great but acceptable -0.119 EPA/Play. This is the 11th best defence in the NFL. Not Super Bowl calibre, but with this offence was good enough to win all eight of those games. After the bye, this Chief defence will allow 0.102 EPA/Play. 31st.

It comes with a big sigh when I tell you that we are back to the Trent Green rule. The new Chiefs are already dead. The old Chiefs are back.

Just look at week 14 against Denver. It’s a shootout. Priest and the rush offence again have nothing to give, but Trent is there to pick up the slack. He generates 0.322 EPA/Play against a good (11th ranked) 2003 Denver defence, but this is where the nickname I gave Jake Plummer all the way back in 1998, the permanent obstacle, really begins to make sense.

He bombs 0.566 EPA/Play on Trent’s head, as the Broncos generate 0.51 EPA/Play as a team. To put into perspective how crazy that is, in week three of the 2023 season the Miami Dolphins scored 70 points in a game, and in that game they only got to 0.62. This was perilously close to that, and it just so happens to bury one of Trent’s best performances of the season.

Despite facing this unreasonable offensive onslaught, the Chiefs actually go into the half with a 21-17 lead as Trent plays one of the best halves of football he will ever play, but when Jake Plummer is getting 218 yards rushing and five (!) TDs out of Clinton Portis, and Trent is getting 44 yards rushing out of Priest Holmes, there’s only so much that can be done, and the Chiefs lose in embarrassing 45-27 fashion.

This is so Trent Green. It’s a microcosm of his whole career. He can put up heroic performances against all odds for a half or for a quarter, but in the end something always falls short. In this case, the defence allowing ten yards per carry to Clinton Portis, but it’s everything you can think of. You’ve been reading this series. You know by now that something always goes wrong, and it’s almost never Trent himself.

Do you like the foreshadowing?

From here I would normally just skip to the playoffs, but I have to stop for week 15 against Detroit. The prior week in Denver must’ve made Trent angry or something, because he drops 0.953 EPA/Play on the poor old Detroit Lions in likely the best (not greatest, but best) game any Chiefs QB has ever had. It’s the best game of Trent’s NFL career, and it’s likely the best game as an offence the Chiefs ever had in this era. Go back and watch it if you want the ultimate display of what this KC team was all about.

There is one more loss where the defence allows 45 points to a Minnesota Vikings team in freefall. Why wouldn’t they do that, but in the end it’s not terribly important. The Chiefs had fallen behind the 14-2 Patriots with the Denver loss anyway, and were always going to go into the playoffs as the AFC’s number two seed.

Starting a season 9-0 and ending it with three losses has to be moderately disappointing, but Chiefs fans who’d now endured several years of no playoffs are not in the mood to be disappointed. They’re in the mood to celebrate, but the celebration doesn’t last. In fact, it ends pretty quickly once they find out who their Chiefs are going to be playing.

Sitting at home for the bye week, we’ve all had to watch Peyton Manning humiliate the same Denver Broncos that recently stole our lunch money by a humbling 41-10 score. It was (somehow) even more lopsided than that score would indicate, as Peyton Manning made the Broncos say uncle before the halftime break, and as the realization slowly sinks in that we’re going to have to play that guy, it must be hard not to be intimidated.

Peyton now has his first playoff win. He’s definitively taken the ‘can’t win in the playoffs’ monkey off of his back with one of the best playoff performances ever, and now his sights are pointed directly at us. Recall how I said in the 2001 episode that the matchup against the Colts was just one installment in an epic AFC rivalry?

We’ve arrived at the second.

The first important happening in this game has nothing to do with football.

Mother Nature, normally a great friend of the Kansas City Chiefs, has decided that today she wants to see Peyton Manning shine, as the temperature at game time is going to be ten degrees Celsius, with no wind chill. Think of how much you hear about the bitter cold in KC around playoff time. Ten degrees (about 50 Fahrenheit) on a January day in Kansas City is almost unheard of, and is without doubt a benefit to a dome team in the Colts, and their dome QB Peyton Manning.

I’ve never seen any Chiefs’ QB get unlucky in this way before.

Can't this guy ever catch a break?

As it turns out, absolutely not.

Initially, things look good for us, as the Colts' first two plays of the game result in a third and nine situation, but after a twelve yard first down pass to Marvin Harrison, they lock in. They see third down just once more as they drive down the field to a relatively easy opening drive touchdown.

This is just great.

When Peyton gets off to a hot start, he generally doesn't slow down, and this is an extremely hot start. I know it's only the first drive of the game, but it is imperative that the we respond, and we do. We get all the way to the goal line having to throw the ball just once (which to Trent’s credit is a 16 yard completion). Priest Holmes, in the background of everything going on this season with Trent, has just set the NFL record for touchdowns in a season, so we let him try to close this one out, but he can't get it done, and the Chiefs have to settle for three.

I know Trent doesn’t really throw touchdowns and doesn’t really care to do so, but maybe just maybe we should’ve let him handle this one. 7-3 doesn't sound so bad, but Peyton is white hot on the other side. On this day, any deficit is nearly insurmountable.

