The Top Ten of 2020

2020. 

What else do you need to say? The most disruptive year of all of our lives. When life gives you a global pandemic, what else can you do but try to make the best of it? I certainly tried. 

Here's to a better year ahead for us all in 2021. But first, one last look back at 2020. 

Okay, so this was a strange year for blogging as well. Hoagie Central was really defined by two things: 1) my personal achievements/progress 2) the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl. Didn't really blog about much else. 

Honorable Mentions

Video Game Console History

Video Game Trophy Hunting

Best Banner Ever

10. Road to Super Bowl LIV: One Game Away

The recap of the incredible playoff comeback over the Texans that ended with the Chiefs running out of fireworks.

9. Top Ten Passages in Choose Your Own Trump

This was the director's commentary for my most recent book. 

8. Going to Super Bowl LIV

Seeing the Chiefs make the Super Bowl was something I'd been waiting for my whole life. 

7. The Best Thing I've Ever Posted

At the time this felt like an accurate title, but it's #7 on this list. 

6. I Was There: Super Bowl Parade

I still have red and gold confetti in my wallet. 

5. 2020 Census

Every ten years, I do a complete time capsule. 

4. Becoming a Champion

I went player by player and wrote over 5000 words to say thank you for an incredible season. Some of my very best writing on the Chiefs.

3. Year of the Fym

A recap of everything I accomplished this year, in spite of the pandemic. 

2. My Medium Journey

I reached #1 on Medium. But the story of how it happened is just as good. 

and the best thing I wrote about the best thing that happened in 2020: Number One

14-1

The Chiefs have played 61 seasons. This is their best regular season. 

14-2 would be their best one. They still have one game to go. Although that one doesn't matter. 

To recap: 

2018: Pat Mahomes first year, 50 touchdowns, 5000 yards, 1st NFL MVP in Chiefs History

2019: Pat Mahomes second year, Super Bowl LIV winner

2020: Pat Mahomes third year, best season in franchise history

#1 seed in the AFC.

#1 team in the league.

Chiefs are 23-1 over their last 24. 

The Chiefs first playoff game will be in the divisional round against the worst remaining team. 

Get by them, and they will host the AFC Championship, likely against the winner of Bills/Steelers.

My Ancestry

I did 23 and Me two years ago but am just getting around to writing about it. First some broad strokes: my ancestry is 100% European. 

Let's dive in to the country-specific results. 

1. Germany (32.1%)

Although it buckets it as French & German, when you click on the result, it clarifies that I have German only, no French. 

2. Poland (17.3%)

This is currently the second biggest specific result, although there is 20% allotted to broadly northwestern European, so this is likely #3 on the list. It's possibly over time that 23 and Me updates and assigns that broad ancestry to other countries. 

3. Sweden/Denmark (15.6%)

This 15.6% is split between Sweden & Denmark, with Sweden getting the "highly likely" compared to Denmark's "likely match." My ancestry.com records show both Danish and Swedish results on the Fymbo side, with the name coming from Denmark. I've long identified with Denmark as I felt like the name origin carries a lot of weight. 

4. United Kingdom (11.2%)

The last major result is showing I have some ancestors from the London area. 

So there you have it, my ancestry comes primarily from these five countries. 

🇩🇪🇵🇱🇸🇪🇩🇰🇬🇧

In light of this, I will retroactively be claiming the Germany 2014 World Cup victory as one of my own. 

I will not be claiming any atrocities committed by any of these countries. 

NHL 94 Rewind Highlights

NHL 94 was the first Sega Genesis game I had and I played the crap out of it. 26 years later, here I am playing it again on a PS4.

 

The record for most wins by a Super Bowl winning team:

18-1 1984 49ers

18-1 1985 Bears

Another perfect football day

With three games to go, here's what the Chiefs have to do to clinch the #1 seed:

beat the Chargers at home

win one of Falcons at home or Saints on the road

That's all. So next week is just bonus. Take care of the two home games and you get to stay home the rest of the way until Super Bowl LV in Tampa. 

- - -

What feels like a lifetime ago but was earlier in 2020, I wrote this post after the Titans knocked the Tom Brady Patriots out of the playoffs. And that post holds up pretty well. Okay, really, really well. 

Today was another perfect football day. 

