One big takeaway from Championship Weekend: The Chiefs are still a few years away

One big takeaway from Championship Weekend: The Chiefs are still a few years away

The AFC/NFC Championship Weekend is my favorite football weekend of the year.

This year, it took more prominence as the Green Bay Packers-Chicago Bears renewed an epic rivalry, while the New York Jets-Pittsburgh Steelers had a rematch from a great game this year.

Since this is for Kansas City readers, here’s one takeaway related to Kansas City:

The Kansas City Chiefs are still far away from being a Super Bowl contender.

All four teams – yes, even the boring Chicago Bears – have playmakers on both offense and defense. I respect Jamaal Charles, but one playmaker is not enough for the Chiefs.

Matt Cassel made tremendous strides, but he’s not Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, Jay Cutler or even Mark Sanchez.

Sanchez gets a ton of heat in the New York media and from Jet bashers.

However, he’s 4-2 in the playoffs and has outplayed Philip Rivers, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning and beat them on the road. I thought he was a lot better than Big Ben after the first quarter, too.

But most importantly, all four defenses in the game featured just unbelievable athletes and talent.

There’s no James Harrison, Clay Matthews, Revis Island, Bart Scott, Charles Woodson, Brian Urlacher and other defensive stars featured on Sunday on this Chiefs roster.

The Chiefs are a good team, but not a great team. Most importantly, they don’t have enough “great pieces” to compete at the rate of a Jets, Packers, Steelers and so on do.