Our defence gets another chance, as the Colts' first two plays of their second drive are the same as the last, and it's third and nine on the 25. If the defence can get off the field here and get our elite offence back on, we can flip the script and get to playing from the lead like we have all season, but they just can't pull through.

Yet another first down pass to Marvin Harrison pulls another Colts drive out of the muck, and they don't even see a second down before they score again to bring their lead to 14-3.

I know I said it was imperative to score before, but on this next drive it really feels like our season is on the line, and what happens is very telling.

They say you can see who a human really is when they're faced with a life or death situation. Teams are no different.

Right now, this drive is a life or death situation for the 2003 Kansas City Chiefs. Not scoring in all likelihood means the season is over.

Would you like to know their play distribution?

Five runs, seven passes.

Not quite the trump card, but in the biggest spot of their season, and the biggest spot the Chiefs as a franchise have been in since 1997, they felt that it would be better to rely on Trent Green and the pass game, and they were right. Trent tears the Colts' defence to ribbons without any help from those five rush plays (zero yards total), including two extremely clutch third and 12 conversions, and this time Dick Vermeil allows Trent to complete the pass inside the ten yard line to move the score to 14-10, and keep our season alive.

If you’re one of the ones out there that chooses to believe (for some reason, this is a fairly common opinion) that Trent Green is a poor playoff performer, this one drive should tell you everything need to know. The Chiefs themselves just admitted to you that Trent is the real deal. The Colts have the worst rush defence in the entire NFL. Dick had every incentive to ride Priest again, but he didn't. With their lives on the line, the Chiefs let their elite QB carry them, and because of that they're still in this game.

All of that is great, but what are we going to do about Peyton Manning?

The Colts respond with another touchdown drive that frankly looks easy, and Trent's season saving performance is already forgotten as the Colts are up 21-10. It seems like he’s going to have to save our bacon if we're going to have any chance at winning this. This is becoming scarily similar to that Denver game I mentioned before, where Trent was able to keep us in for a half, but not the whole game.

The one and only thing that people believe Trent can’t do (take over a game and win it himself), is the one and only thing they need him to do.

With 4:24 left in the second quarter, we’re going to have the ball last before the half, and we get the ball out of the half. If we can score touchdowns each time, we'll all of a sudden be in the lead.

Again faced with a key situation, the Chiefs decide to play the trump card.

It’s all Trent (only one rush play) as the Chiefs walk down the field, capped by a touchdown pass to Tony Gonzalez.

With a 21-17 deficit, it's not even the two minute warning yet. I'm sure the Chiefs fans were thinking that they'd left Peyton too much time to score, but then they hear the announcement.

OPI on Tony Gonzalez.

It's total bogus too. With today's more lax rules where receivers can do basically whatever they want, this never gets called, but nevertheless. This is the Trent Green story. If anything at all went right at any point, we’d be talking about a different player. Instead of a 21-17 deficit, this drive has to continue.

Two plays later (coming from behind the sticks due to the penalty), it’s fourth down and three from the Colts' 28. We’re clearly going for this, because we need touchdowns. FGs will not do it against Peyton today. Not with our defence, but the play call serves an interesting dilemma. Again, the Colts have the worst rush defence in the NFL. Surely Priest Holmes can find three yards on a fourth down play, but the way this play turns out is really weird.

Dick Vermeil believes in our man, so the Chiefs are passing on this fourth down, and upon the ball being snapped, we see the Colts bailing out to defend the pass.

Why on Earth would they do this?

Could it be that when faced with two options, trying Trent Green or trying the Chiefs’ vaunted rush attack, they decided that tempting fate with Trent was the much scarier option?

Again, I’m not the one saying this. The Colts are saying it. Why would you bail and only rush three on a fourth down and three unless you were scared to death of the pass? That also says something to me. Trent may not have had the respect of the contemporary fans in 2003, but he sure has the respect of the Indianapolis Colts.

Unfortunately, after two more plays it's third down again, and on third down Trent throws a perfect pass to Johnnie Morton to keep the drive going, but it's dropped. Johnnie is violently angry with himself, and you can just feel the air go out of Arrowhead.

Now forced into a field goal try, the OPI penalty is looming large. After the try is missed, it looms even larger, and KC goes into the half down 21-10.

How has this happened?

Due to a confluence of bad luck (again) and bad execution by players other than himself (again), Trent is going into half with an estimated WP of 23 percent, despite having killed the Indianapolis defence all day.

Part of me wonders what he must be thinking in this moment.

Is he bitter that nothing can seem to go right for him? Or is it more of a sadness?

Whatever feeling Trent has going on at the half is without doubt amplified, as on the second play of the second half Priest rips off a 48 yard run, but fumbles the ball at the end of it, and the Colts get the ball back on their own 22. Yet again the Chiefs score no points.

Priest Holmes put the ball on the ground one time all season. Ball security is a non-issue, and yet the football Gods decided that this would be a great time for him to do it a second time.

I'll repeat to you again. Trent Green cannot catch a break.