Mahomes had his first 3-interception game and the Chiefs still won, clinching the AFC West. One of the wildest stats I know is that I have lived in the AFC West winning city for the last 10 seasons and counting. 5 in a row in Denver, then I moved to KC where they've won 5 in a row. 

You're going to have occasional bad games. Those are important to learn from, go back to the tape and dissect coverages, fire everyone up again. When you can win those games anyways, that's icing on the cake. 

And then the Bills helped us out by knocking the Steelers out of the #1 spot. 

And my fantasy team is winning 127.5 - 68 with only a tight end left for my opponent.

KC Thunder

I don't really have a good reason for doing this. This is a follow-up to this post. 

Mainly I just wanted to see what it would look like. Partly just to see if I had the photoshop skills to do it. 

As I was doing this, I thought about something. So here are my favorite sports:

NFL

NHL

College Basketball

College Football

World Cup

I just don't like NBA or MLB that much to care about it. And as it turns out, I have a favorite team in all of those 5 sports. And I don't have a favorite team in NBA/MLB. 

So is it that I don't like the sports because I don't have a favorite team?

Or is it that I don't have a favorite team because I don't care about the sports enough?

Probably the second one. 

I mean the Thunder jersey in orange and blue...great color combo. And they have a ton of draft picks. But I'm not going to be tuning into watch the Thunder anytime soon.

And hey, in case anyone out there is looking for "Kansas City Thunder logo" or "Kansas City Thunder jersey", maybe I've saved them the trouble.

The Biggest Game for the Chiefs #1 Seed Hopes is...

Steelers at Bills in Week 14 on Sunday Night Football. 

If the Steelers beat the Bills they would own the tiebreaker over a Chiefs team with the same record unless: Steelers lose to Colts/Browns and Chiefs lose to Falcons. 

If the Steelers lose to the Bills, the Chiefs would own the tiebreaker over a Steelers team with the same record if the Chiefs lost to either the Saints or Falcons. As the Saints is the toughest team on the KC schedule, that's a big door to open. 

There's a lot to be determined, if both teams drop multiple games. There's a path for the Bills to get the top seed and drop KC to #3. There's also a path for the Bills to miss the playoffs. 

But the #1 seed has never been more valuable. Worth playing for.

Things for Mahomes/Chiefs to Achieve

I promise this is not sour grapes or arrogance. I always said I'd be happy with one title and I am. This is just things that would be neat to see. Some bucket list stuff for Mahomes and the Chiefs to aim high for. 

• Franchise Record for Wins in a Regular Season is currently 13
• Best Franchise Regular Season winning percentage is .846 (11-2-1)

    Going 14-2 in a 16 game schedule would secure both of those. The 2019 Chiefs actually broke the record for combined regular seasons + playoff wins. The previous record was 14 from winning Super Bowl IV, because all three times they went 13-3 since then, and this is true they lost their first playoff game. If they don't get to 14-2 this year, they would have to get to 15-2 in a 17 game schedule to surpass 11-2-1. 

Here are the AFC West Super Bowl Wins Standings:

Broncos & Raiders: 3

Chiefs: 2

Chargers: 0

So one more ring to tie the Broncos and Raiders. Two more to surpass them. 

Once you get past them, here are all the teams with 4 or more Super Bowl Wins:

Patriots & Steelers: 6

Cowboys & 49ers: 5

Packers & Giants: 4

That's the whole list. So win two more and you join the top 7 teams in the league. Win three more and you're in the top 5. Win four more and you're in the top tier. 

(What's wild is that for Mahomes to match Brady is actually further out of reach than taking Chiefs to match the Patriots/Steelers.)

In addition to rings, some people pay attention to NFL MVP awards. Here's the list of players to win that 3 or more times:

Jim Brown: 3

Johnny Unitas: 3

Brett Favre: 3

Peyton Manning: 5

Tom Brady: 3

At this point in the year, it's possible that Aaron Rodgers joins that list by winning his 3rd this year. Or Mahomes could win his 2nd, going 2 out of 3. 

I'm also excited to see Andy Reid reach the Mount Rushmore of wins, and climb to #2 in playoff wins. 

NFL Trivia

I was thinking about Moss and Fitzgerald and Megatron and realized they all had something in common. 

(Make your trivia guesses now before moving on if you want.)

So I decided to look into a little more. 

Of all the all-time receiving yard leaders, 4 have Super Bowl rings: Rice, Bruce, Harrison and Wayne. 

