We Need To Pump Up Trent Green Pt. 5: Revenge

2004 sees Trent get another chance at Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts, and exact revenge in a a way only he can.

Welcome back to the Trent Green saga. If this is your first entry point to the series, please at least check out part four for a more accurate understanding of what exactly is going on. In addition, you can click the button below to start this series from the very beginning. Thank you very much for being here.

We Need to Pump Up Trent Green Pt. 1: Homecoming

When we left off, our man had endured a back breaking, heart wrenching, torturous, unfair 38-31 playoff loss to the Indianapolis Colts, losing despite being perfect on all but one play. We all acknowledged how fantastic Trent played in his playoff debut, but against Peyton Manning, just one play not working is all it takes to be a loser.

The fact that excellent performance came in a loss buries the fact that is a real contender for the best playoff debut of all time.

Our Chiefs (and not the Colts, despite Peyton winning a share of league MVP) held on to the title of the league’s best offence in 2003, but individually, 2003 was not the season that 2002 was for Trent. His EPA/Play dropped from 0.211 in 2002 to 0.177 in 2003, and he went through a huge slump to begin the season, but his team (for once) was able to carry him to victories until he got back to where he could carry them again, which he had to do for the back half of the season.

Because of this, he got more touches, and threw for more yards. He still did not throw many touchdowns, but he did have his first ever winning season as an NFL starter. All of these factors add together to make 2003 Trent Green’s first Pro Bowl appearance, where he would be team up with league co-MVPs Peyton Manning and Steve McNair to form the AFC’s QB roster.

Dick Vermeil brings up at the time (and I agree) that the AFC’s Pro Bowl roster at this position is so much harder to make than the NFC’s Pro Bowl roster. As such, Trent not being a Pro Bowl player until now means a lot less in this conference than it does in the other conference. For reference, the NFC in 2003 had to take Donovan McNabb, who generated 0.074 EPA/Play.

That’s less than half as good as Trent’s 0.177, and that was a down year. If Trent were in the NFC, he likely would’ve been to the Pro Bowl twice by the time the 2003 season started, making this his third appearance. Because he must share a conference with both league MVPs, Trent has to be the NFL’s third best QB (which he is) just to make the AFC’s third and final spot.

This situation will persist, and perpetually make it difficult for Trent to find the recognition he deserves, but for now, after all he’s been through, Trent finally has gotten his sliver of recognition as being among the league’s very best QBs, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Pro Bowls may not mean a lot in 2024, but back in 2003 they were seen as an important thing. They were a benchmark for players to strive for. The 2003 Kansas City Chiefs had a lot of Pro Bowl players (nine in total), but none of them needed the recognition as badly as Trent did, not internally but externally.

Trent Green does not care about recognition. He wants to score and he wants to win, and that’s all. This is a more admirable trait than you’d think, especially with Brett Favre in the other (easier) conference threatening to retire every 15 minutes if not given what he thinks to be his proper recognition. Skipping ahead, Trent Green will retire without ever getting his proper recognition, with the league actively working to bury his narrative, in a fashion that I will get to later, but let’s not skip ahead too far. I have to talk about the defining characteristic of the 2004 Chiefs’ season.

The schedule.

Coming off a pretty easy schedule last season, the Chiefs will not get lucky twice. Exactly the opposite. The league has set the Chiefs up with nine matchups against teams that will end 2004 with winning records (San Diego 2x, Denver 2x, New England, Baltimore, Jacksonville, Atlanta, and Indianapolis), plus one against the defending NFC champion Carolina Panthers, plus one against the eventual 8-8 New Orleans Saints, plus one against the defending league MVP Steve McNair.

Adding that all up is twelve games of really difficult opposition. In the end, this works out to be the fifth hardest schedule in the NFL, and most teams with a harder schedule than ours are quite bad (bad teams play harder schedules because they miss out on two divisional games against themselves, I talk about this more in this article).

The Chiefs are not a team that you want to play. Not having to play ourselves twice is a good thing, and we still ended up with an extremely hard schedule.

A team not being hurt by the inability to play themselves (in other words, a good team), yet still ending up with a difficult schedule will happen in the NFL. In general, it will happen to about one team per season. However, this degree of difficulty is not often seen. My completely arbitrary definition of a ‘good team’ running into a schedule this difficult happens again in 2005 (thankfully not to us), but after that will not happen again until the Patriots get stuck with a really hard schedule all the way in 2009.

Needless to say, this is an abnormally hard schedule, and it’s easy to see why. Immediately, one thinks of the QBs. We get to see Trent match wits with Drew Brees twice, the permanent obstacle twice, Tom Brady, Steve McNair, and Michael Vick? That sounds like a lot of shootouts coming our way.

Yes it does my dear reader, but I cannot focus on any of those right now, because my eye is irresistibly drawn to the Indianapolis Colts.

We get another shot at Peyton Manning.

This rematch comes in week eight, and it comes in Kansas City again. You know the crowd is going to be hopping. This game is put on the schedule for the same reason the Chiefs play the Bills every regular season in our modern era. The whole NFL world is going to be buzzing to see it after what happened last time. I know you guys are just as hyped to see Trent get his revenge as I am, but we have to get there first alright?

Take this ride with me.

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The 2004 season starts with the Chiefs bungling yet another draft. For the fourth year in a row, the Chiefs find just one NFL starter out of seven rounds. To their credit, it’s a very good starter in Jared Allen, but even he is not going to start this year, and is going to do most of his damage after Trent is gone. This means that for the fourth season in a row (with a break in the first half of 2003), Trent is going to have to deal with a horrible defence trying their hardest to destroy a season he’s working hard to prop up.