Through what can only be described as a miracle at this point, the Colts are held to three points on their ensuing possession, so the deficit is only 24-10 at 9:17 of the third quarter when we get the ball back. Trent takes almost no part in this drive as each Priest run (aside from goal line) goes for seven yards or more to bring the score back to 24-17.

After another easy Colts touchdown, we get a kickoff return out of Dante Hall to bring the score back to 31-24, and on the Colts’ next drive there's finally hope. After yet again starting a drive with two bad plays and a third and eight, this is a chance for our defence to get off the field.

This is a quick chance for me to note that I have all respect in the world for the fans in Kansas City. The crowd noise for this game is legendary. Go back and watch some clips, and listen to the crowd pop when they stop the Colts on this third down. It puts goosebumps on your skin to hear how loud it is.

Here's the issue. The Chiefs had twelve people on the field.

How?

How can this happen?

Five yard penalty, and we have to do it again. Lightning can't strike twice and Peyton throws a 17 yard pass to Reggie Wayne. The Colts again never look back as they storm down the field to make it 38-24 at 11:07 of the fourth and cut our WP to six percent.

From here we need a miracle to win, and just never get it. We again play the trump card, and again Trent leads the Chiefs down the field for a score, including two clutch fourth down passes, but it's no use. Despite scoring with better than four minutes left, we never see the ball again, and the OPI call from the second quarter looms large to this day in the memory of Chiefs fans as Peyton and the Colts take this game 38-31.

Wow.

That is a word that generally carries a positive connotation, but in this case it doesn’t. I am simply shocked about how our man can be put into spots so big over and over again, come up so clutch every time, and still lose.

This was a heroic performance out of Trent Green. From the second drive of the game onwards (about 45 total minutes), he was faced with having to save the Chiefs' season every time he went out there. With the exception of the aforementioned OPI call on a touchdown pass and the fumble out of Priest, who never ever fumbles, he scored a touchdown at every single time of asking.

Once again, for those of you out there who call Trent not a winner, or not a playoff performer, did you watch this game? Did you see Trent stand up to Peyton Manning in a way nobody else was able to do? We all saw the demonstration the Broncos gave last week of what happens when you run into Peyton Manning with a QB who isn’t cutting it. You lose 41-10. You do not become one half of the ultimate shootout in NFL playoff history (still the only playoff game on record with no punts from either team), in the way that Trent Green did.

I hate that this performance out of Trent, and the Chiefs’ offence in general, has to go down in the record books as the B-side to the climax of Peyton Manning’s 2003 playoff story. I hate that with every part of my being, but let me ask you this: if the Chiefs had just rolled over like the Broncos and the Colts had won by 30 points for the second week in a row, would you have been more or less impressed with Peyton?

This is just like the epic 2021 second round game between the Chiefs and the Bills. If not for Josh Allen’s epic performance in that game, it becomes a lot less easy to feel impressed with what Patrick Mahomes did, because the Chiefs would’ve just won by 20 and moved along with their lives.

It takes two to have an all time playoff performance.

We can all think back and wonder what may have happened if the Chiefs had not traded back at the 2003 Draft. We can wonder what would’ve happened if we’d only waited and drafted Pro Bowl DT John Henderson in the 2002 draft. Would he have been able to stop the scythe that was Edgerrin James today? Would Troy Polamalu have helped our defence stop the Colts even once? Just once is all Trent needed, and it was one favour he just could not get.

The point is, that the only reason we’re even contemplating these what-ifs is that Trent and the offence got us that close. I'm willing to call this a legendary performance.

You may say: how can a playoff loss be a legendary performance?

In the end it works out to 0.51 EPA/Play, which in a playoff game is totally unreasonable to ask out of a player. I brought that 2021 Chiefs vs Bills game to mind. Both QBs in that game generated 0.51 EPA/Play, but they did it facing down much less intimidating opposition, because they didn’t have Peyton Manning and his 0.90 on the opposing sideline leering at them.

This is just a perfect moment to have in the Trent Green story, because much like the rest of his NFL career I don’t think there’s a comparison I can make to this. Staring down an all time great on the other side playing one of the best games of his career, and being forced to match him step for step, is not an experience any NFL QB can relate to. Josh Allen in 2021 is likely the closest, but the Chiefs punted in that game, more than once. It’s not the same thing as this.

Not even close.

This game demanded absolute perfection out of a man who had never gotten an MVP vote, never been on an All Pro team, never been elected to a Pro Bowl. Heck, he’d never even had a winning record, and had never started a playoff game before. He had every excuse in the world not to be ready for this moment, and yet, with the exception of one OPI penalty in the end zone, he delivered that perfection.

Literally one play short of perfection, but he lost anyway.

That’s the Trent Green story.

I'll say this and mean it. If these Chiefs would've gotten the Titans in the second round like the Patriots did, it would've been a walkover. League MVP Steve McNair had nothing on Trent Green if he was going to play like this. If this game against the Colts could've been pushed back a week to be played in colder weather, you never know. I'd bet on the Chiefs, but as it stands, our season is over.

Nevertheless, Trent Green proved a lot to me today.

He'll be back.

Thanks so much for reading.