Chiefs-Broncos has produced sensational moments. Why Kansas City can’t dwell on them

Back in 1988, Sports Illustrated’s Steve Wulf wrote a brilliant piece on the nature of the nemesis in sports and its origins in Greek mythology. I don’t remember whether I clipped or tore it out, but I found it compelling enough to keep (somewhere) and every so often it resurfaces in my mind … not to mention via Google into SI’s Vault.

For a few years now, I think of that notion about every time the Chiefs are preparing to play the Broncos and continuing to amass the bewildering winning streak that now sits at 15 — a fine building block in the Chiefs’ seven straight AFC West championships.

In this case, as the Chiefs (4-1) prepare to play host to the Broncos (1-4) on Thursday night, that number makes for a neon underscoring of the scene as the jersey number that looms largest over the plight of the Broncos against the Chiefs.

While the streak was launched before Patrick Mahomes started his first NFL game at Denver on the auspicious 2017 New Year’s Eve, the Chiefs are 11-0 in the eventful games he’s started against the Broncos, which helps explain why they opened as a 10 1/2-point betting favorite.

They’ve won with Mahomes being reinserted in a game to rescue a lead that fizzled away, and they won down 23-13 in the game Mahomes completed a left-handed pass. They won after he lay crumpled on the ground with a frightful looking injury from which he returned stunningly soon, won as he was learning he was a “snow-game guy” and even won when he threw three interceptions.

And then some.

Put another way for a sense of how long this has gone on, the last time the Broncos beat the Chiefs (Sept. 17, 2015), the Royals were weeks away from winning the World Series and Barack Obama was in the White House. First-year Denver coach Sean Payton is the sixth man in that span to guide the Broncos — who haven’t been to the playoffs since winning the Super Bowl in that 2015 season.

Which brings us to an essential point about this nemesis stuff.

Ancient history that it might all seem now, the Broncos had dominated the Chiefs up until then (winning seven in a row in the series) and had appeared in two of three Super Bowls before tumbling.

Yes, the circumstances are different in any number of ways, starting with Mahomes being in the prime of his career compared to Peyton Manning then being in the twilight of his.

But before the Chiefs became the bane of the Broncos, the Broncos were all of that to the Chiefs, making for a nice reminder of ever-lurking turns of the plot. And whether or not the Broncos demonstrated any particular arrogance, it might be noted that among Nemesis’ (in Greek mythology) pet peeves was hubris. Or as Wulf put it, “She was the avenger of pride … (and) the equalizer of fortune and misfortune.”

The equalizing bit might be problematic for the Chiefs, roll that they’ve been on as they seek to become the first NFL team to win back-to-back titles in nearly two decades.

But as for the avenger of pride stuff, well, say this for the Chiefs when it comes to the Broncos: At least publicly, they don’t seem to be tempting that particular element of fate in their hopes of extending the streak to 16 — which would be just four short of the NFL head-to-head record of 20 by Miami over Buffalo in the 1970s.

Perhaps a little bit like a no-hitter in the making, calling attention to it seems so counterproductive to the streak continuing that coach Andy Reid doesn’t even seem to feel the need to dismiss the point, since he apparently reckons no one needs that reality check.

They don’t talk about it, he said, because it doesn’t matter and “doesn’t count for Thursday, right?”

Indeed: Between the fact that it’s the first AFC West game of the season, and first of three in a row with the Chargers sandwiched between the home-and-home series with the Broncos, and that four of the last five games between them have been decided by six points or fewer, the Chiefs certainly seem to get that past performance is no guarantee of future results.

“When you play a team like the Broncos, same with any division opponent, there’s just another level of intensity,” Mahomes said.

So he’s more attuned to the nature and context of divisional play than any other historic point of the series.

“It’s a different football game,” he said. “It’s more physical, it’s faster … and you have to minimize those mistakes because they mean more. That’s just how it is playing in the AFC West.”

Meaning that the past, lest it lead to complacency, is best seen as a standalone tale than a prologue.

“I don’t think it matters,” safety Justin Reid said. “It doesn’t matter who you’re playing. If you’re not playing your best ball, anything can happen. And last I checked all those games came down to a final possession.”

Adding to the inverse point, and what seems another reason for the Chiefs to know they’ve got to be on: Being on the other side of this kind of embarrassing streak has to be a point of impassioned inspiration for the Broncos, as Justin Reid amplified.

“What I know from being in that situation is you just try and find a way to get one win first,” he said.

As it happened, he was more directly referring to his experience with the hunger of a losing team in Houston. But the application is the same as a team trying to end this domination.

“If we allow them to stick around during the course of the game,” he said, “it’s going to turn into a brawl.”

No doubt the end of the streak is inevitable and theoretically could happen any time.

But the looming lesson is that doesn’t mean it’s imminent unless the Chiefs take it for granted and bring on a comeuppance ... by one force or another.