Remember the 2002 article, where I said the Chiefs were 53 percent worse than league average at defence, and how it’s hard to create that much separation in the NFL? Well, guess what. They’ve done it again. Trent is going to have to spend this whole season swimming against the current, fighting against a defence that’s 52 percent below league average for the 2004 season.

It’s hard to win this way, and the first three weeks of the season show why.

As we’ve become accustomed, Trent starts the season off slow, dropping ugly losses to the permanent obstacle Denver Broncos, and to the Carolina Panthers, with Trent generating negative EPA/Play in each game. In week three, the Chiefs lose as big favourites to the lowly Houston Texans, still struggling in their third season of existence.

Trent plays very well in this game, but the whole thing turns on one of the worst plays in NFL history.

Facing second and goal from the two yard line, with an opportunity to go up two touchdowns, Trent tries to float a pass to his big TE Tony Gonzalez, but the ball instead falls into the hands of DB Marcus Coleman, and it’s a 102 yard pick six. Going from almost certain to score a touchdown to the opponent scoring a touchdown means this play generated -12.82 EPA, which is the eighth worst offensive play in the history of the NFL. This play is so bad that it’s going to skew Trent’s results for the entire season.

(Spoiler alert)

Trent is going to generate 161.78 points over expected on the whole season. Simply deleting this one play would boost Trent’s EPA by eight percent. I’m not going to reveal his end of season EPA/Play, but I can tell you that removing this one play would boost it by 0.02 points. 0.02 EPA/Play is better than Michael Vick is going to do all season. Michael Vick is going to be the second place MVP finisher, and Trent lost all of that on just one play.

I’ve mentioned this more for humour than anything to see a disaster of such epic proportions, but do keep in mind that when you see Trent's end of season efficiency numbers for 2004, they have about an eight percent negative skew on them from this one disaster of a play.

So following that week three loss, we have now lost as touchdown favourites at home two weeks in a row, and have to go on the road for Monday Night Football as touchdown underdogs to face the Baltimore Ravens.

The 2004 Ravens are not the 2003 Ravens (a defence so good they have an article written about them), a team Trent struggled with immensely last season (although still did better than almost anybody else), but they are still very good. They remain the best defence in the NFL, which in conjunction with our man’s typical early season struggles explains why even against a team with Kyle Boller at QB and an overcooked Jamal Lewis at RB on the offensive side, we are still hefty underdogs. If Trent is still playing the same as he has in the first few weeks, we will be crushed.

This is where things turn around for our 2004 KC Chiefs.

Our defence cannot even keep a lid on Kyle Boller, so we face an immediate 3-0 deficit. Our response indicates that the Chiefs are back. Four runs, five passes, plus a Trent Green rush attempt, and seven points to take an immediate 7-3 lead is not what these Ravens are used to dealing with, having not given up positive EPA all season so far, but after their three and out we do it again, alternating almost perfectly between passes and runs to score another three points and that’s already the end of the first quarter.

Eventually Baltimore does find a 57 yard touchdown pass to tie this game at ten, and this Chiefs drive is where it becomes clear what’s going to happen tonight.

This game has become somewhat famous in the football community for the Chiefs running to the left over and over and over again, and it happens a lot here. The Ravens are really selling out to stop it. Of course, we know what happens when you sell out to stop Priest.

Trent Green humiliates you.

Admittedly with a lot of time to throw (the Ravens were biting hard on every play action fake), Trent makes excellent throws of 18 yards (on third and 16), then 12, then 12 more, and shows off a little mobility, running out of a collapsing pocket to pick up a key first down on third and nine in the red zone, and (because of course) Priest is the one that ends up scoring the touchdown to cap off a drive that takes over eight minutes, and gives us a 17-10 advantage.

Trent is not given the chance to touch the ball in the two minute drill, and unbelievably the Ravens return the punt for a touchdown, taking us into half with a 17-17 score.

Not what I would’ve expected. The 2004 Ravens are selling out to stop Priest, which certainly helps, but what impresses me is how well Trent is doing in third and pass situations. The 2000s Ravens were always lethal against third and pass. 2004 is no different, but in this first half Trent has very impressively converted several third and pass situations, including the aforementioned third and 16 to Tony Gonzalez, without which the Chiefs would be losing right now. It’s just one more thing that goes to show that the rush game is helping, but it’s not doing all the heavy lifting in explaining why Trent is so successful.

Right off the bat in the second half Trent is immediately facing another third and pass, which he converts by brilliantly escaping two sacks and firing a 16 yard pass to Chris Horn to continue a drive that eventually results in a FG and a 20-17 lead, and at this point they show a graphic on the Monday Night Football broadcast that I thought would be prudent to show you:

As of this date (October 4, 2004) Trent Green ranks eighth all time in raw points per game among starting QBs. This alone is mightily impressive, but it gets better. Take note that of all the other names on this list, only two (Kurt Warner and Steve Young) played in eras that are comparable to Trent’s, and also take note of who is not here: Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, or any other great QB of this era.

I can hear what you’re saying. You’re wanting to bring up the four headed dragon (Priest Holmes, Willie Roaf, Will Shields, Tony Gonzalez), and they of course deserve a lot of credit, but in this specific case I don’t think it’s quite applicable. I’ll explain why.