6 do not: Fitz, Owens, Moss, Gonzalez, Brown, Smith. 

So then I thought I'd look at rushing yard leaders. Same thing, 4 have rings: Smith, Payton, Bettis, and Dorsett. 

6 do not: Gore, Sanders, Peterson, Martin, Tomlinson, and Dickerson. 

What about passing yard leaders? 7 have rings: Brees, Brady, Manning, Favre, Big Ben, Manning, Elway. 

3 don't: Rivers, Marino, Ryan. 

Marino and Ryan at least played in a Super Bowl. 

Conclusions? Pretty much what we already knew. QB is the most important position. If you have your choice of an all-time great, you're gonna want them at QB. And yes the Lions are famous for having Sanders and Megatron retire still in their prime, but there's plenty of all-time greats at RB and WR who never won a championship.

Mahomes and Moments

What I'm going to say next is very obvious, but I think I can explain it in ways that are less than obvious. 

I'm very happy that the Chiefs won the Super Bowl LIV.

I woke up today thinking about Patrick Mahomes MVP season in progress. And how different things would be if the Chiefs had lost Super Bowl LIV. 

Everyone from announcers to internet commenters would be saying that Mahomes is great in the regular season but does he have what it takes to win a title? They use lines like "That doesn't work in January" or "Playoff teams have him figured out" "Now that they've got him on tape, good defenses know how to defend him." He'd be getting compared to Dan Marino and lots of legitimate questions about if he'll ever win. Until you win once, you get questions about if it will ever happen. It happened to LeBron and he's won four titles now. 

I would be right there with him, wondering if the Chiefs are cursed, or just built in a way that they don't have enough defensive talent, or maybe it's the coaches that are getting outsmarted...the point is you can start to spiral as a fan. 

But now? People are comparing Mahomes to Brady, already in the conversation for greatest QB of all time. His first year: MVP. Second year: SB MVP. Third year: looks like MVP and SB MVP is in play. 

Legacies that last multiple decades hinge on moments. If Mahomes doesn't convert 3rd and 15 in the Super Bowl, his story is completely different. 

It also changes everything for me as a fan. I'm enjoying this season, but very relaxed through it all. It's just fun. Let me show you what I mean. 

At this point in the season, the Chiefs have essentially clinched the division already. So here are their possible outcomes. 

Lose before the AFC Championship

Lose in the AFC Championship

Lose in the Super Bowl

Win the Super Bowl

Here are my super-ballpark estimations of how likely each event is to happen:

Lose before the AFC Championship - 10%

Lose in the AFC Championship - 30%

Lose in the Super Bowl - 30%

Win the Super Bowl - 30%

In short, a great chance to win the Super Bowl, more than any other team in my estimation, but still 70% chance that they don't. And that's okay. It would be cool if they get more titles this decade, but if they don't, I'm still satisfied. It's already a dream come true. 

In years past, before Mahomes, before they were a real contender, the Chiefs had a 2-3% chance to win a Super Bowl every year with Alex Smith and I got my hopes up because I wanted it so bad. One moment, one game, can really change everything.

Weight Loss by Month: November 2020

 August:       12 pounds

September:  7 pounds

October:       8 pounds

November:   3 pounds

30 down.

The frustrating thing was then even before my birthday or Thanksgiving, the progress was pretty slow. Even though I was doing the same thing, my lowest weight this month was 4 pounds down. But then I gained 3 pounds on Thanksgiving. Lost two of that so far. I really tried to make up for Halloween and Thanksgiving by being extra good the day after. 

Anyways, the good news I'm still losing, still making progress. I'm not in a rush to try to get to a certain weight by a certain point in 2021. In fact, since I ultimately need to eat like this forever, the longer that I'm focused on losing, as opposed to maintaining, might be better for me. More time for choices to become habits. I'm already kind of amazed at how four months in my eating habits have changed. Avoiding unhealthy foods used to be kind of a white knuckle willpower thing and now it's already like that doesn't sound that good to me. 

Though I have thought many times at the end of my day, how much easier this would be with an extra 200-300 calories to spend, as if I was in maintenance mode. That little extra cushion could be a small snack that helps with hunger between lunch and dinner for example. By gaining all this weight, I've dug a whole that it's not enough to eat healthy at maintenance right now--I have to go all the way past that point to a deficit to lose the weight. 

December will probably be more like November than the previous months, with Christmas. But that's okay.