National Football League

Bye-bye bye, and hello San Diego, the Chiefs' personal house of horrors

Published Oct. 13, 2014 12:06 p.m. ET

foxsports

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Unlike, say, offsetting penalties, offsetting precedents are kind of interesting. Andy Reid has a 13-2 lifetime record coming off his last 15 bye weeks. The Kansas City Chiefs are 3-12 in their last 15 trips to San Diego.

So: Irresistible force? Or immovable object?

Week 7 won't necessarily swing a season (yet), but road division games are absolute gold, when you can figure out a way to steal one. Especially against the Chargers, the least despised -- Philip Rivers notwithstanding -- of the AFC West rivals by Chiefs fans, yet the one that has given the locals the most fits over the past decade. The men in red are 5-15 over their last 20 meetings with the Bolts and one for their last 10 in SoCal.

On the plus side, Reid said Monday morning that safety Eric Berry will give it a go at practice this week, even though linebacker Joe Mays, nickelback Chris Owens and wideout Donnie Avery probably won't. Which addresses some concerns on the local front. But not all of them ...

THREE LINGERING QUESTIONS COMING OFF THE CHIEFS' BYE

:03 ... Is the worst of it over, schedule-wise?

Yes. Well, sort of. Of the Andy Gang's first five opponents, four -- Denver, New England, Miami and San Francisco -- are considered good to excellent by Pro-Football-Reference.com's simple rating system, or SRS, which rates teams on a plus or minus scale relative to the league performance average.

Of the Chiefs' last 11 games, it's a bit of a schizophrenic menu: Five dates are against the SRS bottom 10 (two with Oakland, at Pittsburgh, home to the Jets, home to the Rams); another five are against the SRS top four (two with San Diego, home to Denver, home to Seattle, at Arizona). The Chiefs come out of the bye with a plus-7.7 SRS, despite only two wins -- and that's the fourth-highest rating in the AFC, behind the aforementioned Broncos (plus-15.5), Chargers (plus-14.0) and the Indianapolis Colts (plus-9.0). Pro-Football-Reference.com rates the Andy Gang's first five games as the fourth toughest in terms of strength of schedule in the AFC and No. 8 overall in the NFL.

TeamRankings.com features mapped-out computer projections for the remaining games on a club's schedule and sets "win odds" for each date. Of the upcoming 11 tilts, the site gives the Chiefs a better than 69 percent shot at winning four -- a pair against Oakland, home to the Jets and home to the Rams while rating a home date with the Chargers, a visit to Buffalo and a visit to Pittsburgh as toss-ups. The site offers up less than a 44 percent chance of a victory in four contests: at San Diego (31.6), home to Denver (36.65), at Arizona (37.0) and home to Seattle (40.2).

Then again, if the first third of the season taught us anything, it's to expect the unexpected -- the team that laid an egg Week 1 at home to Tennessee turned around three weeks later and rolled the Patriots at Arrowhead Stadium. A lot of pundits figured the Chiefs might be 2-3 at this point, but few had the Titans earmarked as one of the setbacks.

Flip through our photo album of NFL cheerleaders.

:02 ... DJ? Berry? Mike DeVito? Mays? Which defensive starter has this club missed most through the first six weeks?

According to ProFootballFocus.com, it's probably linebacker Derrick Johnson, given that the Pro Bowler was off to a plus-1.6 grade after just 32 snaps when his season came crashing to a halt.

DJ's replacement, James-Michael Johnson, has been serviceable (minus-0.5 overall), but the outside and inside linebacker combo of JMJ and Josh Mauga has occasionally been gashed against the run (combined run defense grade: minus-5.0), and neither has the DJ quickness and versatility that allows him to stay on the field -- sometimes as the only middle 'backer -- on passing downs. In fact, it wouldn't be a huge stretch to refer to safety Husain Abdullah (plus-4.4 PFF grade) and Owens (minus-2.4) as the Chiefs' best inside linebackers through the first six weeks of the schedule.

:01.1 ... Miss Brandon Flowers yet?

In 297 snaps while healthy, the former Chiefs corner has graded out by PFF at a plus-12.1 so far for the Bolts. Meanwhile, Reid's two top outside men, Sean Smith and Marcus Cooper, are a respective plus-5.1 and minus-9.5, respectively. Throw in Owens, and the average Chiefs grade at corner so far is minus-2.27.

So, yeah, more or less. But you sort of knew that might be the case when he was whacked, didn't you?

:01.2 ... Most important player the rest of the way?

Dwayne Bowe. Sounds nutty, we know, but the one contest without him -- the opener -- was the one that has been the most abject disaster offensively to date. With Bowe on one side of the field and tight end Travis Kelce on the other, Reid and Alex Smith have viable middle-to-deep threats that a secondary has to respect. Without them, the passing game as it's currently comprised is probably toast, and good luck really getting your money's worth out of Jamaal Charles without that.

That said, Charles needs the bleeping ball in his mitts. And so does Knile Davis.

:01.3 ... OK, then, genius. Is this a playoff team or not?

The projections still say probably not -- as of early Monday morning, TeamRankings.com pegged the Chiefs to finish 8-8, with 21 percent odds of grabbing the final postseason spot; FootballOutsiders.com's Oct. 7 projections also went with eight wins and a 17.2 percent shot.

So to paraphrase Lloyd Christmas in "Dumb and Dumber," yes, we're saying there's a chance. And stealing a victory in SoCal this weekend would probably improve those chances by a fairly healthy margin.

You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter at @SeanKeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.