At the time of the posting of this graphic, Kurt Warner has played four games away from the Greatest Show on Turf, a supporting cast even better than the four headed dragon. Steve Young played just one season without an exceptional supporting cast of his own, with Jerry Rice, Brent Jones, and John Taylor being there through most of his career, and Terrell Owens and JJ Stokes coming in at the end.

What I’m getting at is on this list, Trent Green actually has the weak supporting cast of the bunch.

I love these Chiefs, but in comparison to Jerry Rice, John Taylor, and Brent Jones (Steve Young’s top three receivers), Priest Holmes, Tony Gonzalez and Eddie Kennison (Trent Green’s top three receivers) look a little weak. Nevertheless, Trent manages to score just half a point per game less than Steve Young. This is not even taking into account that Trent started 19 games without the four headed dragon, which at this point is still more than a quarter of his career starts.

Nobody called Steve Young or Kurt Warner system QBs, even though by the dictionary definition they likely are. Why does Trent Green have to suffer that fate?

It’s the rightmost column.

Through 70 career starts, Trent is right on 35 wins, and 35 losses. It is now four years later, but the label given to him in 2000 is not leaving.

Neither a loser nor a winner.

Al Michaels on the broadcast actually does a wonderful job explaining about how this is not Trent’s fault, as he’s never played on a team with a defence better than 20th, whereas all the names above him on the list have played with top five defences multiple times, but he is one of the few fighting the good fight. People want their QBs to be winners.

If you score 25 points per game and win 65% of the time, you’re Steve Young, an all time great and a Hall of Famer. If you score 25 points per game and win just half the time, you’re Trent Green, a system guy.

15 percent.

Can you feel the unfairness?

Back to Baltimore, where like clockwork, our next offensive drive opens with an immediate third and pass situation. This one is much less impressive, as Trent puts up a 50/50 ball that Johnnie Morton manages to wrestle away from Chris McAlister for a 20 yard gain. Not as pretty, but Trent is far from the first QB to just trust his guy on a third down. Give him a break. From here the Chiefs walk down the field, passing only when they want to en route to a touchdown and a 27-17 lead.

This is refreshing. Things look easy again; the way they’re supposed to look in KC, and not like pulling teeth the way the offence has looked the last three weeks.

The Ravens do manage to pull to as close as 27-24 with the ball at 2:33 of the fourth, but nothing comes of it. We finally have our first win of the season, and boy was it impressive.

0.334 EPA/Play for Trent on 36 touches. 0.16 EPA/Play for Priest on 33 touches. 0.25 EPA/Play as a team, all of it against the best defence in the NFL. This is quintessential 2000s Chiefs. The Ravens came out in the first half selling out to stop Priest and got killed by Trent. In the second half they committed to stopping Trent and got killed by Priest. Neither side of the offence cares which is doing the damage, and it’s beautiful to watch. However, there is one more thing about this game I’d like to address.

Recall earlier, when I said the NFL itself was working to bury Trent Green’s narrative? Look at this:

This is the thumbnail for the YouTube video uploaded by the ‘NFL Throwback’ channel of this game, titled ‘Legendary Backs of the 00’s Collide on MNF.’

I have so many problems with this.

First and foremost, it is not an accurate retelling of this game. While it is technically true that both of these backs were playing in the game, Jamal Lewis had one of the worst performances of any back all season against our horrendous run defence, and while Priest played very well, most of his damage was done in one half (the second half), the half in which the Chiefs scored fewer points.

Like I was saying above, these Chiefs are beautiful because they don’t have to care which facet of the offence is doing the damage. Why is only one side getting all of the credit here? What about Trent Green having the best performance (in terms of total EPA) any QB will have all season against the league’s top defence? Where does that come in? Apparently, it’s not good enough to make either the title or thumbnail.

I understand failure to understand the narrative as it’s happening in front of you. I even understand naming the video after the rush game because the reputation of this game is ‘ha ha, run to the left.’ I get all that, but couldn’t Trent have been in the background of the photo? Look at the video from the game the two teams played last season, where the thumbnail and title both (rightfully so) highlight Dante Hall and his contributions:

Priest ran for four yards flat and negative EPA per carry in this game. Why does he get to be in the background of the photo? How come Dante Hall has to share the spotlight with such a mediocre performance, but Trent can’t even get in the background for the best performance any QB will have against the 2004 Baltimore Ravens?

These are (obviously) not contemporary highlight videos. They were both uploaded in 2021. Therefore, they knew everything I know about Trent and the Chiefs, and almost certainly more, when deciding these titles and thumbnails.

It’s an argument that they don’t put Trent in the thumbnail or the title because nobody will watch if they do that, but I’m putting Trent in my titles and thumbnails, and my viewership is higher than ever, so I beg to differ, and even if I didn’t, this is an official NFL channel. They don’t have to beg for viewership. They’re there to set the narrative, not cater to it.

Do I think they set out to intentionally bury the memory of Trent Green’s career when making these titles and thumbnails? No. Of course not, but doing this enough times as an official NFL platform will harm a player’s legacy. Consistently attaching Trent’s career accomplishments to Priest Holmes (via always having Priest on the thumbnail) creates a connotation that Trent was a secondary player in all this, when all of us who have lived through this with him for years know that is not the case.

This game is not the most egregious time the NFL Throwback channel did this to Trent. I’m going to get to that in just a few weeks, but keep a cautious eye moving forward at the titles and thumbnails of these 2000s Chiefs’ highlight videos, and those of discussion pieces about the same topic. They’re there for clicks, not the truth. I have broken my back through the course of this series to avoid either underrepresenting or overrepresenting the importance of Priest, and the whole of the four headed dragon, to the Trent Green story.

