Chiefs' Reid loves his home
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Andy Reid could spend hours waxing poetic about playing at Arrowhead Stadium.
He’ll extoll the virtues of the crowd, which set a Guinness World Record last season for loudest outdoor stadium in the world.
He’ll praise the die-hards that show up hours before kickoff, pouring into the parking lot and creating a college-like atmosphere on game days.
He’ll point out that the venue is one of the toughest places for an opponent to play.
What Reid won’t discuss, either by choice or by ignorance, is the fact that the Chiefs have not won a postseason game in their 44-year-old home in more than two decades.
“I love bringing teams in here,” Reid said Monday, “and now a playoff game — it was rocking and rolling that game where they set the decibel record. The ground was shaking. And I can’t wait for this.”
The Chiefs welcome the Steelers on Sunday in the divisional round of the playoffs, a rematch of a lopsided Week 4 loss in Pittsburgh.
It’s the first time Kansas City has hosted a playoff game since 2011, when the Ravens romped to a 30-7 victory.
Team president Mark Donovan spent time Monday discussing the game-day events that are planned, and how parking lots will open for eager tailgaters earlier than normal. Donovan said tickets were sold out and that the crowd could be one of the biggest and loudest in years.
But asked about the Chiefs’ playoff futility at home, Donovan was caught a bit speechless.
“I don’t know if you have to win games to restore or solidify the iconic nature of Arrowhead,” he said. “I had the good fortune of working for the NFL and traveling to all the markets and being in all the stadiums, and there’s something special about Arrowhead.”
Perhaps that’s true, but that “special” feeling has nothing to do with playoff history.
Kansas City has lost four straight home playoff games, three of them in the divisional round, since beating the Steelers — coincidentally enough — in the wild-card round on Jan. 8, 1994.
