The Chiefs play a big game Sunday. But here in Germany? It’s a much different vibe

A media room more frequently reserved for the German men’s national soccer team is predictably jam-packed, with nearly every chair taken, every spot on the camera stage occupied, and people lining the perimeters of the walls just to squeeze inside the doors.

“Do you think Taylor Swift is going to be here, too?” a German reporter behind me asks, hopefully jokingly.

An hour earlier, the media had dispersed to the field behind this DFB Campus to watch all of five minutes of Chiefs practice. Among the large contingent of reporters with cameras, a couple stopped filming to take selfies with the team in the distant background, almost as though they couldn’t believe where they were.

Back inside the room, Patrick Mahomes was the first Chiefs player to step onstage. When he opened the door, he first scanned at the crowd — and if you looked closely enough, you could see him mouth one word:

“Wow.”

Want to know the significance of the game here in Germany? Talk to the group asking the questions, not those answering them.

Nyc Famselow is a full-time NFL reporter for Huddle Magazine in Germany (er, Das American Football Magazin), but through a quick survey in part of the room, he is the only full-time NFL writer I can find.

A local Frankfurt publication employs reporters who canceled vacations to be part of the NFL coverage for the week. One of its political reporters is seated in the room, because he wanted and asked for the assignment. Danijel Lijovic has traveled in from the Croatian evening news, and he laughed when I wondered if he’s strictly an NFL writer.

“No, no, no,” he said. “We can’t do that.”

But this game?

“I didn’t want to miss it,” he says.

There is a Super Bowl, once-in-a-lifetime feel to a Week 9 NFL matchup in Germany between the Chiefs and Dolphins — from a fragment of the media, to local fans in Frankfurt who recently adopted the Chiefs (because, hey, the playoffs are shown here and the Chiefs tend to participate in the postseason), to those from Kansas City making the trip abroad for the first time in their lives.

Oh, and to the players themselves.

“I mean, it’s really cool just to be on this stage, a world stage, in Germany,” said Mahomes, whose picture is plastered on Adidas and Hugo Boss advertisements around the country. “I’ve been wanting to get to Germany for awhile.”

But while we’re making these comparisons, there’s one more Super Bowl similarity, too.

The week ends with a rather important football game.

The Chiefs-Dolphins game is not some international friendly, to put it in European football terms. It is a game that potentially could determine where future postseason contests take place.

This continent isn’t usually awarded games of that magnitude, and Frankfurt has literally never gotten one of any magnitude. Which is probably at least partly why the late-week media obligations feel like a side-show.

“Are you in love?” one reporter asks Kelce.

Engrossed in the hoopla, though, the Chiefs need Sunday to be a get-right game. And I don’t mean to remain atop the AFC standings. Rather, I don’t mean only to remain atop the AFC standings.

Want to know the significance of the game back in North America?

Talk to the group answering the questions, not those asking them. Earlier this week, Kelce acknowledged that he can’t recall a time in which the offense has “stalled” as frequently as this one has, or as late in the season as this one has.

And through the oddity of an international news conference that all but asked him for his dating profile, this came through:

“I stand by that this team has every piece that it needs to be great,” Kelce said. “Everybody can talk about whatever they want to talk about that’s our weakness. I know that we got a team that could put points up. ...

“It just takes guys to lock in and just be ready for those big-time moments when we need ‘em most.”

That’s a message stated in front of the aforementioned crowded room, mostly strangers, but it’s intended for those with whom Kelce is most familiar.

His teammates.

The best teams at the end of the postseason — and the Chiefs have certainly been there plenty recently — are those that identify and fix their issues during the season. And this year’s Chiefs have had a pretty unusual one, at least for the Mahomes Era.

Their passing game.

Mahomes did not play well while battling an illness in Denver last week, but this wouldn’t be a topic of conversation if the offensive stalls were exclusive to one game.

The Chiefs have played eight now, and in terms of yards per offensive play, seven of them rank in the bottom half of their output since Mahomes took over as the starting quarterback in 2018. Those same seven also rank in the bottom third in adjusted yards per pass attempt over the same time frame.

We’ve poked around at the reasons throughout the first half of this season. The Chiefs’ deep passing game has been virtually non-existent. Their wide receivers aren’t a big enough part of the solution, at least not yet.

Look, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel has said the truest thing I’ve heard this week: The reactions to a game of this importance will swing heavily based on the win-loss result.

But a team whose January (and twice February) success has been dependent on solving its September and October weaknesses has a pretty obvious imperfection — at least by the standard they’ve set. And that’s what Kelce’s statement intended to do. Remind them of the standard.

The Chiefs actually still have the fourth-ranked offense in the NFL in terms of yards, though just 12th in scoring. Their numbers are down, but so is scoring and yardage across the league, particularly in the passing game.

Maybe I’ll go broke saying it, but the Chiefs have reason to believe their Week 18 passing game will look different than their Week 1 output. Some of their hiccups, as coach Andy Reid terms them, revolved around the receiver-quarterback connection — or too-often-missed connection.

Kelce and Reid both hinted this week that players aren’t even always running the correct route. That’s a good place to start. The reception is a good place to finish.

Those would the most significant things that could come from this week.

Well, to some.