The NFL and almost all of their pundits cannot be bothered to do the same.

Moving back to the season, we’ve just had an extremely impressive performance against the best defence in the NFL. This is one of only three times the 2004 Ravens will allow positive EPA all season, so this was very far from easy, but we sure did make it look easy.

We’ve already reached our early week five bye, and the extent of Trent’s early season slump is clear to see. He’s generated zero EPA flat over the first four weeks as we’ve fallen to 1-3, which makes all of the matchups against elite QBs that are coming feel a lot less exciting. Zero EPA flat through four weeks is worse than Steve McNair (0.172), worse than Jake Plummer (0.206), and dramatically worse than Drew Brees (0.233), and Tom Brady (0.331). However, nobody has pulled as far ahead of the pack as Peyton Manning.

Everybody who’s been reading my stuff for a while knows that 2004 Peyton Manning is my pick for the best season any QB has ever had, and it becomes easy to understand why when I tell you that he jumped out of the gate with 0.477 EPA/Play over the first five weeks of the season. 0.44 is the benchmark for an extremely good game (in statistical terms, it’s two standard deviations above the mean), and Peyton is averaging better than that.

It’s only five games, but nobody has started a season with five games that good before.

The NFL world can sit back and look in awe at how fantastic Peyton Manning is, but not us. Not in Kansas City. To us, this is disheartening. That’s supposed to be the man we’re chasing. We’re supposed to have the number one offence, not them. Our QB is supposed to be the one with outrageous and difficult to understand statistics.

The Colts already stole Trent’s thunder in perhaps the best playoff debut any QB has ever played, and singlehandedly destroyed the Super Bowl chances of the best Chiefs team (by point differential, not counting the AFL) ever, but now they’re taking everything from us.

I’m beginning to get that sickening feeling that we’ve been passed. Every Super Bowl contender has to feel this feeling eventually, as teams around the league catch and surpass what you can do, but it just doesn’t feel fair that Trent only gets to be in the limelight on a true contender for one season.

Thankfully, we can do something about it. We don’t just have to sit idly by and watch the Colts pass us by. We still have a rematch against them scheduled, but with our defence trying to stand up to the Godlike powers of 2004 Peyton Manning, do you really think we’ll be able to win it?

Alright, so maybe I overhyped the matchup with the Indianapolis Colts a little bit, but hopefully now that the slump is over we can turn it on and finish strong towards the playoffs, in the same way we did last season.

Not quite.

The week six game in Jacksonville again sees us as the favourites, and Trent plays fantastic. Dick Vermeil acknowledges the slump is over by this game featuring the first instance all season of the Chiefs trying to play the Trent Green trump card. It doesn’t work, but it does signify that the faith between QB and coach is back.

When we get the ball back with a 16-14 lead at the three minute mark, everybody knows this game is over.

This is what the Chiefs do. They run the ball, they get some first downs, and they win, but this time they just can’t do it. We run the ball three times and give the ball back to the Jaguars, and I’m wondering what may have happened if Trent had been given a chance to touch the ball as they walk all the way down the field, score on us, and beat us 22-16.

I stand corrected. This is what the Chiefs do. Trent generates 0.30 EPA/Play, but can’t get the win because of our defence getting torched by Byron Leftwich, and this team not being built to be able to handle 3.67 yards per carry and negative EPA out of the rush offence, and so we drop to 1-4.

By this point, our season is getting close to being over. Week seven is a fantastic performance beating the Atlanta Falcons (who are going to finish with a first round bye in the NFC) 56-10, which is extremely impressive, but doesn’t really fix the problem. 2-4 is really hard to come back from. It’s going to require a rather lengthy winning streak, plus some help from other teams. None of this is impossible, but of course this is the Trent Green story, so it’s going to be dramatically more difficult for us than it would be for a normal team.

We do have two divisional games against the Oakland Raiders remaining, which are nice to have, but looking beyond them, we have only had four games out of our nine on the year against teams that will end 2004 with positive win records (Denver, Baltimore, Jacksonville, Atlanta).

That still leaves five more to go.

From here, we have future games against the (12-4) San Diego Chargers twice, the (14-2) New England Patriots, one more matchup against the (10-6) Denver Broncos, a back to back on the road in the NFC South against Tampa Bay and New Orleans, with just one easy game against the now Steve McNair-less Tennessee Titans following his injuries. However, none of those games I’ve mentioned above can compare to the unintentionally amazing bit of scheduling done for week eight.

2-5 is a death sentence for an NFL season. In the new millennium (since 2000), but before the seven team playoff era, only four teams ever came back from a 2-5 record to make the playoffs, two of them in the ridiculously topsy turvy 2015 season. Three of those were precipitated by a QB change, and the 2015 KC Chiefs lost Jamaal Charles, forcing them to fundamentally change their offence also.

Neither of those things will be happening here. This offence will not be changing, meaning 2-5 absolutely cannot happen if we want to retain any chance at making the playoffs. That means that week eight is crucial to this 2004 season.

We will leave either 3-4, or 2-5. Teams work out of 3-4 holes all the time. 2-5 is a hole you don’t come back from. For a team with such high preseason expectations as the 2004 KC Chiefs, the season just cannot end this soon. We cannot be out of the playoff hunt already. If we fall out this fast, there will need to be serious changes, and as a 34 year old quarterback, ‘serious changes’ are the most intimidating words in the English dictionary.

