By November, Stram’s weekly trial-of-fire Thursday Chiefs Club luncheon at the Advertising and Sales Executive Club had shifted in tone. With the Chiefs sitting at 7-1, riding a five-game winning streak, and regularly breaking attendance records, there wasn’t much for the Wolfpack to complain about. Though there were still pointed questions about the risk of bringing Dawson into the game on the sloppy field in Buffalo, and Stram piling on with his late touchdown against the Bills, the overall mood was buoyant.
The Chargers came into town, off to a sluggish start and barely on the periphery of the playoff race. The San Diego-Kansas City series, once 7-2 in the Chargers’ favor, was now even at 9-9-1. A questioner at the Ad Club asked Stram if he’d provide milk for Sid Gillman’s ulcer. “We don’t think of this game as a joke,” said Stram. “Just because they’ve suffered a little adversity is no reason to think the Chargers won’t be tough. They’re too good to joke about.”
Sunday, November 9, saw yet another record crowd, with an attendance of 51,104, including all 3,000 standing-room-only tickets. “I don’t see how we could get another person in,” said a ticket office employee.
The crowd was treated to another stifling performance from the Chiefs defense. The Chargers managed only 174 yards of total offense and Chargers quarterback Marty Domres was intercepted five times, as Kansas City rolled to a 27–3 win. Though Buchanan was the tackle most likely to penetrate, the ever-improving Culp was wrecking the interior of the Chargers line as well.
“What can I say?” said Stram afterward. “Any time you play defense like we did today, you’ve got to win.” Dawson, starting for the first time since week two at Boston, was seventeen-of-twenty-four, though he threw three interceptions. Warren McVea threw a halfback option pass to Frank Pitts for a touchdown, and Mike Garrett ran for another, his eighth of the season. The Chiefs ran a few plays out of the shotgun, earning a key first down at one stage on a Dawson pass to Pitts.
Walking off the field, Stram was well aware, before PR man Jim Schaaf put it in his postgame notes, that the win gave him the edge over Gillman in their AFL careers.
The terse, bow-tied Gillman was irascible after the game. “No, the shotgun didn’t bother us,” he said. “It’s just another football formation. And, no, Hank Stram didn’t invent it, but you can go ahead and give him credit for it.” (Gillman would retire before the end of the season, citing his health, though he was back on the sideline with the Houston Oilers within another year.)
Johnny Robinson took a hit that dazed him for the rest of the game. When he tried to explain the Chiefs’ defensive performance afterward, he was at a loss. “I was hit on the head,” Robinson said. “I didn’t remember things in the game. Emmitt and Jimmy and Kearney had to help me a lot; they all called out things to me to remind me what I had to do in special situations.
“It’s an eerie feeling,” he concluded.
That evening, as the Chiefs celebrated a franchise record with their sixth straight win, Stram and his family ate tacos with Lamar and Norma Hunt at the Strams’ favorite postgame spot, Casa de Montez on Broadway. The blue laws prohibited alcohol sales in Missouri on Sundays, so as he always did on these visits, Stram asked the owner, Manuel “Monte” Montez, to bring out two cups of “iced tea” for the men and—by prior understanding—Montez brought two Styrofoam cups filled with beer. “It was the one time during the week that he drank,” said Dale Stram.
Aaron Brown sacks the Chargers Marty Domres, who threw five interceptions on the day.
Garrett’s eighth touchdown of the season put the Chiefs ahead for good early.
Artist (and Chiefs fan) Thomas Hart Benton sat on the bench. Within two years, he would finish “Football and the Forward Pass,” inspired by scenes he witnessed at Municipal Stadium.