KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- That wasn't a game. It was a 12-car pileup. It was smoking wreckage, as far the eye could see. It was a disaster flick, a monster movie.
Russell Wilson, Seattle's rookie quarterback, played the part of Godzilla. The Kansas City Chiefs played Tokyo.
"In football, you've got to come out ready to play," Chiefs linebacker Derrick Johnson said after a 44-14 home loss to the Seahawks -- Kansas City's worst preseason defeat since a 34-0 setback at Minnesota in 1998. "It's an Any-Given-Sunday type game. We're not going to panic, but we need some sense of urgency right now."
Especially on the defensive end. It was the franchise's second-worst exhibition loss ever at Arrowhead Stadium; the New York Giants handed the Chiefs a 45-7 thrashing in 1989, during Marty Schottenheimer's first season at the helm.
The first six times the Seahawks had the ball Friday, they scored. Last weekend, the first six times St. Louis had the ball verus the Chiefs, it amounted to four Rams scores.
Over its past two tilts, Kansas City has allowed 75 points, the most in club history over any two-game exhibition stretch since 1974, when the Chiefs gave up 93 -- 35 to Buffalo on August 12 and 58 to the then-Los Angeles Rams on August 17.
Those are the kind of numbers that can cause coaches to lose sleep. Also, a little sanity.
"You can try to find silver linings and I can mention some silver linings," Kansas City boss Romeo Crennel offered, "but that doesn't change the score and it doesn't change the way we played."
Running back Jamaal Charles (six carries, 32 yards) flashed a few nifty cuts, and Dexter McCluster continues to make linebackers look silly (seven catches, 61 yards) as a slot man. Undrafted rookie Nate Eachus made a case for a roster spot with 98 rushing yards off the bench, including a 7-yard score late in the fourth quarter.
And the rain held. There was that. But if you were a Chiefs fan, that's about as far as the upside went.
"We're going to go back to the drawing board and try to play better," Crennel continued. "That's what we can do and what we're trying to do."
They're trying to build this roster around the running game and the defense -- a sort of Great Plains version of the Baltimore Ravens. Trouble is, only the first part seems to be cooperating. The rest is a mirage. Even the special teams were dreadful Friday, allowing Seattle's Golden Tate to run a punt back 92 yards for a score.
Still, that wasn't the worst of it. With two starters out in the secondary -- Kendrick Lewis is nursing a shoulder injury and cornerback Brandon Flowers hasn't run with the big dogs since July 31 -- the Chiefs watched Wilson, who threw for 185 yards and ran for another 58, dice them like the second coming of Steve Young. Heck, maybe he is. It's kind of tough to tell with a Chiefs defense that spent the last Saturday night convincing Sam Bradford he was the next Troy Aikman.
"(Wilson) played tremendous, especially when things broke down and he took off running," Johnson said. "He threw a couple (of) good balls. We had a lot of penalties (Friday)... Seattle is a good team. And to get penalties like we did, it's hard to win. It's hard to be in the game."
And it's hard to get a grip on exactly where this bunch is with only one preseason game left on the docket. Folks are starting to whisper that Crennel, who calls the defensive plays, might be stretching himself too thin. Meanwhile, the body count keeps steadily rising. Flowers' replacement at one corner, Jalil Brown, was picked on repeatedly in the first half, often to alarming gains. Starting nose tackle Anthony Toribio left with an ankle problem in the first half; defensive end Glenn Dorsey appeared to twist his knee awkwardly in the second. Dontari Poe wants to log more time in the trenches, but not like this.
"It's always bad, but it's kind of a part of the game that we play," allowed Poe, the Chiefs' first-year nose tackle. "Hopefully, they're going to be all right. Hopefully, they can come back 100 percent, ready to go."
Hopefully. Crennel noted that the injuries were "nothing major," at least at first blush. The cuts to the ego, though, went deep. After Wilson's heroics had given the visitors a 23-7 halftime lead, Kansas City's players moped off the field to a chorus of boos.
"Whatever mindset we need to have going into the first game of the season," running back Peyton Hillis observed, "we need to get it, and get it fast."
They're running out of time. Time and excuses.
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter @seankeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com