In all likelihood (behind only the playoff game), this is the second most important NFL game Trent Green has ever played, and what better time to welcome Peyton Manning back to Arrowhead for the rematch we’ve all been waiting for?

In the interim since we’ve last looked at the statistics, Trent has risen from 20th all the way to 12th in the EPA/Play rankings. Peyton on the other hand has maintained ungodly production levels, an astounding 0.472 EPA/Play nearly halfway through the year. He is quickly turning (in terms of both contemporary narrative and stat crystallisation) from hot starter into the greatest QB of all time.

As we all know, he will complete this transition, and the Colts have also taken our crown as the best offence in the NFL, although we do remain in fourth place, even with the early season slump.

The rivalry against the Indianapolis Colts will be remembered as a microcosm of Trent Green’s entire NFL career. Long time readers will know that the Chiefs have not punted against the Colts since 2:22 of the second quarter of the week seven matchup that these two teams played on October 25, 2001.

That means that it’s been three years, three installments, and well over 15000 words of the Trent Green story since we’ve punted against the Indianapolis Colts. Over that time we’ve had 15 possessions against Indianapolis. These 15 possessions have netted seven touchdowns, three field goals, one missed field goal, two Trent Green interceptions, one Priest Holmes fumble, one instance of the clock running out, and absolutely zero examples of the Colts being able to stop us conventionally.

However, that stretch has also featured zero victories over Indianapolis, because in the same three year, 15000 word time period, they’ve had 15 possessions against us, which have resulted in eight touchdowns, three field goals, two instances of the half ending, one fumble, one turnover on downs, and just one time that our defence was able to force the Colts to punt.

Trent Green has not been held to a punt for better than three years, yet still hasn’t been able to find even a single victory, and since then, the Colts have improved and our defence has gotten worse. All of this in the leadup to one of the most important games our man will ever play.

That’s the Trent Green story.

The NFL knows there’s something special going on when the Colts play the Chiefs, because at this point we are 2-4 and fighting for our playoff lives, with ugly losses as touchdown favourites against Panthers and Texans teams that are not that good. The Colts are 4-2, having only lost by field goals in shootouts, with one of those losses coming to the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots.

Just looking at statistics like that, there’s no reason we should be able to beat Indianapolis, but everybody knows what happens when these two teams meet. There’s something special at play when these teams get on the same field at the same time. The Colts have won every time, but all involved know they are equals. As such, when the dominant Indianapolis Colts face the limping Kansas City Chiefs, there will be no betting favourite. It’s a pick ‘em going in, but one where all the pressure is on one side.

2004 is the first year of the AFC South becoming the flimsy and weak division that it will remain to this day. The Colts are in the AFC South. They can lose today and still make the playoffs easily. They will lose any chance at a first round bye with a loss today, but that pressure isn’t the same as playoff pressure.

We saw how well (better than anybody before him) Trent rose to the playoff pressure last time. However, he could not pull out the victory. This time, that will not be good enough. A story formed around the concept of creating sympathy for a man taking almost no part in his own losses has finally been backed into the corner of victory being the only acceptable outcome, all of this coalescing at the exact same moment he gets his chance at revenge on his arch rivals. The same arch rivals who are primarily responsible for this narrative of him being a loser in the first place.

Before this season started, I looked forward to this chance, but since then it’s taken on an entirely different meaning. A loss right now means no playoffs. It means talk of the draft in November. When people are talking about the draft in November, invariably talk will get around to the QB position, especially when yours is 34 years old with one winning season under his belt, and no playoff victories. Trent Green is the same age as Brett Favre. When the Kansas City Chiefs walk up to the draft podium in April, will they have thought long enough to convince themselves to pull the trigger on a free falling Aaron Rodgers?

That’s what’s at stake today. It’s simultaneously the climax to one of the most underrated rivalries in NFL history, a turning point for the KC Chiefs franchise, and a turning point for Trent Green’s career. The pressure on all had to have been unbearable, but the football field has no sympathies.

Win, or be cast out.

I don’t like to be the pessimist, but when the Colts start with the ball, and the kick return comes all the way out to the 48, I can’t have been the only one expecting a 7-0 deficit. However, three negative plays later and Indianapolis has to punt the ball, but this is where the Colts reveal themselves.

They’re scared of us.

They know that (just like last year when it happened to us) any missed opportunity is liable to be the one that loses them the game. Punting is not acceptable, so a fake punt is tried. It fails, and so for the first time ever, Trent gets to go on the field against Indianapolis facing no deficit.

The touch that ensues is not easy. Lots of runs to the left, not many of which are successful, but we do manage to get to fourth and one on the 17 yard line, and this is where we reveal ourselves.

Three points just won’t do.

We go for it on this fourth down, and get it fairly easily, but that only sets up what happens next. Three plays later, it’s third and three on the Indianapolis seven yard line, and I begin to get flashbacks to the playoff game. Remember last season, when Priest Holmes (for whom ball security is never an issue) put the ball on the ground in the red zone, which gave the Colts the initiative to pull a lead we could never overcome?

Guess what happens right now.

Just Priest’s second lost fumble of the season squanders our opportunity to start the game with points. The Colts walk right down the field easily, and it’s a 7-0 deficit.

7-0 in the first quarter is not insurmountable, but I said that last time didn’t I?

This is 2004 Peyton Manning. Do not play with this fire. Normally when you play with fire you get burned. Playing with this fire will burn down your whole neighbourhood.

The Chiefs need a response, and they need it immediately.

It’s time for the trump card.

