Unsightly? Exasperating? There are better descriptors for Chiefs’ latest win at Browns

It’s not like I remember as much as I should from a college Shakespeare class. But for some reason Sonnet 130 — “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” — has stayed with me.

The poem about the imperfections in a woman he nonetheless considers perfect, in a realistic way, came to mind Sunday at Huntington Bank Field as the Chiefs conjured yet another exasperating victory.

Unsightly … and yet:

With a 21-7 win over the Browns, they improved to 13-1.

And — how embarrassing — won for the 19th time in 20 games.

And moved a step closer to securing the AFC No. 1 seed and a first-round playoff bye and home-field advantage as they seek to become the first franchise ever to win three straight Super Bowls.

Just hideous.

But first things first before we get to the faults in their stars, and why those unsavory blemishes are more collateral issue than fatal flaw until they show us otherwise.

Because nothing will resonate more from this day than the distressing sight of superstar Patrick Mahomes getting crunched into an ankle injury and leaving the field with a limp.

Mahomes was X-rayed after the game, and coach Andy Reid said that about all the Chiefs knew by then was that it wasn’t broken. He’ll be evaluated further in the days to come, and it could be he’ll miss their next game on Saturday against the visiting Houston Texans.

For that matter, with the Christmas Day game against the Steelers just four days after that because of the NFL’s absurd scheduling, perhaps he could miss a bit more time.

Worrisome as that all might be, though, we’ve seen the magic unicorn practically regenerate a kneecap and shrug off ankle injuries that would have debilitated most mortals.

So plenty of time to agonize over him sitting out in essential games, if it actually comes to that.

Whenever he’s back, he’ll rejoin the vexing campaign that practically forces followers to focus on all that seems awry instead of the intangible that makes the results all right and good.

Because it’s so much more than the sum of the parts — like the sonnet about the woman with the displeasing voice and whose breath reeks, etc.

Yes, it’s easy to count the ways this team confounds and annoys.

Like, as it happens, the Chiefs’ recent other three Super Bowl-winning teams did into November and December.

In this case, there’s the carousel at left tackle, where Joe Thuney on Sunday became the fourth Chief to start this season by sliding over a spot from guard.

Or the ongoing issues at cornerback.

There’s the inconsistency in the passing game. Mahomes on this blustery day was just 19 of 38 — the lowest completion percentage of his career — for 159 yards.

And the struggles in the running game, with Isiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt combining to rush 26 times for 77 yards.

Not to be left out, no doubt that also skewed Reid’s judgment into a curious refusal to run in the third quarter — when the Chiefs needed to eat clock more than eat yards with a 21-0 lead.

Instead, they ran three times in 15 plays on four series, three of which lasted 56 seconds, 26 seconds and 21 seconds.

In the process, the hapless Browns (3-11) cut the lead to 21-7 and threatened to make it a one-score game and set up yet another chaotic ending.

In a parallel universe, maybe the Browns didn’t give away the ball six times — to a Chiefs team that entered the game with 10 takeaways in 13 games — and the Chiefs lost this game.

But here we are in this reality.

And to me the composite picture looks like something more and different than the one that so agitates Chiefs fans on social media.

For one thing, all they do is win.

Basically … always.

That’s ultimately because of a collective identity and chemistry and cohesion that’s hard to quantify but is reflected in the complementary ways they play.

As lax as the Browns were with the ball, for instance, each of those turnovers required a great play be made — including one on special teams. The Chiefs had five sacks.

Speedster Xavier Worthy took more strides forward with a 21-yard touchdown run and six catches for 46 yards, and at least the offense had one ideal drive of 87 yards ending with Mahomes’ 6-yard TD pass to Noah Gray.

More broadly, remember this about how they got here:

For all the quirky ways they’ve won, you can still point directly to what they did to make it happen: key third-down conversions, clutch kicks, a blocked field goal scheme and more.

Or point directly to what the opponent couldn’t do to make it happen — like the perfect example of Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson throwing two incompletions to open receivers in the end zone before Isaiah Likely landed out of bounds by a toe.

And think, too, about how handling the struggle is infused in them.

This team was 9-6 last year after an appalling Christmas Day loss to the Raiders. And won the Super Bowl.

The year before, the Chiefs won seven of their regular-season games by six points or fewer and won three postseason games by a total of 13 points. And, yes, won the Super Bowl.

In 2019, the Chiefs lost 35-32 at Tennessee in mid-November for their fourth loss in six games. Won the Super Bowl — despite trailing by double digits in all three of those postseason games.

To be sure, those past performances guarantee zero future results.

But they do suggest a few things.

In the Mahomes Era, the Chiefs are 15-3 in the postseason.

That’s because one way or another they’ve largely figured out how to make the regular season their foundation for the long haul while morphing into something else postseason.

Beyond that, a case can be made that that dynamic is becoming more refined with practice even as you grit your teeth at the often-jarring journey.

For all its recent experiences, this would seem to be a group with something of another gear and level in its grasp for deployment when it matters most.

The notion of that mindset is a topic in itself, really, and something we’ll try to explore in the weeks to come.

This much we know, though.

These Chiefs are utterly imperfect.

But they also are a phenomenon in pursuit of substantial history.

And that’s still the best lens to see them through unless and until they reveal otherwise when it counts.