By Seth Herrold
I figured I would hear a lot about the Chiefs after their three-point loss at San Diego last Sunday. What I wasn’t expecting was that it would all be bad. This week I have heard, non-stop, about how bad the Chiefs are and that they are a shoo-in to land the top overall draft pick and score Stanford’s Andrew Luck to replace current quarterback Matt Cassel, who apparently, in the words of NFL “expert” Keyshawn Johnson, “can’t play.”
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I hate to be the one to burst the bubble or dash the dreams, but Andrew Luck will not be a Kansas City Chief. ESPN.com had a picture on the home page yesterday of four helmets sitting at the bottom of a pond or lake or whatever you wanted to picture it as and a fishing lure with Andrew Luck was floating along over the top of them. Sure the Chiefs are bad, but in no way should they have been included in that scene. Yes, Kansas City lost to Buffalo and Detroit, and badly, but guess what? Everyone who has played Buffalo or Detroit this season has lost, so it’s not just Kansas City. Those two teams are pretty good. Against San Diego, a 2-1 team, Kansas City looked much improved up until that last interception by Matt Cassel.
That fateful play, which immediately brought up flashbacks of Missouri’s Brad Smith delivering a pass directly into the belly of a Kansas State defender from mere yards away, is all anyone took away from that game. No one saw that game as a three-point loss to a solid team led by one of the NFL’s elite quarterbacks in Phillip Rivers. Not only did the Chiefs almost pull off the win, but they did it without running back Jamal Charles, tight end Tony Moeake and safety Eric Berry, all three of whom are lost for the season.
Here is what I saw Sunday. Dwayne Bowe and Matt Cassel are starting to get on the same page, Steve Breaston is a wonderful addition and he is really starting to come into his own and Dexter McCluster and Thomas Jones did a nice job splitting the workload and ran hard all day long. But I am apparently the only one at the bar who’s glass is half full. That’s not surprising to me, though. Now I am biased here because I am around the Kansas City area media more than any other NFL market. I see fan reaction about the Chiefs more than any other team. But in my opinion, for whatever it is worth, Chiefs fans are among the most cynical and pessimistic in the entire league. While I was celebrating an AFC West Division title last year, a large majority of Chiefs fans were talking about how lucky the team got and that the schedule was weak and basically making excuses for why their team won the division. Even in the best of years, Chiefs fans always find the bad.
The thing that has eaten at me the most about this week is the heat Cassel has taken. Keyshawn Johnson, as I mentioned, flat out said Cassel needed to go because he couldn’t play. I have heard a lot of criticism on Cassel for the throw at the end and it has turned into his career-defining moment, unfortunately, even if just for now. What I want to know is why is it so easy for everyone to forget that Cassel led two teams to the playoffs in his career. He won 10 games twice and let’s not forget his heroic game in St. Louis last year, leading a team days after an appendectomy. If it weren’t for Tom Brady’s and Michael Vick’s ridiculous numbers last year people would have said Cassel had an MVP-like season. He threw for over 3,000 yards and his touchdown-to-interception ratio was 27-7.
The Chiefs are at home Sunday and a defending division champion has never been a home underdog to a winless team at least three weeks into the season in NFL history – until now. The Minnesota Vikings, another one of those bottom feeder helmets in ESPN.com’s picture, are favored over the Chiefs. This is mostly because no one saw the positives last week. I see the Chiefs as a decent team that was handed three very bad injury breaks. Any team in that situation would endure some hardships. It’s taking a while to find new options, but the Chiefs are doing that. Like I said, there were signs last week. McCluster is coming into his own and Jones is stepping up. Bowe and Breaston are giving Cassel good options to throw to.
Ultimately, I see the Chiefs going 7-9 or 8-8 this year. That’s not good because you don’t make the playoffs and you get a mid-round draft pick, but all those fans expecting the Chiefs to give up and tank this season are going to be proven wrong. The Chiefs are better than Minnesota, so don’t be surprised if they are in the win column after Sunday.