Passes of 16 yards to Johnnie Morton, 12 yards to Eddie Kennison, and then another 23 to Johnnie Morton get us into good position, first and ten on the Indianapolis 21 yard line, and here we find another small but key detail in the story. On this first and ten play the Colts are so absolutely positively sure that it’s going to be a run that they take out their small pass rushers Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis, in favour of a heavier personnel group.

Of course we know that we’re playing the trump card, this was never going to be a run, but the Colts didn’t know that.

Trent has all week to sit in the pocket, and eventually work to an open Tony Gonzalez for a 21 yard touchdown pass to get us the score we desperately needed. Some will watch this play and say that’s what Priest does for Trent, but the relationship between the two is reciprocal. This is also what Trent does for Priest. If not for teams so consistently being punished for bringing in heavy defensive personnel groups, don’t you think it would’ve happened a lot more?

This is how you get elite offence. When one side (in this case, the rushing side) doesn’t even touch the ball, it’s still working together.

It’s 7-7, but we are not safe. It’s clear Peyton Manning is not doing as well as last year, as he misses a wide open Marvin Harrison, but remember how many third and second and longs we’ve had him in before. It’s only when the third down pass hits the ground, and the Colts are facing fourth and ten from their own 19, and they actually have to punt, that we come to the realisation.

This game is over.

You can’t punt and still win the game. Not in this rivalry.

It’s so Chiefs. It’s a big punt return out of Dante Hall all the way to the 12. It’s Priest Holmes not accomplishing anything, but a clutch third down touchdown pass from Trent bailing it all out. Just three offensive plays and it’s 14-7. After Peyton is held to a punt again, for the second time in a row, we again go down the field in signature Chiefs fashion.

When a holding penalty brings second and 15, the Colts come out light on defence, assuming we cannot run, but we can do whatever we want. That draw play (the one you saw a million times in this Chiefs era) gets Priest Holmes 21 yards and we’re back in business. It’s just like before, but this time in reverse. This is what Trent does for Priest, but it’s also what Priest does for Trent. You cannot go light against us for threat of the run, and you cannot go heavy for the threat of the pass.

Just how do you stop this team?

You don’t.

In all, the harmony is almost perfect, as Priest gets 42 yards, and Trent gets 37 as we score an easy touchdown to go up 21-7. Indy at last goes and gets one of their own to move the score to 21-14, but an extremely well executed screen pass gets us right back up to a 28-14 lead at 5:06 of the second quarter.

We’re actually doing it.

We’re beating the Indianapolis Colts.

Our estimated Win Probability (according to NFLFastR) is over 80 percent, and that’s before Peyton has to punt yet again after just one first down, meaning we get another chance to score before the close of this half. Getting the ball with three and a half minutes left in the half is still awkward, because you don’t want to leave Peyton enough time to score on the other end, but we’re great at this.

No longer needing (or wanting) to be the big play offence we’ve been for the whole of the second quarter, we now inch down the field. Seven yards, four yards, nine yards, roughing the passer penalty on a completion, etcetera. As slow as can be moving down the field, but at no point running into much difficulty. We are stopped to a field goal, so we can only boost the lead to 31-14, but our slow burn down the field means we’ve left Peyton with just 43 seconds.

By all means, this should’ve been a Colt touchdown anyway, but lady luck smiles on Kansas City. Peyton missing a wide open Marvin Harrison behind the defence means we get to go into half with a 31-14 advantage.

That first half was fantastic.

It was better than fantastic. It was perilously close to perfect. If not for Priest’s goal line fumble, I may have been prepared to call it the perfect outcome. Even with that crippling turnover, we still have a 90 percent estimated WP coming out of the locker room with the ball and the lead.

Trent is a pressure player. Going down seven points to 2004 Peyton Manning and responding by completing 14 passes in a row, every one of them absolutely imperative, in a sequence ending in a 17 point advantage is grown man stuff, but this game is not over. We all know that in the second half, the opposing defence generally figures out that they need to key on Trent, and the KC offence begins to struggle. It’s been happening for years. The big lead is euphoric, but does not erase all of the circumstances surrounding this game I was discussing before.

The pressure is still on us.

As the game comes back from half, all the CBS commentators are talking about is how crucial is it for the Chiefs to score again, in an effort to get so far ahead that even the best QB of all time can’t catch them, and I can’t agree more, but we just can’t get it done. A 22 yard Trent to Tony Gonzalez pass gets the drive started out on the right foot, but two bad Priest runs get Trent into a third and eight situation that he can’t dig the team out of. We have to punt, and immediately we’re shown what we’re in for.

44 yard pass. 26 yard pass. 22 yard pass. 31-21.

That was quick. It took only 58 seconds to realise that this game is not over, nor is it close to being over. We need to slow this game down.

A ten play drive does a good job doing that, but on third and 14 from the Indianapolis 15 yard line, Dick Vermeil bizarrely decides to wave the white flag. It’s a nondescript handoff to Priest that goes backwards, and mild boos from the crowd can be heard.

They do not like this. They do not want to settle for the field goal. They were here last January. They know what Peyton can do. This Trent Green series is some of the least disagreeing with a play caller I have ever done. I generally really like what Dick and offensive coordinator Al Saunders cook up, but I fundamentally disagree with this decision.

That the snap of the field goal attempt is bobbled, and this becomes a second red zone turnover of the game, does not help, but even if the field goal is made, it’s a 34-21 lead, and what has that gotten you? I hate to keep repeating, but this is 2004 Peyton Manning. If you’re not going up two touchdowns, what difference does it make? You don’t even have to give up the field goal attempt. Just allow Trent (who’s been cooking the Colts all day) a try at third and 14.

