When you’re trying to beat the New England Patriots at their home stadium, a lot of things need to go right. You need to make quarterback Tom Brady feel serious pressure. A couple of bad calls in your favor will help. And you need your helmets to arrive at Gillette Stadium.
The Kansas City Chiefs had the first two factors going for them on a recent Sunday night, but the whole helmets part almost tripped them up, and the team had to scramble for a wacky backup plan involving a high school about an hour up I-95.
The Chiefs left their equipment on the plane, including helmets. Not long before kickoff, when managers realized this, according to a CBS report, they also realized the plane had left New England. The Chiefs’ helmets were sitting in a cargo hold of a Boeing that was on a runway in Newark, New Jersey.
No helmets would mean no game and a forfeit for the Chiefs.
As team officials scrambled to try to get the plane back up in time, others on the team worked with helmet-makers Riddell to ask if there was any local source for helmets. The plan they hatched was odd but ingenious.
North of Boston is a town called Boxford, home to Masconomet Regional High School. The school is named after Chief Masconomet, the preeminent chief of the Agawam Tribe, and the sports teams go by the moniker of the Chieftans. Their helmets are crimson with red arrowheads — just like the Kansas City Chiefs’.
Masconomet’s athletic director was happy to lend the helmets to their NFL counterparts despite worries on both ends of the deal as to whether high school helmets would fit professional heads.
In the end, the plane made it back from Newark in time, and the Chiefs got to wear their own headgear. With their proper helmets, a punishing pass rush, and a couple of friendly blown calls, they vanquished the Patriots 23-16.
