AVENTURA, Fla. _ The Chiefs are here for America's most-watched sports event, and the way they got here cannot be fully told without Kendall Fuller. Maybe that sounds odd. Maybe that's not the name you expected, and to be sure dozens of others have a hand in this.
Fuller's part has not been often told. He does not make the highlights of Patrick Mahomes. He does not make the plays of Frank Clark or Chris Jones or Tyrann Mathieu. But this Chiefs cornerback does represent something real here, of a group of men who have come to genuinely care and play for each other.
This was supposed to be the best season of Fuller's career. He is 24 years old and began the season as the Chiefs' most highly regarded cornerback. He will be a free agent after the Super Bowl. Young, highly regarded corners get paid. This was to be Fuller's turn.
In the months since the Chiefs' opener, he has been passed on the team's cornerback hierarchy, missed six games after surgery and, upon his return, changed positions. He responded by offering counsel to other Chiefs corners, rehabbing diligently and learning a new position without complaint or ego.
"The ultimate pro," Mathieu said of Fuller. "I know he had big dreams coming into the season, big goals, and it didn't really work out that way. But he's committed himself to the team."
The 2019 Chiefs were always going to be a work in progress on defense. Most of their starters were new, and those who weren't were new to those who were ... and all were playing for an entirely new coaching staff.
The Chiefs needed the turnover _ they could've used it a year earlier, actually _ but doing so much in one offseason meant patience would be required.
The results are convincing. The Chiefs walked a minefield their first 10 games, a stretch that can be remembered by corners forgetting to cover receivers against the Jaguars, an average of 190 yards rushing over a four-game stretch, and going limp on the final drive in Nashville.
Over the rest of the regular season the Chiefs gave up three fewer points per game than anyone else in football. The Texans managed seven points over the final three quarters of a playoff game. Derrick Henry's three-game Jim Brown impersonation ended with just 69 yards on 19 carries in the AFC Championship Game on Jan. 19 in Kansas City.
The Chiefs have often explained the transformation with one word: trust. Each will tell you he came to trust the man next to him, knowing where he would be on any given play, in turn freed up to concentrate on one specific read.
A more thorough explanation can be told through Fuller, widely considered one of the Chiefs' smarter players, and a guy who was willing to kneecap a contract year by switching positions and helping others.
"Every time you come in the (defensive backs) room, you know that everyone who's in the room is in the room, right?" Mathieu said. "They're all for the room. To have guys commit themselves for the team when it's not really in their best (self) interests, that's why we're where we are today."
The trust that's so often presented as the company line in explaining the Chiefs defense's improvement is important. But it also would not exist without guys like Fuller making sacrifice the standard.
That's all over the defense, really. Jones' push for a contract extension did not work out, and then he showed up on time for training camp when precedent existed for a holdout. Clark played through nerve damage in his neck, taking criticism and staying quiet about it. Reggie Ragland changed positions.
There are examples of this at every level.
"I did at first, I'm not going to lie," Ragland said when asked if he hesitated to make the switch. "I wanted to play Mike (linebacker). That's what I'm used to playing. I like lining guys up, I like being in the middle of the defense. I love getting tackles _ that's why I play the game. But sometimes you gotta sacrifice it."
There is at least one more factor that has to be mentioned here, and it can be shorthanded as Patrick Mahomes. The Chiefs came within a coin flip _ or four inches, as Andy Reid has said a few times _ of last year's Super Bowl. They employ the sport's best quarterback surrounded by a shameless collection of playmaking talent.
In that context, everyone on the Chiefs' revamped defense knew they had a clear path to the Super Bowl. That makes sacrifice easier, and trust more solid.
Another way to put it: The Chiefs have benefited greatly from the kind of team-above-self approach that's always pushed by coaches but a lot harder to implement when the difference is maybe 9-7 instead of 7-9.
That collective push gives a little more energy to Thursday night get-togethers at Mathieu's house, for instance, or the weekly dinners shared between position groups. Trust, then, goes a little deeper than support.
Anthony Hitchens _ the Chiefs' current Mike linebacker and the reason Ragland moved to the Sam position _ gives an example.
A lack of trust at Hitchens' position can look like this: a play goes for big yards when the running back gets outside, and then, on the next snap, when the linebacker tries to cover the sideline, the running back cuts upfield through the vacated hole in the middle.
"You have to have the trust that (your teammate) is going to set that edge, and you stay in that 'B' gap," Hitchens said. "It's confidence, but confidence comes from playing good ball, and good ball comes from trust, and trust comes from preparation. So it's all a cumulative effect. When you play good ball, it's not luck."
It's worth noting that all of this will be tested in new ways, and to further extremes, in Sunday's Super Bowl LIV. Reid is one of modern football's most revered offensive coaches, and the San Francisco 49ers' Kyle Shanahan isn't far behind.
The 49ers' offense is unlike any the Chiefs have seen, relying heavily on versatile players, multiple formations and more pre-snap motion than any other team in the league to create hesitation and confusion in defenses.
They can _ and have _ run plays out of empty backfields and with two backs behind the quarterback with the same personnel.
Their use of play-action, traps and creative blocking schemes _ a tight end or fullback breaking to the left, for instance, before spinning back to the right as a lead blocker _ stretches defenses both literally and figuratively. The only effective response is meticulous preparation and unwavering trust.
Fitting, then. The characteristic that as much as anything else pushed the Chiefs to this point will be tested like never before as they play for their sport's ultimate prize.