No dice.

It feels like hours ago when we had a 17 point lead as the Colts again score extremely quickly and easily (four plays this time) to narrow our lead to 31-28 at 4:23 of the third quarter.

I told you before that playing with this fire is liable to burn more than just yourself. It will take your whole neighbourhood. Well, this fire has just jumped to a second house. If nothing is done, it will soon be time to give the evacuation order.

We’re blowing it.

It’s only been two failures. Only one of them out of Trent, but we’re blowing it.

We’ve allowed ourselves to be sucked into a shootout with the 2004 Indianapolis Colts, who remain (as of 2024) the best offence of the play tracking era, which is not what we need in a game as important as this. These Chiefs are no slouch themselves on offence. We know that, but this is like getting a big lead on Usain Bolt and allowing it to slip through your fingers. We had a headstart on the best in the world, and we’ve frittered it away.

Now the battle is near even, and we must beat the best in the world on our wits alone.

Our drive starts well enough, with Tony Gonzalez’s 500th career catch going for 15 yards into Indianapolis territory, but an incompletion (only the sixth of the day for Trent) and an unproductive Priest rush leave us facing third and eight from the Indianapolis 43.

This is the most important third down of Trent’s football life. The playoff game featured nothing like this. Failure here means another punt, almost certainly another Colt touchdown, and a deficit. That can’t happen. We know what it’s like to play from behind against the Colts. We’ve tried it several times. It’s impossible.

There are no tricks and no gimmicks. Pre-snap motion reveals zone coverage, and it’s decided before the snap is taken where the ball is going. It gets a little more complicated when Trent slips on the midfield logo, but he’s still able to get the ball to an open Dante Hall to keep this drive going, and destroy the possibility of having to punt again.

From here it’s rather easy. Once the Chiefs get to the goal line, they let Priest Holmes go all four times. It does take all four tries, but it is a touchdown and a much more comfortable 38-28 lead going into the fourth quarter, and once the Colts spend their fourth quarter possession punting it all of a sudden feels really good again.

Our estimated WP is back up to 90 percent, but this epic game has one more turn left in it.

A 16 yard pass from Trent gets us out to the 40 yard line, but for whatever reason the offence closes up again. A failed Priest run and a failed Priest screen get us to a third and 11, where Dick Vermeil again just shuts it down with a simple, safe, handoff to Priest that doesn’t go anywhere, and we have to punt.

This time the booing is much louder. Why won’t Dick even give our man a chance? This is so unlike the Chiefs, who have always known when to hold and when to fold in situations like this. This feels awfully conservative in a situation that does not call for conservatism. The crowd on Halloween 2004 knows it (hence the booing). I know it. You know it. We all know it.

Ultimately the worst happens. Another quick touchdown for the Colts means we get the ball back with just a three point lead, and five and a half minutes to go.

Remember the Jacksonville game just a few weeks ago, where we got the ball back with three minutes left, with a lead? Everybody was sure we were going to win, but we couldn’t get the first downs we needed to win the game.

I’m getting flashbacks.

Just two weeks later, we’ve been placed into a very similar situation. Only this time, it’s not Byron Leftwich over there.

It’s 38-35, with 5:30 on the clock, and it all comes down to this. Everything I said before about the 2-5 hole, about talk of the draft in November, about Aaron Rodgers, about the Colts-Chiefs rivalry, about our revenge on Peyton Manning, and about Trent Green’s legacy as an NFL player all comes down to this.

We need not only to score, but to score slowly. We need to take all their timeouts, and also take a ten point lead back. It’s no lean feat.

A quick seven yard pass to Johnnie Morton is a great way to start. A 15 yard Priest run is even better, but two plays afterwards we are facing third and six from the Indianapolis 45.

Trent steps up in the pocket, and finds a wide open Eddie Kennison for a 25 yard gain. Already we have forced the Colts to use a timeout. Our next two plays force them to use two more, which leaves us looking at third and five from the 14 yard line. A first down here means revenge has been exacted. An incompletion means a field goal, only a six point lead, and likely a loss.

After all we’ve come through today and for the last three years, we cannot lose.

We will not lose.

Here we get another theme of Trent Green’s career. An unexpected moment of veteran savvy. In the moment where you would least expect it, the Chiefs go hard count. The Chiefs never go hard count. In a second half that’s been really out of character for KC, this is the most out of character moment of all, but it is nevertheless perfectly executed. Two different Colts jump offsides. At this moment, it’s already a first down. The game is already over, but just for fun Trent throws a touchdown pass to Tony Gonzalez, his third of the day, and that’s it.

It’s over.

Our arch enemies have been defeated. We have beaten the Indianapolis Colts by the score of 45-35. We will not start the season 2-5. We now have a very solid chance at making the playoffs. There will not be talk of the draft in November, but sweeter than that is the beating we put on the team that was trying to take everything away from us.

This game got close at points, but look at this Win Probability graph, courtesy of rbsdm.com:

That’s a lot of red, indicating a game less close than it seemed.

Aside from their first and second drives of the game, the Colts never had the ball with the chance to take the lead. Past the first quarter, every time they touched the ball they were down seven points or more, and in the second half, each time they touched the ball they were behind ten points or more, meaning this was a shootout, but it was more like a blowout disguised as a shootout. All of this despite two Chiefs red zone turnovers, neither of which had anything to do with Trent.

In the second most important game of his NFL career, Trent went out there and did even better than the first time. 0.80 EPA/Play on 36 touches, for 28.8 total EPA. The cut-off for an all-time great game is 0.66, and 25 respectively. Trent clears the all time great bar in two different benchmarks. 28.8 points above expectation is the second best Trent will do in his career, behind only the game in Detroit I discussed last year, but this is no Detroit.

Given the circumstances, this is the best game of Trent’s NFL career, bar none.

In the biggest game of the season, Trent has come out and played the best football he’s got in him, against the toughest possible opponent. Again. That is legendary, and unlike every other instance in his career, this time he was actually rewarded with a victory.

Often throughout the course of this series, I’ve been asked the question, and asked of myself: “What can Trent Green do that nobody else can do?” This is a fair question. In trying to prove a man’s greatness, I should have an answer for it, but I haven’t been able to answer it, because I’ve had to wait to get to the answer. This is the answer.

2004 Peyton Manning is the greatest quarterback of all time. There are no extenuating circumstances today like Tom Brady beating him in the snow. This is a clear, sunny, 67 degree day in Kansas City, which led to Peyton having an all time great game himself with his 27.5 total EPA.

Trent Green went out there in the biggest possible situation, looked across the field at the best player in the history of the league at his position, outplayed him, and beat him. That is something no other player in NFL history will ever be able to say.

Byron Leftwich beat 2004 Peyton Manning, but did so by the skin of his teeth and did not outplay him. Tom Brady did the same, once in the snow (where fair weather Peyton was well below his best), and another by three points in a game where he did not outplay him, and that’s not to mention all of the greats that couldn’t even get this far.

Former league MVPs Steve McNair and Brett Favre had chances at 2004 Peyton Manning, and lost. Drew Brees had a chance, but lost. Daunte Culpepper is in the middle of one of the best seasons any QB will ever have himself, but cannot match 2004 Peyton Manning. All of these people are greats, and legends of the game, but they all fell at this hurdle. Everybody fell at this hurdle.

Trent Green did not.

Trent Green took the best that the best of all time had to offer, and blew him out.

What’s his reward?

You can’t make this up. What the heck is with this?

This highlight video is called ‘Peyton vs Priest in Classic 00’s Shootout.” No mention of Trent Green outdueling Peyton Manning in the title. No sight of him in the thumbnail, and Trent’s career day is buried by the NFL forever behind a bad title and a bad thumbnail, neither of which describe with any degree of accuracy what is happening. Look at the breakdown of the Chiefs’ offence in this game, and you tell me which deserves to be cited in the title and the thumbnail:

Come on. The Chiefs’ rushing offence operated at a 42 percent success rate in this game. That’s the same as the Colts’, and I don’t see Edgerrin James on the thumbnail anywhere. Why does Trent Green have to have perhaps his biggest career accomplishment, being the only human to have ever straight up outplayed and beaten 2004 Peyton Manning, hidden behind a rather mediocre performance by the (admittedly extremely high) standards of Priest Holmes?

It’s not like Trent didn’t have gaudy numbers of his own they could’ve put on there. 14 consecutive pass completions, 389 yards, three touchdowns and a 143.7 passer rating should give them plenty to pick from. Just pick two of them.

To me, this crosses the line between ignorance and negligence. Once again, this is an official NFL channel. You may say they simply didn’t know what I know, but I say that NFLFastR existed on September 30, 2022 when this video was uploaded. They could’ve looked. I said before that Trent does not care about recognition, but he still deserves it.

33990 people have viewed this YouTube video, which means hundreds of thousands had to have looked, read the title, and moved along, therefore never recognising Trent’s greatness in getting revenge over the Indianapolis Colts. The NFL has no incentive to deliberately sabotage Trent Green’s legacy, but they evidently have no incentive to tell the story correctly either.

In many ways, this moment, doing what nobody else could do, having the best game of his career to outplay and defeat the best QB of all time while simultaneously coming out of the Colts-Chiefs rivalry as winners, and saving the 2004 season, but still not receiving any recognition for it, is the climax of the Trent Green story. Trent’s career will continue, and we will continue along with it, but it will never again be the same as it is today.

This day is the zenith of what the 2000s Chiefs could’ve become, but it’s also the end of an era.

Just seven short days from now, at 4:35 of the third quarter of the game on the road in Tampa Bay, it will look like a routine tackle. There’s not even an injury timeout. Priest Holmes the human will get up and jog off the field, but Priest Holmes the football player will never get up. His knee has finally given up on him. He will be gone for all of 2004, and will never be the same again. The four headed dragon has lost its most intimidating face, which will leave Trent to pick up the slack himself.

Before this moment, Trent’s 259 touches only rank him 14th in the NFL. From this moment onwards, Trent will lead the NFL in touches, as without Priest this Kansas City offence becomes pass first and pass second. This half season period at the end of 2004 between the end of Priest Holmes and the emergence of Larry Johnson will give Trent the opportunity to prove himself in a way that he’s never had a chance to do before.

Welcome to Trent Green’s Year.

Thanks so much for reading.

(It coils my blood to do this, but Substack really rewards likes in their algorithms, so I’m going to ask. If you’ve made it this far, can you please use the Like button? It means more than you think, both mentally to me and on the business end.

What matters even more mentally to me (but not at all on the business end from what I can tell) is commenting on these articles. It’s immensely mentally gratifying to know that people engaged enough in my work to ask a question or leave a statement, so if you’ve got anything to ask or say, please do so. Thank you.)